The mini-firestorm that continues to rage over a candidate for the RNC chairmanship mailing Republican leaders a CD with a song satire parody titled “Barack The Magic Negro” that was originally played and defended by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh raises a fundamental question:
As it recovers from its Election 2008 drubbing and the Republican Party moves further into the 21st century, can the GOP move beyond the baby-boom-Nixon-era derived talk radio culture of political polarization — and put the Rush Limbaughization of its tone and some of its political discourse content behind it?
Actually, there are several issues at play in this controversy.
One: didn’t the election signal that it was time for thoughtful Republicans to insist upon a different approach to politics, one that at least inched back towards the idea that political parties need to build diverse coalitions to grow and consolidate if they want even incremental growth? Two: if you strip away people defending Paul Shanklin’s song parody (with the argument Limbaugh and his defenders use that oh, that song was only reacting to a column written by a black man that used the phrase — the Republican equivalent of “it all depends on what is is”) it’s clear that the intent was to point to and poke fun at aspects of Barack Obama’s race, raising it as a lighthearted issue. Just as another CD song poked fun at Hispanics. The intent wasn’t to welcome them into the GOP umbrella, but to say “see how different these people are from us and aren’t they FUNNY?”
Divide and rule hasn’t been unknown during since the baby boomers proved themselves to be The Un-Greatest Generation by perpetuating the Vietnam-era-derived polarization resentments that still fester nearly a half-century later (footnote: I myself AM a baby boomer).
The fact that an RNC election has now been marked by people defending and debating how unPC humor not laughed at by those who find it offensive means, why, it’s all a plot by that awful mainstream media and those (always) evil Democrats who just love to beat up on innocent Republicans is astounding given the fact the GOP has now shown it has some work to do on demographics — if it wishes to remain a party not cemented to 20th century-derived battles and attitudes.
Just look at these demographics of Obama’s win and it’s clear: the GOP needs to win friends, not continue to marginalize those who some GOPers insinuate aren’t “like us” and continue to alienate them. Along the way it’ll be alienating many younger voters and independent voters who aren’t amused by people who seemingly have contempt for people who either don’t have the same political letter as they do in front of their party affiliation, or don’t look or talk exactly the same way as they do.
But wasn’t this just satire? The problem with talk radio satire is that it’s all aimed at one side. It can’t be confused with Saturday Night Live. Still, talk radio satire has its place. It may spark controversy on talk radio, but that is where it belongs.
And can’t the talk radio show formula be a good way for a party to rally the faithful? Conceptually, yes — if this is segmented from how the party operates and articulates its message. In this case, RNC chairman candidate Chip Saltsman felt it would be well received if he sent these Limbaugh-played parodies. The problem for Saltsman: if he is the RNC chair (which now seems as likely as Rod Blagojevich being appointed to Obama’s cabinet as Attorney General) he will become the FACE of the party — and his face will look to many who might be skeptical of the Republicans as the face of Limbaugh. NOTE TO SALTSMAN: Those who love Limbaugh love and adore him. Those who dislike him REALLY dislike and abhor him.
Is Limbaugh a bad man?
Actually, he is an enormous broadcast talent who knows how to pace a show, how to seek and attract an audience, how to get them to come back for more, and how to make them act on political issues once his show is over. You can tell Liimbaugh so good by the fact that there are so many poor conservative talk show host Limbaugh impersonators who try to have the snark and snarl (“libbberals…”) but just come across as partisan hacks who could not make it in another radio format where they didn’t have to whip up listeners. Limbaugh knows broadcasting.
(A personal note. Polarizing talk show hosts who seek to create controversy where they can are on the left as well. Several years ago I was invited on an Air America station local talk show whose host and his associate got me on the air ostensibly to talk issues and about TMV, but turned the few minutes into suggesting that I was a secret, closet conservative Republican. They asked me about being moderate then talked over me mockingly and loudly each time I began to answer by saying “A moderate cup of coffee…a moderate case of cancer” — and finally cut me off. )
But a talk show and a political party is not the same thing and broadcasters and a political party couldn’t reach their larger goals if they used the same tactics.
Limbaugh has to be outrageous, blunt, and controversial to get and maintain an audience. He needs to get an audience by targeting a key demographic — or several — and then doing what he can to get them to listen in, visit repeatedly, then show those numbers to advertisers and station managers.
A political party — even one that seems to mobilize its base — can’t count on winning elections if it only attracts the we-agree-with-you-ditto crowd but and gives the back of its hand to others who might be open to its arguments if they weren’t insulted or ignored.
Talk show hosts don’t do as well if they’re not sharply defined in their rhetoric (note the talk show hosts who went up against Limbaugh in other markets over the years who flopped…)
At a time when a poll shows Obama (for now at least) the most admired man in the world among Americans, Saltsman thought it was a great idea to send GOPers a CD with the controversial song parodies.
What did that mean? He assumed there were shared assumptions among Republicans. All Republicans would roll in the aisles if they got a CD with the Magic Negro song and others songs about liberals, Hispanics, etc. The song topics focused on those assumed to be the political enemy or worthy of light or more heavy handed derision.
But, as it turned out, not all Republicans agreed. In fact, the song shows that there’s a split among RNC candidates on whether the song was an appalling thing to distribute or just humor that offended people who can’t take a joke.
In reality, though, this split underscored a bigger division:
The division between those who want to continue to keep the Republican party enmeshed in the country’s baby-boomer rooted confrontational talk radio culture, or move it beyond the days when those who backed the anti-war movement and the hippies confronted those who believed in the Vietnam War and abhorred the era of sex, drugs and rock and roll that caused Frank Sinatra’s and Rosemary Clooney’s record sales to decline. (See Andrew Sullivan here and the book Nixonland.)
So perhaps a new lyric should be added to the offending song in a new song parody:
Oh, Chris the foot and mouth guy
Just couldn’t see
He got his stance from Rush Limbaugh and from Sean Hannity
Ran for RNC chair, he tried to set the pace
He sent Repubs an email song that mocked Obama’s race…
UPDATES:
From the LA Times’ Opinion L.A. blog:
But Saltsman still deserves to be raked over the coals. Not for anything to do with Obama, per se, but for campaigning with cultural references that are decades out of date.
“Puff the Magic Dragon?” You’ve got to be kidding. Was he on another planet Nov. 4? Did he miss how Republicans lost 66% of the vote of people age 30 and under? Thirty-year-olds weren’t even born when Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit came out in 1963. Sure Limbaugh used the parody and his crowd loved it, but the average Limbaugh listener is 51. Then there’s the parody itself and the faux Sharpton. Sure the Rev. deserves the disdain and disapprobation he earned for his outrageous behavior during the Tawana Brawley hoax case, but that happened in 1987. The World Wide Web wasn’t even invented then, which means young people have never heard of it. To them, Sharpton is just that black guy from New York with the funny hair.
It’s a given that Republicans are done trying to appeal to black voters, but are they really ready to give up everyone else who isn’t white? Because if not, here’s the thing: it’s not much of a stretch for Latinos and Asians — who also voted overwhelmingly for Obama — to imagine how a president-elect of their ethnicity also could be the target of such lighthearted Republican fun. “Mike the Magic Jap” and “Maria the Magic Mexican” probably wouldn’t go over that well either.
And Democratic blogger Hart Williams has his own assertive take which also includes links to some who don’t agree with him….
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.