As Rachel noted last night, the Conservative Political Action Conference will get underway in Washington today, and will feature a cavalcade of Republican leaders and prominent far-right voices. It is no exaggeration to say this is the largest and most important conservative gathering of the year.
Indeed, it's such an annual draw that every member of the Republican congressional leadership and each of the leading GOP presidential candidates -- Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich -- will be on hand to shamelessly pander to the right-wing audience.
But they're not the only ones who'll be part of CPAC 2012. Tricia flagged this report from Right Wing Watch:
Following speeches from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Michele Bachmann, CPAC is hosting the panel "The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity" with Peter Brimelow, the founder and head of VDARE.com.
VDARE is a White Nationalist website, run by Brimelow, which frequently publishes the works of anti-Semitic and racist writers and is named after Virginia Dare, who is believed to be the first child of English parents born in the Americas. Brimelow, an immigrant from Great Britain, expresses his fear of the loss of America's white majority, blames non-white immigrants for social and economic problems and urges the Republican Party to give up on minority voters and focus on winning the white vote. He also said that a New York City subway is the same as an Immigration and Naturalization Service waiting room, "an underworld that is not just teeming but also almost entirely colored."
When BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray asked CPAC organizers if they would renounce Brimelow's participation at the conference, they chose not to.
It's worth noting that this represents a disconcerting regression on CPAC's part. Last year, many conference participants made clear that they wanted white nationalists to have no role at the annual event. This year, that's apparently no longer the case.
Also note, radical conspiracy theorist Joseph Farah has been boycotting CPAC in recent years because organizers did not want him to host a panel questioning President Obama's citizenship. This year, Farah has been "welcomed back with open arms."
GOProud, a gay conservative group, meanwhile, has been rejected as a CPAC sponsor. Brimelow and Farah are welcome to be part of the conference, but gays must be kept at arm's length.
Perhaps someone could ask Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, and the entire congressional Republican leadership how comfortable they are with attending a conference with white nationalists and radical conspiracy theorists. If the situation were reversed, and Democratic candidates were part of an event with far-left extremists, it seems likely the questions would come up.
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The Big Tent is getting colder.
And smaller. And whiter. Way, way whiter.
As a point of information, in Canada, CPAC is the Canadian Public Affairs Channel, the Canadian equivalent to CSpan in the US.
Oh, gays will be there. They'll just be participating from the closet. I wish them well.
Probably on one of the aforementioned panels.
None so blind as those who will not see...every time I mention this phenomenon; I get called the racist!
Wow, not even bothering to disguise the racism anymore.
To save time and print costs, the next convention, they will all simply speak about the danger of "The Other."
Subtitle: "How do we keep "Them" from ruining America."
and so it goes as the settlers circle the wagons as the savages rage around them. The Faux bubble where reality dare not speak it's name .
There was a movement in the 19th C. to send the Negroes "back where they came from".
Perhaps it is time for a Native American push to send Whitey "back where he came from." Starting with the Brits. . .
So, they didn't invite Pat Buchanan to speak?
No, but they chose someone who hosted a conference with Bay Buchanan at last year's CPAC, the founder of Youth for Western Civilization. And they make even VDARE sound only 'somewhat disgusting' in comparison. Who are YWC? (Note: "Monday is January 8th of this year.)
And somehow I picture a giant room, filled wit Black and anti-racist Republicans, from Thaddeus Stevens, through Wiliam Dawson -- the first Northern Black Congressman -- through Jackie Robinson, Ev Dirksen, Hugh Scott, to Ed Brooke and even the members of the Reagan Administration who knew James Watt needed to be fired for a joke, ending up with a shot of Colim Pwell, Condi Rice, and efen Michael Steele. And everyone has their face buried in their hands, and in the background, PINK FLOYD's "Sisyphus" is playing along with their sobbing.
GOProud was booted this year to get the Family Research Council to come back.
I think the establishment has finally given up on their idea of making the tent larger.
So, will there be a platform plank on eliminating 'sub-humans' from America?
Sometimes you have to turn out the lights and wait a bit, then the roaches show up to be more easily seen when the lights come on.
Makes sense to me. Usually, CPAC hosts panels on how to increase diversity in voting. It never works. Because they're racists. So just own it, and turn it around - welcoming diversity is DANGEROUS! I'm sure it will be well-attended.
I think these groups should not be called "far right" but in this day "far wrong"!
One good thing: all the sociopaths will be off the streets
for a few days.
LOL, good one molly.
Thank you Mr. Benen for the report on typical Republican outreach!
Perhaps these CPAC people are boycotting the First Lady's program to fight obesity because they truly believe if they eat to get fatter, their vote will be larger than those skinny-arssed NYC subway riders! -Kevo
VDARE?! Seriously?! Are we sure this group isn't some kind of Colbertesque parody? Because if I was making up a satirical sham far-right outfit, the *first* thing I would do is give it a name that sounds like "Vader."
This is how the GOP commits political suicide.
Yes. This is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
GOP = Racism? Mmmm, wasn't it the GOP that tried to stop LBJ and his civil rights agenda in the 60's? Didn't much of the country turn from blue to red after LBJ? I wonder, who is playing the race card now?
No, that was mostly the Yellow Dog Democrats [1], or "Dixiecrats." They didn't have the votes to stop civil rights legislation but they did have enough to filibuster them to death in the Senate. For those who don't know, up until Nixon the South was pretty much a one-party Democratic stronghold thanks to (I kid you not) a century-long grudge against the "Party of Lincoln."
When Johnson, in one of the great and IMHO underappreciated feats of legislative mastery in American history, managed to get the key civil rights legislation through the Senate he did it with a lot of Republican cooperation and against a core Democratic bloc's opposition.
And the deep South never forgave him. The Dixiecrats left en mass for the Republican party and formed the basis for the modern Republican Party (racist, theocratic, etc.) as we know it today.
[1] So-called because they declared that before they voted for a Republican they'd vote for a yellow dog first.
Very accurate and needed reminder, but one small correction. Afaik -- and the blogger who calls himself "Yellow Dog" at Blue in the Bluegrass and who is anything but a racist would agree -- yellow dogs and Dixiecrats weren't the same. To quote him:
In that sense, I'll gladly call myself one.
A slightly more expanded view of the history might be useful as well. The party-switching is usually taken to have begun with the Civil Rights Act -- and with Goldwater's having refused to vote for it (wrongly, but on authentically Constitutional grounds), and certinly it became much larger. But the first move in the stampede had already been made by Strom Thurmond. And I think the first link-up between the Northern Right Wing and the Solid South came during the McCarthy period, when they found a common interest in Cold War extremist anti-Communism, and the Souterners found out these Republicans weren't all that concerned about civil rights for anybody.
(Oh, and BitB is one of a dozen first-rate blogs focusing on local and state matters that, imho, are much more worth your time than are the 'big name blimp riders.' (Steve is different, he's a true journalist whose 'beat' happens to be 'the blimp' -- and for those of you who missed the reference, I call the pundits -- both blog and mainstream -- blimp riders because they act like sportscasters broadcasting a whole season from the Goodyear blimp.) I'll be mentioning them, DESERT BEACON -- who is the nearest thing to Hilzoy's successor in the 'sphere, except her specialty is economics -- and BLOG FOR ARIZONA especially.)
Thanks, JB -- good stuff. Especially since I'm in Arizona.
Well, it seems that the GOP has finally Gone Off the Planet. Amazing that when a campaign gets tough, the GOP pulls off the disguises that they wear and their true "colors" come shining through: pandering to the homophobes, racists, religious right extremists, etc. And some of my middle-class brethen think that the GOP has their best interests at heart?
Popcorn!
So it's not quite "moment of geek" time but this so reminds me of the physics of bullwhips and thunderheads.
A bullwhip starts out with a given amount of energy, and as more of the whip gets left behind the energy is concentrated in smaller and smaller masses which therefore accelerate to greater and greater velocities. Eventually the tip of the whip exceeds Mach one: the crack of the whip is a sonic boom.
A thunderhead starts with a mass of warm moist air rising. As it rises, it cools but as it cools some of the moisture condenses, which warms the rising air. The extra warmth makes the air rise even faster, etc. until the top of the column of air is rising at remarkable velocities. Higher, the liquid water freezes and releases still more heat to seed the column along. Eventually all of the water is frozen and it tops out above the ceiling of many jet aircraft. Of course, without the rising air the ice comes back down. The results can be pretty impressive.
I'm watching with a kind of grim fascination as the Republican Party come to the end of its whip, or ceiling, or whatever. I keep wondering whether the process will end with a boom or a whisper.
I wonder if Herman Cain and Allen West were invited.
You can count on it. Cain and West are the GOP's "human shield" against the racist foundations of the party.
If so, then they'll have to sit in the back of the big tent.
I can't believe people take the GOP seriously. Then again, I am pretty much everything their base isn't. Too bad the base doesn't realize they're shooting themselves in the foot by voting for these morons.
This story should be the number one news story on all network and cable broadcasts. But alas, the right has beaten the traditional media into such submission that they're even afraid to report on admittedly racist activities, lest somebody call them "liberal."
ah, the continuing ascendency of cpac which has become the alter ego of the g.o.p. i rather suspect that if these birds don't actually write the upcoming republican platform, they will most certainly have veto power over every jot and tittle in it. from damning environmentalism as a democrat religion to a call for a return to the gold standard, it ought to be a lu-lu of a suicide pact. can't wait. its almost like waiting for the next installment of jurassic park.
From my perspective as a liberal white person, I see that the GOP has replaced their tent with a white hood and robe. Will David Duke be invited to the CPAC gathering next year?
This stuff should have long ceased to amaze me but yet it doesn't. This should be a top story on all the news networks(other then fox news)
Actually, coverage of this is unnecessary as far as I'm concerned. I get enough of the Republican/Conservative agenda just watching the news about the election and Congress. What more can they really say?