The recent racist comments of John Sununu aren’t so much shocking as is the fact that he is a co-chair of the Romney campaign.
Every campaign, every campaign season, candidates says this is “the most important election in which you’ll vote in your life time.” Sometimes we believe them and sometimes we are onto their hyperbole. But, for four years, I’ve tried to reason with my own sense of patriotism…that although racism (and sexism and all kinds of isms) exist in pockets scattered throughout our country, surely, certainly, the country as a whole speaks out against these sorts of things.
But, what began with Sarah Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” jabs, eventually erupted into the President’s first night in office when republicans gathered to hatch a plan to do anything they could to make him a one term president, even if it meant harming the least among us.
Do you remember…when Sandra Fluke was called a slut from a right wing nutcase and the republican nominee stood silent? When 80,000 tea partiers arrived in my city (the nation’s capital, no less) for a Glenn Beck rally, many carrying signs with Obama’s face taped onto a monkey’s body and the right wing establishment stood silent? When women were finally on the edge of getting a law to ensure equal pay for equal work and the republican presidential candidate couldn’t make up his mind (and still hasn’t) whether he supports it? When a bloated blowhard continues to broadcast lies about a sitting president’s birthright and the republican nominee not only doesn’t condemn him (as John McCain certainly did in 2008), but worse yet, engages in the fun by making his own joke about the same? When the republican nominee makes a commercial in support of another candidate, a man who believes that God intended for a woman to be held down, against her will, forced into a rape, fearing for her life? When the presidential nominee not only doesn’t condemn those words, but doubles down in his support of the candidate? Not an extensive list of grievances, by any means, though they do continue to take my breath away.
And let’s not forget this gem: when the republican nominee’s campaign co-chair suggest that an American hero, a man who gave his life to the service of this country, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State who happens to have made the egregious sin of speaking his own mind instead of his party’s line, when the republican presidential nominee’s campaign co-chair suggests that his endorsement of our current president for a second term is simply because they are both black, and the republican nominee himself stands silent? Well, then. It just makes me sad.
We can argue (and I’m happy to) whether a stimulus package was the way to go or even whether universal healthcare is the demise of our country. We can argue about whether trade sanctions should be invoked more strenuously against foreign countries. We can argue about tax breaks for the rich and whether they actually do trickle down. We can argue about all of that.
But, how can one soul who calls themselves an American, a patriot, stand for the racism, sexism, and disgusting behavior that is at the forefront of the republican party today? How can anyone, in good conscience, of good moral stock, vote for anyone who would stand silent in the face of what is being said about a sitting American president, the African American electorate, or 47% of the nation, some of whom, indeed rely on government to exist? I just don’t understand, at the end of the day, how any American that I know and respect (personally) would vote for Mitt Romney under the guise of “he’s a great businessman,” but put aside all of their principles, ethics, and thoughtfulness. To put their pocketbook before their knowledge of doing the right thing. I have many republican friends who would stop heaven and earth if they knew someone was hurting or in need, or being denigrated, ridiculed or discriminated against, and yet, they turn their head or rationalize away their vote. But when it comes to blind patriotism that supports someone who doesn’t have the backbone or the integrity to stand up against this sort of blatant racism, then I question where, exactly, we are as a nation.
I believe this election is not nearly as close as the pundits would have me believe, that Barack Obama will win by more than is being reported. Either way, I will wake up on November 7 with a heavy heart for my country and how immune (or perhaps stubborn) we have become to doing the right thing by standing up and speaking out with our vote, if nothing else.
Christine Anne Scott 