I don’t want to focus too much on Ron Christie’s column in The Daily Beast, but he is one of the more prominent black Republican pundits, and he can be reasonable-sounding much of the time. I don’t have a problem with him calling on the Democrats to have more civility, but he can’t be taken seriously when he repeatedly refers to the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Party.” This is something Republicans do for no other reason than to be irritating. It isn’t civil. It also shows whom he thinks his audience is, and it isn’t the Democrats.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Christie is a slave catching sambo of the highest order. He’s been bootlicking for a long time. As a Black person, I don’t remotely take his ass seriously. He is shown the contempt that he deserves.
I am not a black person, but I fail to understand how any person of color , even if he or she believes that Republican-espoused policies are the wisest ones, can affiliate with a party that uses so many dog whistles (many of which are in pretty low registers) to appeal to frank racists. As a woman, even if I believed that I didn’t need reproductive choice or equal pay, I’d have a problem with the GOP over their members’ many “mistatements” about rape.
Mr. Christie, there’s “not seeing race” ala Stephen Colbert, and there’s not seeing the forest for the trees.
Token shillery in the Republican party is rewarded handsomely.
Also shows that he’s an opportunist doing it for the job and not a thoughtful philosophical conservative. It is the cheapest of cheap shots that Republicans make.
“Republican pundits”…”reasonable-sounding”
Where is this place you speak of?
Not in this country.
Another Obamacare fail flail without acknowledging the trillions spent on war and useless spying, I lost interest after the headline.
I do. It’s just more of that “why don’t you just be still so we can punch you” crap that the GOP is known for – especially when they know they’re losing on any issue. Tailor-made for the NPR/third way/”even the liberal” crowd, and not worth a damn.
Also, rikyrah’s right – in a just world, no one would pay any attention to Christie’s overseer-acting ass.
Does anyone else find it odd that all of the sudden, there seems to be this concerted (coordinated???) effort by conservatives, and their mouthpieces in the media, to try and turn the conversation around racism on its head? And, in addition, to try and turn it back on Democrats in such a way as to entice Democrats into fighting straw man arguments that serve only to give the appearance that they are on the defensive when it comes to the issue of race? And then we have people like Chait, as one who conservatives certainly would like to tout as a resident of the “liberal camp”, stoking this whole narrative with his very misguided column attempting to address an issue which conservatives would love lure Democrats into discussing. In addition, Fox has suddenly found it very important to initiate a “robust discussion” on race.
There is little doubt that conservatives feel an urgent need to get this whole race this somehow moved onto turf which makes them more comfortable, and one in which they can control the narrative.
The GOP/conservative PR leadership is extremely organized and there is a weekday meeting in DC to pick themes each week and send out the talking points. That is followed up daily with the talking points going to each conservative radio host and someone else asking their “scholars” at the conservative think tanks to contribute op-eds.
Grover Norquist chairs the Washington, DC – based “Wednesday Meeting,” a weekly gathering of more than 150 elected officials, political activists, and movement leaders. The meeting started in 1993 and takes place in ATR’s conference room. There are now 60 similar “center-right” meetings in 48 states.
Americans for Tax Reform – http://www.atr.org/about-grover
Yes, I’ve noticed that too. And not just about race, because if you look at things like the Hobby Lobby suit or the uproar over Brendan Eich, they seem to be trying to start up a whole Bigots’ Rights movement.
I’m not too concerned about it, though. Underneath all the rhetoric it’s really nothing more or less than a defense of naked bigotry, so all we have to do is not fall for it.
I’m stealing Bigots’ Rights.
I’m honored.
Christie’s column starts right off with a despicable lie. The 2009 stimulus DID save or create millions of jobs. If Christie doesn’t know this, he’s worthless; if he does know this and is using the talking points twofer he employs in that first paragraph just ’cause, then he’s despicable. That stimulus, which many economists said needed to be bigger, was one of the things that helped stave off a catastrophic failure of the economy. Unlike the 1929-1932 period, we had the right leaders in the Federal government to stave off a Great Depression.
So…..the hell with Ron Christie. Reasonable conservative commentator? None deserve the label these days, it seems.
I have never found Christie to be even remotely reasonable. He’s such a partisan idealogue thathe can’t even refrain from using the shitty Gingrichian Democrat Party slur while beating his chest and lamenting about a lack of civility.
The talk radio blabbers in Christie’s party have been on high race bait dudgeon for years. Hell ABC just signed the supposedly reasonable Laura Ingraham to be a panelist, the same Ingraham who ended a clip of Congressman John Lewis with the sound of a gunshot.(Lewis is the only surviving speaker from MLK’s March on Washington, a civil rights icon who was bashed by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge).
Christies’ Party pals get to rant about Mexicans with cantaloupe calves, dirty diseased riddled immigrants, young bucks eating lobster and on and on and yet whenever that language gets challenged it is alleged that the people objecting to such language are the real race baiters.
Screw Christie, he’s such and odious man and every time I see him and hear him he infuriates me with his canned party line hackery.
Yeah where the hell did this “he’s a civil conservative” meme come from? I first saw this asshole on Bill Maher I believe. Everything that came out of his mouth was a lie. He reminds me of John Fund. Avik Roy is the closest you’ll get to a “reasonable” conservative and wry word he writes is a half truth or obfuscation.
I also don’t find Ron Christie to be particularly intelligent. Dude is dumb as a sack of rocks. If I were to look for his equivalent to te a Democratic side the best I got is Lannie Davis, but let’s be honest: if he was offered enough money he’d say anything.
John Chancellor of NBC News:
I think we’re hard-wired to respond to this badly, because we feel ownership of our names. Saying “Democrat Party” is a way of doing this with our group name. As such, yes, it’s rude and obnoxious.
The Beast should have published the piece with “Democratic Party” or, if Christie objected, shouldn’t have told him he could publish it himself somewhere else, just the way he wanted it, if he insisted on being boorish and infantile.
Or “Democrat [sic] Party”, “[sic]” being editorial shorthand for “The speaker/writer is a moron.”
This.
When I’m a pseudo-conservative troll on other websites, I say DemocratTM.
If I’m quoting a dumbfuck conservative, I write Democrat (sic) just to reinforce the notion that the author is a fucking dimwit.
No one takes Ron Christie seriously. Not even Ron Christie.
I think you may be right and/or he really isn’t very bright as someone upthread opined.
Personally, though, I cannot stand it when someone says “the Democrat party”. It just drives me bananas. I go back a few decades when no one ever did that. Had an LTE published a couple of months ago in the local paper chastizing a reporter for using “the Democrat party” in an article occupying prime real estate in the paper.
To a lesser degree, I am also annoyed when writers and speakers refer to “THE DEMOCRATS” instead of to Democrats. Insertion of the article “the” is also deployed to annoy.
My wife goes nuclear when someone pronounces nuclear “nuck-u-lear” but I have trouble distinguishing the wrong and right ways of pronouncing the word. So I don’t care.
This argument over Democrat / Democratic seems much the same thing. Members of the Republican party are called Republicans. Members of the Democratic party are called Democrats, dropping “ic” from the name. If Joe Blow is a Democrat doesn’t that mean he belongs to the Democrat party? So I think people howling about the snubbing Republican politicians give Dems for referring to their party as the Democrat party are making a mountain out of a molehill.
If it doesn’t make sense to say John Boehner is a member of the Republic party, than it doesn’t make sense to say Elizabeth Warren is a member of the Democrat party.
The reason dumbfuckery needs to be pointed at and ridiculed EACH AND EVERY TIME IT ERUPTS is because bastardizing words is just one more step to confusing people and demonizing people.
If I intentionally mispelled your wife’s name and said it incorrectly on purpose, it wouldn’t bother you at all, right? Bullshit, it’s a clear sign of disrespect.
Go read Orwell.
The thing about it, Bib, is that it’s actually quite a subtle jab for the modern GOP.
You see, Bib, when they say “the Democrat party” it’s code for “the party that isn’t democratic.”
Are people making a mountain out of a molehill about this, Bib? Perhaps they are, Bib, perhaps they are.
But you have to admit, Bib, when someone writes a column calling for a party to be more civil, civility should dictate that you at least bother to get their name right.
What’s that? I spelled your name wrong this entire post? Oh, don’t be such a big baby, Bib. It’s just an internet handle.