The GOP End Game: Misogyny, Racism, or Both?

Andy Borowitz, who has been able to make me laugh in an increasingly acrimonious campaign season that I am experiencing solely through non-TV media, posed this question in his New Yorker blog on Friday. The answer appears to be both.  Friday Sununu voiced the Romney campaigns assessment that Colin Powell did not endorse Obama because of the reasons stated--which included that he thought Romney was weak on foreign policy, and the the GOP's failure to address global climate change was one of the biggest threat to U.S. security that we face--but rather because he's black.  He and Obama share a race.  That's got to be it.  There were even calls for Powell to 'leave the party'--well, it is not clear to me in what capacity he is 'in the party', but once again, it is the GOP stance that having your own opinion is definitely not allowed.  I suspect Senator Murkowski has taken heat for her statement--doesn't stay on message.

On the other hand, Indiana Senatorial candidate Richard Mourdock's assertion that a women who is raped should not only be required to carry a pregnancy from that conception to term under penalty of criminal prosecution if she were to choose to do otherwise, but also that she should look at the situation as a gift from God.  Thank you Lord, for having me conceive a child by a violent man who hates women enough to force sexual violence upon them, and and allowing him to propagate his genes into the world.  I realize that it is consistent with the ideology that life begins at conception.  That part I get.  It is the part where you take your belief, which is devoid of scientific meaning, and make it the law of the land that I object to.  Oh, and that you want the woman that you have given no choice but to become a mother to bow down and thank God for this gift.  That part I object to also. 

I am so angry about the assault on women--a sex that I am one of.  The only upside is that I now understand that my anger about racism is not nearly what it could be if I were of another race.  That while I support civil rights for all, I do not truly understand the experience of that attack on my life, on a daily basis.  In a recent argument with my spouse, it became clear that he thinks he gets it, but he does not.  That personalization of the attack is something that you really have to walk in those shoes to understand.  I am also quite shaken by this--I have never heard so many politicians speak so openly about their right to control the lives of women.  I understand that they have these beliefs, that they have had them all along--but the current climate makes it seem acceptable to say them out loud, to publicly defend them.  That is the part that I find frightening.  I do not share values with the GOP, or anyone who votes for them, it turns out.  Republicans, do not darken my door.  There is just too much that matters to me that you are publicly trampling.