re: #230 darthstar

Americans, by and large, don’t like being associated with racism. The tight-rope a lot of GOP candidates are walking right now (especially those with tight primary races against teabaggers still on the block) has got to be tough. The longer they refuse to come out strongly against this crap, the worse their chances get in the general, and they know it. But they need that core group to get through their primaries, and can’t attack them until they’ve secured their votes.

I think there are a lot of hypocrites on this point. There are a lot of people that, in public and on the record, will say the right thing about racism. But it is my sad experience that many of those same people will tell the racist joke if they think the coast is clear.

I suspect (in the absence of reliable data, I freely admit) that many of the tea party people are like that. Most will never say the offensive thing in public, but behind closed doors I suspect the conversation is quite different. But the overt racists with the hateful signs are relatively rare.

I would very much like to be wrong about this, but I don’t think that we as a society have really progressed THAT much.