NEWT'S DiVISIVE DOG WHISTLE

Newt's Divisive Dog Whistle
Blog post by Kelvin Wade

Newt Gingrich has been putting on a dog whistling, race-baiting clinic. In television interviews and debates he has referred to President Obama as the "food stamp president." If Hillary Clinton were president right now, would he be calling her the "food stamp president?" I don’t think so. But I'm pretty sure he would've come up with some kind of sexist dog whistle.

Republicans have been using this particular dog whistle for a long while. Ronald Reagan, back in 1976, would talk about welfare queens driving their Cadillacs. He'd talk about a “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store. The intent is to portray mostly black and brown-skinned people being given hardworking white people's money to live high on the hog. This rhetoric gets white voters good and angry and eager to vote.

Facts don't seem to matter. It doesn't matter that the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) was expanded by the Bush Administration, which increased its rolls by 63%. By the time he left office, Bush had more Americans on food stamps than any president before him yet Gingrich wasn't calling him a "food stamp president."

It is true that the SNAP program has seen broad increases under the Obama Administration to cope with the Great Recession. What is Gingrich's point? That we should have more people hungry in America?

Gingrich told an all white audience in New Hampshire that he'd go before the NAACP and "…talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps."

There are more whites on food stamps than blacks. So why wouldn't he tell the audience he was speaking to that they should demand paychecks rather than be satisfied with food stamps? And if he were just trying to reach out to blacks, why say this to a white audience? You know why.

On King Day, this past Monday, at a debate in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich said, "More people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in history" and this garnered applause and cheers. Why cheers?

Welfare queen in her Cadillac. Strapping young buck buying a T-bone steak. This is race-baiting politics. Translation: President Obama has taken your money and given it to them. This same animus fueled the hostile reaction to health reform.

Rick Santorum, in a Freudian slip, came out and said it in Iowa when he told an all white crowd, "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."

Of course there are those who deny dog whistling exists. They hear nothing wrong in the tone of the Republican message or can't see any race baiting between the lines. For those people, I'll give you one last example of how dog whistling works.

Surprisingly, I'll give Newt credit for fidelity to his message. He has repeated the "food stamp president" line again and again. It's hard to believe Newt has been so faithful to this message.

But earlier Newt vowed to run a positive campaign. In debate after debate, Newt lobbied for the candidates to take the high road. But in a move that shocked no one, he broke that vow after his poor showing in Iowa. Now in South Carolina we're seeing the clandestine side of Newt Gingrich. While he and his super pac are not allowed to commingle, they're both pumping negative ads onto the airwaves. They'll keep doing it and doing it until all their money is spent. Pac money is like a cancer in the electoral process but Newt doesn't care. Newt is cheating voters out of that uplifting campaign he promised.

After having lost Iowa and New Hampshire, Newt's cocksure that the third time is the charm in South Carolina.

Get it?