Ben Carson: a Whimpering Apology for Republican Racism

by Dan Sullivan

The sorry souls whose autos sport bumper stickers
and who man the tables for Ben Carson are confessing. They sense the terrible sin
of the right these past seven years. Instead of debating issues on merit, their
strategists encouraged dog whistle attacks against President Obama to leverage their
base’s bigotry.

At the Ben Carson canopy during this year’s Shad Planking and the booth at the
Virginia State Fair, fair-skinned apologists sat righteously demonstrating
their support for an African American other than Obama. They are secretly ashamed of their complicity and Ben Carson is a useful astringent to cleanse that shame. “Supporters” fancy
they enjoy a shield against charges of racism when they “blame Obama” through
the safe, symbolic support of another fellow who never had a snowball’s chance
in hell of garnering the Republican nomination. He might have been the racial
version of the gender balance tokenism attempted by shoving Sara Palin onto a
ticket. But trust me, the Republican Party will never stand for a Cuban and an
African-American paired together, so the chances grow slimmer by the day. Imagine the rest of us sweating in prayer for four years, concerned about the
Secret Service keeping Ted Cruz safe.

There is more than that that makes Carson palatable to these
moral cowards. His uninformed and childlike world view fits like a cheap suit;
simple mantras dismiss complex, perplexing problems.

“I’m not a Democrat, I’m not a Republican,
I’m an independent. If there was a party called the logic party I would be a
member of that.” – Ben Carson

This is from a fellow who, much like Virginia’s own George
Allen, apparently prefers “writing books” to reading them. Plus there’s something
that will appeal to evangelicals who are threatened by scientific rigor:

Asked what books or philosophers outside the
Bible have influenced his worldview, he said, “I don’t know that I would give a
lot of credence, honestly, to anything outside of the Bible because I find
myself in disagreement with just about everything at one level or another.” – The
Daily Caller

Where logic would be an overwhelming obstruction, we have
the convenience of discarding it for a higher source; one’s own preference. Allowing oneself to pick and choose one’s
facts based upon predisposition makes justifying positions so much easier. That
way there is no argument against beliefs that, say, the pyramids were used to
store grain or that men roamed the earth with dinosaurs. And this bolsters the arguments
of hopeful apologists who use the very same decision-making process, confusing
making preferential choices with employing logic.

Carson is absolutely tailor made. Supporters can have their
cake and eat it too. They can distance themselves from those who have worn
their racism on their sleeves for seven years by openly embracing an African
American who is just as wrong about almost everything as they are. They can proudly
proclaim their egalitarianism without saying a word that might reveal their true
nature. They get to keep both their racist miens and their uninformed political
positions while never realizing their very support of Carson is revealing.

Plus, they can still vote for Ted Cruz in the primary without
any fear that their shame and hypocrisy will ever be exposed. Unless, of
course, no one else in their precinct votes for Carson. But then they will
blame the voting machines. Nothing is ever their fault.

So go ahead and display those Carson stickers on your vans and
hand out campaign materials throughout his primary beat down. A lot of us want to know
who you are and this is the best way to inform us. Unfortunately your
brethren in the Tea Party aren’t always as transparent. Thank goodness for those
Tea Party and Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates.