Tea Party Support for Gingrich Risks Racism Charge

Conservatives who back Gingrich may reignite accusations of racism against Tea Parties.

 

“It’s not the color of his skin; it’s the socialism, stupid.”

 

For three years and counting, that’s been the Tea Party mantra against President Barack Obama, a man whose devoutly-practiced socialist rhetoric has helped energize American conservative opponents in an unprecedented way.

 

But now, observers believe surging conservative support for Newt Gingrich, a politician with policy history and a quotational library rivaling Obama’s own progressivism in key policy areas could easily revive the ugliest of charges against the Tea Party: That conservatives dislike Obama’s race as much or more than his ideology.

 

Tea Party members offering support for Newt Gingrich provide exactly the evidence that race-baiting democrats have been waiting to exploit. It’s a blindness that’s quick to elicit his emotional response.

 

I think it obviously swings the door wide open again for critics on the left to shout ‘racism,’ about that kind of a double standard in the Tea Party, and that’s a sad thing to give any kind of credence to those claims.

 

You don’t like socialized medicine, I get it. You hated the stimulus packages, I did, too. You’d prefer a smaller government, I get that. You’re wary of government exploitation of the climate change argument in destroying the fossil fuel industry and dictating personal behavior, I could not agree more forcefully.

 

Then you follow that up by telling me you’re going to vote for Newt Gingrich, because he’s the only, ‘true conservative in the race, and the only one who can beat Obama.’ For the life of me, I don’t get it! It’s a fantasy-delusion that ignores an extensive record of policy.

 

Gingrich’s supporters in the Tea Party should prepare for the race card to return, in even more dramatic fashion, as part of the left’s election year posturing in defense of an otherwise indefensible record of performance.

 

And here’s the real kicker, and I may as well say it, because it’s coming. Conservatives pride themselves on recognizing and challenging a double standard. If you support a white politician who is on record supporting the exact policy positions of Barack Obama, what should be the conclusion of liberal America? You can’t have it both ways and expect the left not to recognize the inconsistency.

 

A growing number of conservative pundits are blasting Newt Gingrich’s similarities to Barack Obama on topics like climate change, socialized medicine, Keynesian economics and an overarching progressive philosophy that government is well-suited to play an integral role in trying to solve the problems of individual Americans.

 

I think it’s spectacularly hypocritical to support someone who clearly believes that government is a wonderful, powerful, and worthy tool of intervention into the private sector and into the personal lives of the American people, while opposing a President who advances that very philosophy. Newt Gingrich clearly believes that the government has the right and responsibility of coming up with all kinds of new and exciting ways to ‘help,’ us have better lives, and he believes he’s more than smart enough to do the job better than Obama has. That’s no improvement.

 

People who criticize and oppose ObamaCare, decry the horrors of overreaching climate change-based public policy and the use of taxpayer cash to manipulate and compensate a floundering marketplace have no business supporting a Republican candidate who is on record supporting the EXACT SAME positions on those issues.

 

I’m not saying those people are racists. I’m just saying prepare to be called a racist by those who will be defending their president.

 

Shad Olson is an Emmy Award-winning television anchor and radio host in Rapid City, South Dakota.  The Shad Olson Show is broadcast daily over a network of radio stations and streaming video websites in more than 140 cities and 28 states.  He is a published fiction author, journalist and regular contributor to multiple internet sources, including Life and Liberty Media.