On the same show that host Melissa Harris-Perry was forced to apologize for her attack on Mitt Romney’s adopted African-American grandson, MSNBC kept up its drumbeat of dealing the race card against its enemies by declaring that the core of tea party is racist.
During the discussion, panelist Katrina Vanden Heuvel claimed that there is a useful “populism” on left and right that is “anti-corporate” but not, she insisted, “anti-business.” And Vanden Heuvel claimed that these two sides could join together but for one thing: the tea party. The tea party, Vanden Heuvel explained, would not let that coalition of left and right populists cooperate because the tea partiers are racists.
“But I do think,” Vanden Heuvel said, “the right-wing populism of the tea party not only became so obsessed with an anti-government meme, but let’s be honest, there is a race… racism threaded through the right-wing populism–which is not unusual to American right-wing populism–that has not allowed for coalitions that could be built on behalf of working people in this country against the most powerful interests.”
It is always interesting to hear this claim made of the tea party movement. After all, tea partiers are attacked from the left and from establishment Republicans for being too loud and open about what they want, what they dislike, and what they want changed. The tea party is just too noisy, the say. And yet, not one word about race is ever uttered by any member of the tea party.
So, we are expected to believe that tea partiers will talk about every issue they feel passionate about except the racism that leftists claim is their chief motivation?
It defies logic.
But regardless, on the same day that Harris-Perry tearfully attempted to deny she was throwing the race card at Mitt Romney because of his adopted African American grandson, only moments passed before her panel again threw the race card at their enemies.