The National Republican Trust PAC (a/k/a GOPTrust) claims to speak for the real Republican party, the real America. They have set themselves up to needle the “official” GOP for being too wishy-washy, for not being trustworthy with their donations, for not being conservative enough. How do they describe themselves?
The National Republican Trust Political Action Committee (NRT PAC) was formed as an independent organization to help promote American values and support federal candidates for Congress, Senate and the Presidency who share those values.
The NRT is committed to continuing the legacy of Ronald Reagan. As such, the NRT PAC promotes a political vision that includes several core ideas:
- Government is best when it is limited.
- The free enterprise system and entrepreneurship are the cornerstones of America’s economic strength.
- Taxes are a necessary evil and should be reduced.
- Our national security protects our economic and political freedoms.
- A strong national defense is the best way to avoid war and deter aggression.
- The American civilization finds its foundation in strong moral and family values.
Supporters of NRT come from all walks of life. They share one common belief, that America has been a great nation because of her people and their enduring values.
Nice-sounding words. Placid. Conservative. Hardly incendiary. Some nice Reaganesque principles (even where they are not), but pretty harmless.
But, then, those are words. Actions speak louder. Actions like making this their current rallying cry.
My immediate response is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a slickly produced, lovingly crafted, utterly disgusting piece of xenophobic, inflammatory, hate-filled tripe.
A mosque is about to be erected on the hallowed acreage of lower Manhattan’s Ground Zero. Where we Americans weep, they rejoice and intend to erect a shrine to the 9/11 terrorists they hail as martyrs. This offense cannot stand.
There’s so much bullshit in that paragraph, I don’t know even where to start. It’s got emotion-laded buzzwords up the yin-yang, all designed to incite hatred and fear.
The first and biggest point, of course, is that it’s riddled with inaccuracy, whether through blithering stupidity or cunning malice. It’s not a 13 story mosque, for one thing (though, if it were, so what?) It’s an Islamic cultural center — library, gymnasium (think of the “Y,” only with flowing Arabic script, I’d assume), and, yes, a mosque. We’re hardly talking about something akin to the Dome of the Rock here (though, again, even if so, so what?).
For another thing, of course, the folks building this are not the murderous yahoos you see juxtaposed in the film footage. This is not a statue to Osama bin Ladin, or the Al Qa’eda Madrassa for Islamic Extremism being put in. There is no shrine to terrorist martyrs. It’s like claiming the folks building the new Catholic Church down the street are all IRA terrorists, coming to America to plant bombs and blow up the police and make us part of Ireland.
One could point out that, for years, Christian conservatives in this country — some of whom I strongly suspect will be loudly huzzahing this commercial — were screaming for, pushing through, then basking in RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1990 to keep the Evil Gubbiment from interfering with religious freedoms, like using zoning laws and other chicanery to keep churches from being built or expanding. Of course, the law doesn’t spell out that it was meant for Good Honest American Christian Churches, not all those Other Sorts, but that certainly seems to be the inference one can draw when people are shouting for the Evil Gubbiment to stop the More Eviller Muslims from, well, building something that includes a church, on property that they own and that is properly zoned.
Religious freedom, right? What we fight and die for, an American tradition that we celebrate in the Constitution of the United States, right? Obviously nothing that GOPTrust feels any allegiance to, unless it’s for, y’know, the Right religions. Not that one practiced by Swarthy Middle-Easterners. (No, the Other Swarthy Middle-Easterners.)
I can take it to even a more meta question here, which is who hell gets to choose or vote on what’s an appropriate use of a building in the Ground Zero area. An office? A bank? A toy shop? An apartment? A travel agency? A Starbucks? I can gin up reasons to be offended by practically any of those. Are we going to throw it all into a public referendum whenever anyone chooses to build (or become a tenant in) a building within X blocks of Ground Zero?
What about businesses that are (gasp) owned by Muslims — are they okay to be located within the Sacred Precincts of Ground Zero? How about Muslim employees working at the site? Yeah, sure, Muslims were among those workers killed at the WTC, but they were obviously all America-Hating Martyrs to Their Religion of Hate, right? Don’t want any of their sort showing up with their mocking ways and non-Christian beliefs.
So, clearly we need to cordon off the whole area — maybe all of lower Manhattan, just to be sacredly safe — and require anyone who wants to pass through that section of New York to munch on some bacon and recite the Lord’s Prayer by heart (depending on whether we’re just being Christianist or “just” Anti-Muslim), and keep so those Evil Muslims away from our Hallowed Ground (you know it’s hallowed because we got reminded in the commercial by of the I-beam cross someone erected in the rubble).
But, really, all those are intellectual propositions. Speaking from an overall, over-arching, gut-feeling standpoint, I just want to say that the National Republican Trust PAC (which is not tax-deductible to donate to, by the way) is a loathesome assemblage of fearmongers. Whether they are really as jingoistic, xenophobic, and hateful as they seem, or whether they are just willing to drum up that sort of sentiment among those who watch their little minute of tripe (and then, hopefully, send them money), I don’t know, nor am I sure I want to know.
What I do know is that they are, as I understand the word, Un-American. Rather than E Pluribus Unum, “Out of Many, One,” their motto seems to be, “Out of Many, There’s Us vs. Them, So We Better Get Them Before They Get Us. Oh, and Send Us Money, Too.”
Loathesome. Yeah, that’s the right word. It’s like finding maggots in your refrigerator, or roaches in your bed. They’re not only repulsive in and of themselves, they dirty anything they touch.
And while they are not (we keep being reminded) officially affiliated with the GOP or Republican Party, that they choose to use those names, and that the Grand Old Party in question hasn’t spoken out against their message is, to me, quite telling. Whether out of fear or because they believe in it, the Repubican Party is tacitly supporting it.
The Party of Hate.
Kudos to NBC and CBS, at least, for rejecting this ad.
(via Sami and Warming Glow)