The headline refers to a comment by Audra Shay, "vice chairman of the Young Republicans and the leading candidate to be elected its chairman on Saturday." Here's what prompted the words, "You tell em Eric!"On Wednesday, Shay—a 38-year old army veteran, mother and event planner from Louisiana who has been endorsed by her governor, Bobby Jindal—was holding court on her Facebook page, initiating a political conversation by posting that “WalMart just signed a death warrant” by “endorsing Obama’s healthcare plan.” At 1:52, a friend named listed as Eric S. Piker, but whose personal page says his actual name is Eric Pike, wrote “It’s the government making us commies… can’t even smoke in my damn car… whats next they going to issue toilet paper once a month… tell us how to wipe our asses…”For a screen shot of Shay's Facebook page with this lovely discussion, click here. Nice, huh?
Two minutes later, Piker posted again saying “Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist… Muslim is on there side [sic]… need to take this country back from all of these mad coons… and illegals.”
Eight minutes after that, at 2:02, Shay weighed in on Piker’s comments: “You tell em Eric! lol.”
Now, I can just hear Republican apologists attempting to explain how this was just an isolated incident (isn't it always?), maybe a misunderstanding or taken out of context or something (again, isn't there always some excuse?). The only problem, as The Daily Beast points out, "there's a pattern emerging from the fringe of the GOP grassroots," including a "joke" by South Carolina state election director and Richmond County GOP Chair Rusty DePass about how Michelle Obama "was descended from a gorilla which had gone missing from a local zoo," Tennessee Republican state legislative aide Sherri Goforth's email of Barack Obama "with a pair of googly-eyes peering out from a black background," and of course former RNC chair candidate Chip Saltzman’s infamous "decision to mail out a parody CD featuring the song 'Barack the Magic Negro.'"
It's truly sad to see the party that once proudly called itself the "Party of Lincoln" (not to mention the party of great progressives like Teddy Roosevelt) descended to blatant racism, John Birch society-style rants about "socialism" and "government telling us how to wipe our asses," kneejerk anti-environmentalism, super militarism and corporate crony "capitalism." The only question is, why do Democrats even feel a need to obsessively seek these people's support? Also, why do any sane, non-racist, normal Republicans stay in this loony bin?
