The Sunshine Empire

The curious case of the Park 51 Islamic center in lower Manhattan is a fascinating on a purely political level. For years the go to political pitch to the American people from the political right was, “Muslims are everywhere and they are trying to kill you, so vote Republican.” The Republican party and the right wing establishment media did everything in their power to even try to convince the American people that the Hawaiian born then-Senator from Illinois was a secret Muslim. Through all of that the American people seemed to see through the noise and voted accordingly. Now almost two years into the Obama administration, the efforts to bring the American economy out of The Great Recession have provided minimal results. A jobless tepid, recovery and the ballooning federal deficit and debt have put the House of Representatives in the Republicans probable grasp. The United States Senate is less of a probability, but if not for the two massive gains by the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 that chamber would be in play too. The Republicans for most of the year have cheered for the economy to tank and go into double dip because it means greater and greater electoral gains in the midterm November elections. But just as the economy was dropping back into the doldrums, the Republican establishment took an odd turn back into Islamo-hysteria.

That the right wing political establishment is trying to drum up fright among the American public using the threat of terrorism is not a surprise, but the subject of the hysteria and the timing is confusing, bizarre, and telling. In 2006, current conservative golden boy Glenn Beck was appearing on Good Morning America with the Imam heading the Park 51 project and praising him as a needed element of moderate Islam in America. As soon as December of last year Laura Ingram as guest host of Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News program was interviewing and also praising Imam Rauf as a needed part of moderate Islam. Yet after this story had been a resolved issue for months, and right as what little momentum the economy had died, the right wing suddenly discovered this non-issue and began to hyperventilate.

The old adage that began with Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992 is still true today, “It’s the economy stupid.” As much as I would prefer the Republicans not retake the House, they seem to be going off the message most likely to win them electoral gains in November. The state of the economy will drive most to vote Republican in many key districts, despite the fact that the economy is in it’s current state because of their leadership. Barack Obama may not have been able to fix it, but let’s be clear on who drove the car into the ditch and hasn’t provided one idea on how they would run things differently. But this is why I find the sudden Islamo-phobia so puzzling. What does it bring them beyond what they already were going to gain? Now, even with the distraction on the part of the GOP with pointless matters I would still predict the re-take the House. But pulling the American people off of the most effective electoral issue to look more and more fearful of brown people is only hurting those efforts.

The GOP’s distracted effort to drum up racial and religious discord leading up to the midterm elections will not make them any more likely than they already are of taking back the House, but these efforts will not be forgotten by an ever increasingly multi-cultural America. Their efforts to win in the now could permanently damage their prospects as a national party in the future. As much as the Republican party leads the generic congressional ballot overall, when broken down by region they only win in one, the south.