When Republicans Say Democrat

(Chop Suey--Edward Hopper)




One thing I liked about Howard Cosell, the sports announcer, was his statement when Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He said, simply enough, a man ought to be entitled to be called by the name he wishes to be called by.

Sounds simple and self evident, but there was a ton of psychology afoot in America of the 1960's and 1970's and white people, especially establishment types in the media, did not want to call Muhammad Ali by that name which evoked violent Black Muslims who, it was said, wanted to form a separate black nation led by Malcom X or that other Black guy who led the Nation of Islam. The name was an act of rebellion, a sort of hot cinder in the eye of white America.

First Ali beats Sonny Liston, costing a lot of smart white guys who bet against him a lot of money. That was bad enough. Now he wants to change his name, after we had all taken the trouble to learn Cassius Clay. Celebrities are not allow to re-brand like that.

But Cosell persisted and eventually other white people discovered they could love Muhammad Ali as much as Cassius Clay and Western Civilization did not fall to Islam or the Mongol Hordes, and some of us forgot he was ever named Cassius Clay.

Personally, I sort of liked Cassius because I dimly remembered some line from Julius Caesar to the effect, "Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look," which was meant to imply, I gathered, the old Caesar was a little worried about the upcoming younger guy who might want to depose the old lion and take over the pride.

But I started calling him Ali because Cosell persuaded me that was the decent thing to do.

Now we have Democrats, who refer to their party as the Democratic Party. And they use the adjective, Democratic.

But the Republicans seem to think it sounds degrading to refer to the "Democrat" party or a "Democrat" bill going through Congress.

It reminds me of how George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, who Martin Luther King famously described as the governor who had hate dripping from his lips, Governor Wallace used to pronounce the word "Negro," (which was then polite enough useage) as "Nigra," which sounded to most Northerners a lot like "Nigger." It was the Southerner's little frat boy ploy to be able to go on national TV and called African Americans (as we now say) "Niggers," without anybody being about to do anything about it because they would reply, all wide eyed in mock innocence, "You just don't understand my accent. You'all are just intolerant of us Southerners and the way we sound."

So now you've got smirking John Boehner and all the Republicans and certainly all the Rush Limbaugh's saying, "Well, the Democrat party is completely wrong about that," or more commonly, "Well, isn't that just like the Democrat party to want to cut and run."

The Democrats have other fights to fight and say nothing about this. But the Republicans all have this smirky little smile of victory whenever they refer to that dorky Democrat party, getting a little kick every time they taunt with a little political epithet. See we can call you Wop or Mick or Democrat and take you down and you can't do anything about it.

What a bunch of frat boys.

And they have all got together at some frat council and agreed to hew to that line; if you don't know the party of the man being interviewed you know as soon as you hear, "Democrat Party." That's their audible frat pin.

All those smug boys on the porch in their tassled loafers, no socks, drinking beer or bourbon out of plastic cups and shouting about interesting things like how much they planned to drink or what sort of cars they own and feeling very good about themselves because they are in the club.

There you have the perfect image of the Republican Party today.

What are Sue Collins and Olympia Snow doing with that crowd?