Soft Bigotry and Low Expectations
Posted on | December 24, 2007
Former Senator Fred Thompson is still a presidential candidate, and isn’t afraid to pander to the worst in his potential constituents:
During what must’ve been a strenuous day of campaigning in Iowa, GOP candidate Fred Thompson told potential voters at his one-and-only appearance that immigrants deserve some of the blame for the mortgage crisis. “A lot of them couldn’t communicate with the people they were getting the mortgage from,” the lagging Republican told an Iowa audience during his “Clear Conservative Choice bus tour,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Thompson’s stop in Mason City, Iowa, allowed him to play on Republicans’ fears of immigrants and riff on apparent frustration with hearing options in Spanish on recorded phone messages. Janice Easley, one voter in the audience, was boiling with frustration at having to hear, “Para el español, prensa dos,” whenever she called the power company.
“Everything is in Spanish,” she said. “It’s sickening.”
“You are so, so right,” Thompson said, calling for English to be made the national language, before placing the blame for the sub-prime mortgage crisis on non-English-speakers.
Our candidates’ heroic efforts to avoid addressing the real causes of America’s woes are fascinating, even as the same old means they use are tedious and offensive.
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