I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up (9 page)

One of the worst qualities of Rick Santorum is his absolute inability to learn from history. Conservatives like to claim that they look at the historical record and apply those lessons to the present day to solve problems. Okay, Senator Shit for Brains, let’s pull up a chair and have ourselves a history lesson. What Santorum and the lunatics really want in the Middle East is another Crusade. During the Crusades, Christians kept sending men to try to recapture the Middle East—and they got slaughtered. One would think that
conservative Rick Santorum, someone who allegedly looks at the historical record and applies those lessons to the present day to solve problems, would have learned from the lessons of the Crusades—not to mention 2003 and Iraq. But not only will he not
learn
them, he downright
denies
them. Here he is in his own words: “The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American Left who hates Christendom.” And by “American Left” he means “every history book ever written on the subject ever.”

Santorum, who worships the Prince of Peace, is front and center in beating the war drums for invading Iran. He claims that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons or is about to have them, and that they will unleash them immediately upon civilian targets. He argues that there is no dealing with Iran because they will start this war for bizarre religious reasons, according to obscure prophecies intended to presage the end of the world.

All the things that Santorum alleges against Iran have been perpetrated already by the United States
. One nation and only one nation has used nuclear weapons in a military context, and it’s
us
. We nuked Hiroshima, a
civilian
city. Three days later we nuked Nagasaki, another
civilian
city. Nagasaki was also known for having the largest
Christian
population in all of Japan. We didn’t make specific demands on Japan. We asked for
unconditional surrender—
and we got it. All the Japanese could hope for was that the nation that had nuked the fuck out of them would be nice when we took over. It wasn’t a negotiation. This was fear, pure and simple.

Now let’s fast-forward to 2003. President Bush was trying to get support for an invasion of Iraq. He was using almost verbatim the arguments currently being used to try to get us into Iran, at
least at home. Abroad, it was a different matter. Bush got on the phone with Jacques Chirac, the president of France. Bush told him that “the Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled” and that “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East.” I can only imagine the poor French translator sitting there, thinking that President Bush was having a stroke. There was no way Frenchie had ever heard the terms “Gog and Magog” before in any language. Chirac similarly had no idea what the fuck Bush was talking about. Only later did he learn that Gog and Magog feature in Revelation, the Biblical account of the end of the world, and that these two mythological nations presage the emergence of Antichrist. So who is the real religious zealot here?

Class dismissed, motherfucker!

Utah is a red state, but people don’t realize how red it is. It’s the most Republican state in terms of party registration. So why the hell did Jon Huntsman, who is telegenic and conservative and experienced, fail to gain traction? In certain circumstances, I could even see myself voting for him. And in general, knowing that the Democrats are going to lose once in a while, I would hope that they lose to Republicans like Jon Huntsman.

By any ostensible standard, the former Utah governor and ambassador to China should have been a front-runner. So why is serving your government a sin, in Republican eyes, and being a diplomat a disgrace and an embarrassment? It’s not because he worked for a Democrat; Texas governor Rick Perry campaigned for Gore, and that wasn’t a disqualifying issue. Clearly, Republicans can wrap their head around something like that happening, and then having
the man switch teams. It’s when you’re working for
this
president that you have a problem, as Jon Huntsman discovered. You would think that they would regard him as trying to mitigate Obama’s “damage.” Huntsman’s failing is another example of the irrationality that has surrounded President Obama, an irrationality largely driven by race.

Conservatives like to claim that progressives are opposed to listening to their arguments, and that black progressives especially are completely hypnotized or brainwashed or delusional. Whatever the mental condition is, we all seem to have it. But I would argue that I have never seen a conservative admit that there’s any truth to the progressive position, whereas many times I can see an element of truth on the other side. In fact, I’ve had my mind brought around because of my conversations with Ron Paul.

I’ve met Ron Paul twice. The first time was when he and I were both guests on Bill Maher’s show. Ron Paul basically said that the Civil War never had to be fought. This of course sounded completely crazy to me at first. “Thank God it was,” I said, “or I’d be the only black guy here, serving tea.”

But Ron Paul went on to point out that we could have freed the slaves and saved ourselves a lot of blood and national treasure and life. Many other countries around the world had slavery, and they didn’t have to kill each other to free the slaves. What the British did, for example, was buy all the slaves from the slave owners, set them free, and then pass abolition laws. It was peaceful and it was cheaper. I had never heard it explained that way before, and I thought it was reasonable.

Then I had Paul on my CNN show, where we had a wide-ranging conversation. The clip is still on YouTube, and I challenge anyone to watch it and categorize the way I spoke to Ron Paul as anything other than respectful, if not downright deferential. At the end he confessed that he supposed he’d get in trouble for being on my show, but it wasn’t bad. Had I gone on some of the Fox News shows, I would not have gotten anywhere near as polite of a reception.

If anyone doubts how far off the deep end the Republican Party has gone, take a look at how Ron Paul is regarded. His political positions have not changed for
decades
. He’s got some very nuanced views, and I think that he’s a principled man. But in 2008, when he ran for the nomination, he was regarded as the crazy person in the Republican Party. In 2012, Ron Paul isn’t looked at as crazy anymore. He’s almost an elder statesman, and his coherent, calm philosophy is being shouted out by people foaming at the mouth with anger and rage. Ron Paul obviously hasn’t changed. It’s his surroundings, the Republican Party, that have changed—and the thing that happened between 2008 and 2012 is that we got a black dude in the White House.

It’s funny to me that I can freely admit that I would feel comfortable voting for a Ron Paul or a Jon Huntsman. But all the people on the right who view progressives as brainwashed plantation slaves can’t name
one
Democrat that they would support. Ain’t that a bitch?

I met Mitt Romney in May of 2007. We were both guests on Jay Leno’s show one night, so the two of us sat backstage and talked for
a long time. I thought he was going to get the nomination. He was perfectly tan, with sparkling white teeth. He had all his kids with him, a lot of kids, and a beautiful blond wife. Ann Romney was
naturally
beautiful; she didn’t look plastic. They genuinely looked like they were a close family. Whoever was running against this dude was in trouble, in my view, because it looked like they had cast a president.

Here’s the thing about Mitt Romney. If you grow up in the streets, you’ll sound like the cats you grew up with. If you grow up in New York, you’ll sound like a fucking New Yorker. If you’re around all rich white people and you hear them talk and you go to school with them, then, when you grow up, you’ll just talk like them. You would sound pretty bright even if you weren’t. It’s like how Americans think all British people are smart just because of their accents.

That’s the impression I got from Mitt Romney. He was
entitled
bright. It’s the kind of bright that you get because you attended the finest learning institutions in the world. You can get some of that shit just by osmosis. He had that white-guy “I’m superior” kind of vibe about him, that feigned kind of modesty. He seemed shallow to me. The things he was saying just weren’t particularly resonant. It was all clichés and talking points. He reminded me of a very highend used-car salesman. I didn’t go away thinking, “Wow, what a bright guy.” I went away thinking, “Wow, what a rich white guy!”

There’s a thing Mitt Romney said that was quite telling, and everyone pounced on it. I want to quote him exactly so that it doesn’t seem like I am caricaturing: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine.” A lot of people brought up only the first part to assert that Romney, as he said, didn’t care about poor people. Romney says that’s out of context
and not what he meant. I am going to give Mitt Romney something that he doesn’t give poor people:
the benefit of the doubt
. Let’s pretend that statement is not an example of utter callousness. Even so, it is clearly a statement of a man
completely
out of touch.

When he says he is not concerned about the poor because there is a safety net, he is really saying that their lives are taken care of because they aren’t starving. That’s what the purpose of a literal safety net is, to keep you from dying—and that’s it. The idea that poverty is a trap, that some groups are more affected by poverty than others, is foreign. To use language familiar to Romney, a helping hand to the poor is an investment that will reap dividends in the future. But he doesn’t see it that way. For him,
in his own words
, it’s “Problem solved!” and let’s move on to the next issue.

I think Rick Perry is a complete idiot, but I think some of the criticism of him is misplaced. Rick Perry’s idiocy is not a function of his poor debate performance. I know a lot of stand-up comedians who are spectacular on the stage and deliver their material with precision timing. But once the lights are off, they’re dumb-asses. To me, it seemed that Perry’s inarticulate nature was more a function of a man who had never been challenged and never had to defend himself in the art of debate.

A big criticism of Rick Perry came when it was discovered that his family owned a camp that had the word “Niggerhead” painted on some rock. But historically, presidents have
hated
black people. The number of presidents who liked black people and cared about their interests can really be counted on one hand. A president who
is prejudiced isn’t racist; he’s
retro
. He’s just keeping the American tradition alive.

What I found most compelling about Rick Perry is his subtle attempt to go after Mitt Romney’s (and Jon Huntsman’s) religion. Rick Perry always talked about President Obama’s war on religion—while he let one be waged on his behalf. When pastor Robert Jeffress called Mormonism a “cult,” Perry refused to denounce him. Despite what some news accounts portrayed, Jeffress wasn’t being a fire-breathing nut. He described Mitt Romney as “a good, moral person, but he’s not a Christian. Mormonism is not Christianity.” This is a theological point that a Christian pastor has every reason to believe. A “cult” is just a minority religion based around a man who claims to be a prophet—and that’s exactly what Joseph Smith portrayed himself as being.

The thing is, there are questions about Mormonism that
I
genuinely have. I don’t know that Rick Perry would agree with my specific questions, but surely he’s not down with their whole thing. The issue I have with the Latter-day Saints is this: Up until the late 1970s, the Mormons viewed it as a
sin
to be black. This was during
my
lifetime. I was in high school when they changed that. But if this was part of the revelation given to Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni, you can’t change that just because it’s politically correct. Revelation is revelation. One thing Christians won’t do is change their beliefs to be popular. They believe what they believe, it’s in the Book, and that’s that. You can’t change your theology because the United States government and society at large is uncomfortable with some of your ideas. The idea behind faith is that if you believe in something past yourself, this deity will make you a better human being—except for us black people, in this case. There are things even God can’t do, apparently.

But if the God that you believe in, invest your life in, spend your life serving and proselytize for, believes that somebody’s inferior, then
you
always will believe that.
Always
. You’ll hear Christians say, “God said it; I believe it; and that’s it.” So when it comes to Mormonism, I don’t know which it is: Are they Christians who will believe in what the scripture says, no matter how unpopular? Or are they a cult who change their views to fit in with the larger culture?

Let me compare Herman Cain to Barack Obama by objective standards. When Obama was running for the Democratic nomination, he was facing a very impressive field of rivals. When you watched them debate, Obama always looked bright. We never saw him get asked a question that he couldn’t answer. He always seemed to be abreast of what was going on.

The Republican answer to the Democrats’ “black guy” is Herman Cain. When Cain was on John Stossel’s show—hardly a hostile environment—Stossel asked him what his opinion was on abortion. The exchange was so unbelievable it bears repeating, because it looks more like a
Saturday Night Live
sketch than an interview with a presidential candidate: