I have to admit, I find the teabagger reaction to any praise for Nelson Mandela among Republican office holders to be quite revealing. No longer can anyone anywhere state truthfully that the Tea Party, and every member of it, are not full on flaming hateful racists. Senator Joe McCarthy er ah I mean Ted Cruz offered praise for Mandela, and he is burned in effigy on his Facebook page by teabaggers. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich likewise called Mandela “one of the greatest leaders of our lifetime,” and he was savagely attacked for it.
But, to his credit, Gingrich did not slink away in fear like most cowardly conservatives. He fired back at his racist base, saying he is “surprised by the hostility and vehemence” of the racists, and then he asked them “[w]hat would you do here in America if you had the kind of oppression” suffered by South African blacks for decades? He also chastened his fellow Republicans for not being more vocal opponents of the apartheid regime before its fall. Gingrich, again to his credit, was one of the few Republicans back in the 1980’s that fought to end apartheid and was one of the Republicans who helped override President Ronald Reagan’s attempt to veto sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid government.
It is long past time for all Republicans who are not racist to stand together on the Lincoln Memorial Steps on live television and condemn the racist Tea Party and all its members, and to disavow their support.