Last updated on July 14th, 2013 at 05:35 pm
Nobody but a hardcore, Fox-watching, Daily Caller-reading Republican will vote for Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) for President now.
It turns out that Senator Paul has been pallin‘ around with a neo-confederate pro-secessionist named Jack Hunter. Hunter is a close Congressional aide to Senator Paul, and is, according to Media Matters, a “regular” on Fox, writes for the conservative Daily Caller (also known as the Daily Screamer for screaming at President Obama during a Rose Garden speech, but they are also not racists — they just play racists when covering the White House), is associated with former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint (big surprise), and helped Paul write his 2010 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington.
The Free Beacon reported Tuesday that among Hunter’s other activities like advocating for the secession of the South as chairman of the “implicitly racist group” League of the South or writing for The American Conservative or promoting Ron Paul’s presidential run on Fox News Business (‘cuz nothing says freedom like secessionism, just ask Sarah Palin), he was also a shock jock supporting the assassination of President Lincoln.
From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.
“Although Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth’s heart was in the right place, the Southern Avenger does regret that Lincoln’s murder automatically turned him into a martyr,” Hunter said in 2004, as compiled by Free Beacon.
While Hunter denied that he was a racist, he also claimed that every word “issued from his lips” as Southern Avenger was exactly how he felt. Hunter describes himself on his website as “conservative, libertarian, independent”.
Here’s Jack in his confederate mask (he’s not nearly so creepy looking sans mask, but then, intimidating others is obviously a goal of Jack’s and is much harder to pull off as himself):
Media Matters noted that even the Daily Caller found Hunter’s associations problematic:
Matt Lewis wrote a post after the publication of the Free Beacon story criticizing Paul’s association with Hunter, writing: “It’s one thing to have an aide with baggage (even very bad baggage), but the larger problem here is that this also speaks to credibility and honesty — to Paul’s fundamental character.” Lewis did not mention that Hunter has written for his site.
It’s not as if Hunter’s recent past were a secret that the Republican Senator could not have known about. It’s not as if Rand Paul doesn’t have his own sordid history with these very issues. It’s not as if Rand Paul can afford to be seen choosing to pal around with a racist pro-secessionist who champions the assassination of President Lincoln publicly.
It’s also not as if fringe associations are not a consistent, systemic problem for Senator Paul.
Rand Paul’s Senate campaign employee Tim Profitt stomped on a liberal woman’s head at a Paul rally. That could have been an anomaly, but then we also have his own son being arrested for aggressive physical force against a female flight attendant. Add in this new associate who is fringey and you have a pattern.
I’ve discussed many times before the crossover between racism and violence against women. This is to be expected, because it comes from viewing the world as a power-over or power-under paradigm, in which the person expressing the hate often feels power-under, and so looks for a lesser to kick in order to feel more in control and elevate themselves in their own mind. The same people will also be found cheering the pain of gay people, poor people dying from lack of healthcare, etc (as we also saw during 2012 Republican campaign events).
These beliefs are passed off as some twisted version of Republican Christianity, leading Paul himself to claim that he and his kind are being persecuted by the liberal elite, “There is a war on Christianity. Not just from liberal elites here at home, but worldwide.” This shouldn’t be a surprise, because Paul’s campaign worker demanded an apology from the woman whose head he admitted stomping, after saying it was no big deal. The victimizers see themselves as the victim, because they are blinded by self-pity.
No, Sir, there’s a war on hatred being passed off as Christianity. But there might also be a war on lawmakers pallin‘ around with racists who hate the union and all that it stands for, and cheer the assassination of ANY United States President.
It’s not as if any of this is any surprise. The party that collectively wails like a wounded banshee every time anyone suggests they are racists because they are supporting racist public policy and laws and using racially derogatory language to do so is actually full of racists. No big surprise to the rest of the country.
But this will not sell well nationally. Rand Paul might be deluded by the hearty response his Tea steeped hatred gets at home, but out in the real world, the country has moved on. Rand Paul knew exactly who Jack Hunter was, and he chose to affiliate and associate with him anyway, or perhaps because of his history of racism and pro- secessionism.
Senator Fringe, meet the rest of the country, just like Paula Deen recently did.
Second image: Jack Hunter in his Confederate Mask, “A photo of the Southern Avenger posted to Rebellion Blog” via Free Beacon
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