South Carolina Primary: Newt’s Speech Example Of Divided America

Newt Gingrich - photo by Gage Skidmore

Newt Gingrich “wiped the floor with Romney” in the South Carolina Primary — to quote Chuck Todd on MSNBC tonight. It appears Gingrich has won South Carolina by a 12 point margin and won all but two counties. After three presidential contests so far this election season we have three winners: Santorum, Romney and Gingrich.

The main focus of this article is Newt Gingrich’s speech after he won South Carolina tonight. Much of the speech contained the same nonsense we’ve heard from Gingrich in the past like calling Obama “the most effective food stamp president in history”. Of course Newt doesn’t acknowledge the economic conditions Obama inherited that has led to more people in need but that wouldn’t serve his narrative now would it? Details, facts and nuance aren’t strong points for any Republican let alone Newt Gingrich.

It appeared to me that Gingrich took the negative and false accusations towards President Obama and the news media to a whole new level tonight. It’s frustrating watching the lies and the concocted stories delivered with such righteousness along with a crowd of supporters more than overjoyed to accept and applaud it.

Below I’ve compiled a few quotes from Gingrich’s speech tonight. Is this how we unite the country?

This is the most important election of our lifetime. If Barack Obama can get reelected after this disaster…just think how radical he would be in a second term.

I will challenge Obama to seven 3-hour debates…to be fair, to be fair, I don’t want you to be disappointed, but I already have conceded that he can use a teleprompter if he wants to. After all, if you had to defend Obamacare wouldn’t you want to use a teleprompter?

In the two debates that we had here, in Myrtle Beach and then Charleston, where people reacted so strongly to the news media, I think it was something very fundamental that I wish the powers that be in the news media would take seriously. The American people feel that they have elites who have been trying for a half century to force us to quit being American and to become some kind of other system.

That last one is truly amazing. What he is saying is that the America you have grown up in is not the real America. The real America, according to Newt, existed sometime before the news media elite were able to spread their ideology. Of course this is pure nonsense, and I’m not even sure if Newt believes it, but he knows this kind of rhetoric works well within the Republican base.

In describing himself and his fellow Republican candidates, Gingrich couldn’t resist taking what started out to be a very positive sentiment and turning it ugly at the end as Newt does so well, “The fact is, if you look at the four of us, we are proof that you can come from a wide range of backgrounds, and in America you have a chance to try and make your case no matter what the elites think in New York and Washington.”

All of this is evidence of the rhetoric that is fracturing this country. People say it’s just politics but I believe the negativity and the false accusations all in the name of politics is damaging to our democracy and there appears to be no end in sight. Does it only get worse from here?

dks

photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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#america#news media#Newt Gingrich#President Obama#Republican#South Carolina Primary