Photo credit: @RoseanneOnABC on Twitter
Far be it from me to stand up for a horrible human being such as Roseanne Barr, the comic actress whose virulent racism was so publicly disgusting that TV network ABC abruptly cancelled its highly successful, highly profitable revival of her sitcom, “Roseanne.” But I’ll freely confess my admiration for “Roseanne”—both the original ’90s show and its updated Trumpian version. “Roseanne” was always better and smarter than Roseanne; it was an intelligently written comedy dealing with real economic and political issues of ordinary Americans that changed very little over the two decades.
Critics were way too quick to accuse ABC of pandering to Donald Trump voters to boost corporate profits. Roseanne was the only member of her fictional working-class family foolish enough to believe the fraudulent promises of a con man president. And how about this for a real-life lesson from the show? The ugly racism that ultimately destroyed the show is well on its way to doing exactly the same thing to the Republican Party.
No Filter for Vile Ideas
The network seemed to forget Barr was a volatile, unstable presence during the first show as well. At its peak, the show was always threatening to blow apart at any moment with its star bouncing off the walls like a pin ball. And that was before the election of Donald Trump gave his supporters license to obliterate “political correctness” by expressing any vile, despicable thoughts that crossed their minds. Or did it?
It’s ironic that racist and anti-Semitic tweets ended Barr’s newly revived career. With social media under increasing pressure to ban hate speech, apparently only Tweeter-in-Chief Trump is completely free these days to spew racist bigotry on Twitter to his heart’s content. Barr should sue Trump for loss of income.
Trump was the first to compare immigrants of color to “animals” before Barr expanded on the idea to suggest Valerie Jarrett—an African American friend and advisor to former President Barack Obama—was the spawn of sexual activity between the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes. The precise tweet: “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.” Who even thinks about the very classy and distinguished Jarrett a year-and-a-half after she was a senior advisor to our only African American president? Here’s who: White supremacist Trump supporters still upset that African Americans once freely roamed the White House.
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Far-right websites continue to spew bigoted attacks on Jarrett and anti-Semitism toward billionaire Holocaust survivor George Soros who funds progressive U.S. political reforms and democratization of former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe. Barr’s crude racism about Jarrett was immediately followed by the cruel lie that Soros collaborated with Nazis in a concentration camp turning in fellow Jews so he could steal their wealth.
The Ugliest Among Us
But here’s why Trump appealing to the ugliest racists in our midst isn’t just a problem for the Republican Party, it’s a problem for everyone in this country. Trump has convinced Republicans they need the support of those “very fine people” in the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi hate groups to win elections. That’s why most Republicans follow the lead of House Speaker Paul Ryan and remain utterly silent as Trump reignites Republican racism for the approaching midterms.
At Trump’s rabid rally in Nashville, Tenn., supporters responded enthusiastically to the president’s shouted question about what to call criminal Latino immigrants with blood-curdling cries of “Animals!” That’s why tiny MS-13 gang members must be ripped from their mothers’ arms at the border and put into detention centers. Most Americans are better than that. We would all like to believe the majority of Republicans are better than that, too. We can’t prove it, though, because apart from Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, most other Republican officials are keeping any remaining shred of decency to themselves.
They’re terrified of losing that hardcore 35% that Trump claims would support him even if he shot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City. But any political party is doomed when it allows itself to be controlled by the very worst, most viciously racist 35% of Americans. Barr spouting racist, ignorant, inflammatory falsehoods from lunatic fringe websites is a healthy reminder that the most extreme 35% of the country can be crazier than bedbugs.
Historian Jon Meacham’s new book, The Soul of America, recounts democracy’s successful survival of earlier examples of extreme political demagoguery. A similar percentage shows up in Wisconsin history. According to Gallup, 34% of Americans continued to support Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy even as his political career was ending in disgrace.
Ultimately, the U.S. Senate voted 67-22 to censure McCarthy for his reckless, fraudulent, public attacks on political progressives as communists. Interestingly, Republican senators split right down the middle, 22-22, on voting to censure McCarthy—their party’s brazen 1950s demagogue. A lot more Republicans will have to work up the political courage to crawl out from under the furniture for democracy to survive this time.
[Related: Shop for Jon Meacham's new book, The Soul of America, on Amazon]
