Ron Paul And The Racist Rednecks

“You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates has a great (and rather chilling) article on how potentially non-racist politicians have used racist policies to get elected.  Which is kind of terrifying.  When you have statements like, “Seymore, you know why I lost that governor’s race?… I was outniggered by John Patterson. And I’ll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again,” then what you have is a terrifying portrait of democracy: a public so angry and discriminatory that the only way to get votes is to whip up public sentiment.
And I think it’s important to draw a distinction here between “racists” and “opportunists.”  When Ron Paul says shit like, “Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal,” he may not be a racist.  A racist would at least have the courage of his convictions.  An opportunist, on the other hand, sees that if he kicks a group of people who he holds no personal malice towards, he can gain personal power – and starts kicking these innocents in order to be better liked.
I’m sickened by the hundreds of thousands of douchebag racists who only get thrilled when their politician is hammering on the gays or the Muslims or the nigras. But I’m even more sickened by the idea that someone would go, “Well, aside from contributing to the deaths and torment of a bunch of people I have no problem with, I think I can do a lot of good here.” Which is, sadly, what I think Ron Paul is when you peel back the surface.