Rubio's different face, same message not likely to fool Latino voters

In his populist-inspired State of the Union speech, President Obama talked about how government should work for the many rather than the few, called for sensible debt reduction, an end to rampant cupidity at the top at the expense of a healthy middle class, progressive climate and energy policies, improving infrastructure which will create jobs, immigration reform, meeting the challenges terrorism and rogue nations, and guaranteeing the right to vote—apparently in reference to the Voting Rights Act, which  now may be gutted by the time the right-wing extremists on the U.S. Supreme Court—responsible for the outrage that is the Citizen’s United ruling—are finished with the Shelby County v. Holder case. Naturally, given the current make-up of the House of Representatives—where most of the majority Republicans are as ossified as the people who voted them into office—I don’t expect much beyond the rhetoric, but at least things can’t get any worse than when Republicans controlled everything for the first six years of the Bush administration.

Then I listened to, or tried to, Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio’s response. It’s funny, but I was about as impressed (not) by Rubio as I was by last year’s attempt by Republicans to shoehorn “color” into their pallid landscape--Louisiana governor and Indian-American Bobby Jindal. Now, the Republicans seem to believe that Rubio is their “Obama”—except that they forget that most of their voters are in the party because they perceive it as the “white people’s party.” The only reason why people like Rubio, Clarence Thomas and Michelle Malkin are allowed in is because they are even more extreme than the common run. The Republican leadership seems to believe that Latino voters—who past the façade of immigration rhetoric have been targeted for years with negative press and demonizing for political gain—are so stupid they will be swayed by superficial appearances. The real Rubio in the past opposed immigration reform, supported Arizona’s fascist “show me your papers” law, and has done his best to distance himself from “them”—and riding the wave of Tea Party extremism into the U.S. Senate in 2010. Even John McCain found it too much to swallow that Rubio all of sudden was hailed as the “savior” on immigration reform. 

Of course, immigration isn’t the only issue of concern to Latinos, and it is hard to believe that a party that has gone out of its way to show you how much it hates you can possibly win you on other issues.  It should be mentioned that Rubio opposed the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, making the offensive claim that “Those of us of Hispanic descent don’t expect special treatment, only the same treatment and same opportunities afforded to all Americans.” That’s just like a racist Republican—defining equal opportunity as “special treatment,” and using it as an excuse to discriminate. He could better have pointed to his own position—as a Republican “token.” 

Naturally, Rubio dropped the ball last Tuesday, and he didn’t need a water break to make that “point” loud and clear.  How could he not?  The scripted response to Obama SOTU speech could have been read by anyone in the party to the same effect.  Rubio started out with the usual right-wing excuse not to do anything—no taxes, no spending, no regulations. He talks about government programs that hurt the middle class, without specifying what exactly those are. But he does support government welfare for corporations—which is a contradiction in terms, but who’s paying attention? He claims that tax increases on the wealthy have hurt the middle class; he neglects to mention that businesses have managed to salted away $2 trillion in unused profits that could have been used to create jobs and increase pay. They certainly were not hurt by too much tax. He talked about the Republican’s “credible” plans to save Medicare, except that he forgot to mention that the “plan” is still a work in progress—like the Republican “Page not Found” health care “reform.” He talks about how to “save” the bloated military budget without tax increases, mainly by gutting programs that help the children and the poor; the Republicans already have a “plan” to do this on the table—apparently in reference to the discredited Paul Ryan budget. 

Of course, Rubio did mention immigration reform; the Wall Street Journal claims that he is “riding to the rescue” to get something passed. Which is odd, because Rubio rode into the Senate in 2010 on the Tea Party and its anti-immigrant tide, and as has been noted before, Rubio never showed much concern for the Latino community—particularly immigrants. The reality is that any claim that Rubio has a line to Latinos outside the conservative Cuban community is delusional. His rhetoric—as shown last Tuesday, is nothing but the same tired extreme-right line, offering nothing in the way of “change” save that he doesn’t quite appear to be as Caucasoid as the other people  these words usually come out of (well, there is Filipino Michelle Malkin, the “First Lady of Hate”); if you just listen to the words and not look at the face, Rubio is no different than any other Tea Party fanatic like Rand Paul. 

Republicans have learned nothing since they took a severe beating in the 1934 off-year elections; at the time, Senator William Borah of Idaho accused his party of political cowardice for not shedding its reactionary leadership, and of its failure to offer any sensible alternative to the New Deal—only the “Constitution,” which Borah pointed out could not be eaten by impoverished, hungry people. It doesn’t matter who is reading the script; it just makes it more hypocritical when a “minority” like Rubio is spreading the gospel of greed and white privilege. Who are Republicans fooling?