I'm just not sure how email and social networking are going to work out for the Republicans.

No, I'm not just talking about the fact that Dems like Obama seem better able to use e-solicitations to flimflam millions of gullible net users out of that week's latte and/or beer money. I'm talking about Republicans having a seemingly harder time of grasping this simple truth: if you are a dipshit, and you are willing to commit your dipshittery to writing (especially when that writing is easily forwarded, copied, and linked to), then many, many more people are going to learn that you are a dipshit.

See, Republicans have been having a little spate of trouble with officials and staffers — usually but not always on the state level — getting caught sending around racist jokes at President Obama's expense. In today's iteration, Sherri Goforth, staffer to Tennessee Republican state senator Diane Black, sent around a picture showing miniature portraits of the nation's presidents, with the last spot occupied by two big eyes peering out of the dark. Ha ha! Because black people don't show up on camera because they are so black! Even if it's a painting! It's a knee-slapper! Caught out, Sherri Goforth confessed, and attempted to recoup some points by executing an Olympic-quality I'm-sorry-you-found-out-I'm-an-asshole non-apology apology:

When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.

“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth told NIT. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”

This is merely the most recent instance. Liberal blogs like Wonkette have been gleefully reporting as Republican after Republican has been caught sending around stupid racist stuff: Trey Walker, aide to Republican South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, talking about how Michelle Obama is a gorilla's descendant; or Diann Jones, a Republican Party vice-chair from Dallas, sending an email about the "black house" to judges and then getting shirty about it when they forwarded it to the press; Southern California Republican (ex)-mayor Dean Grosse, who sent around the popular-amongst-idjits watermellon-growing-on-the-White-House-lawn email; and so on and so on, ad nauseum and ad moronum (more collected here.).

I've said before that I pine for the return (or the arrival in the first instance, if you prefer) of a Republican party that stands for, among other things, taking responsibility for your own actions. So while emails and social networking may not be a good thing for the modern Republican party as it currently kind-of exists, they may prove to be a healthy purgative in the long term. This sort of thing can help rid the party of people it should be rid of, including but not limited to (1) racists, and (2) really stupid people, including the subgroups of (a) people who think racial humor is funny and (b) people with such piss-poor judgment that they put racial humor in emails. Personally I'd also like to see this result in the culling of (3) people who whine about "political correctness," by which they mean "the awful system in which I am called a dick if I act like a dick," and (4) people who think that being called a racist when they say racist shit means that they are being silenced by an oppressive society. Categories (3) and (4) may be summarized, for convenience, as "whiny little bitches." Watch for a flood of whiny little bitching from Sherri Goforth's defenders.

I doubt the purge will work very fast or very well. But a man can dream.

Last 5 posts by Ken

• Marc Stephens Threatens Me Some More - February 3rd, 2012
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