Ta-Nehisi Coates remains one of the more “mainstream” political bloggers (as opposed to the rather more antiestablishment marxisty types) who most often manages that rare mix of fine writing and scathing analysis to “knock the ball out of the park,” as his commenters like to say.
He recently wrote about the Gingrich’s deployment of race-baiting code in the recent South Carolina (and the subsequent, deeply depressing standing ovation). Most compellingly, with his concise prose, in his conclusion, Coates writes,
When a professor of history [i.e. Gingrich] calls Barack Obama a “Food Stamp President,” it isn’t a mistake to be remedied through clarification; it is a statement of aggression. And when a crowd of his admirers cheer him on, they are neither deluded, nor in need of forgiveness, nor absolution, nor acting against their interest. Racism is their interest. They are not your misguided friends. They are your fully intelligent adversaries, sporting the broad range of virtue and vice we see in humankind.
