The Absolution Solution

Conservative Republicans believe three things about black voters:

1. We voted for Barack Obama simply because he's black,
2. If Republicans had a credible black Tea Party candidate for president, they would split the Democrats' black/Latino coalition, and
3. Nobody could ever call Republicans racist again if that candidate won the White House.

In other words, wingers think it would usher in that "near-permanent Republican majority" they've been dreaming of.  Ideally in their little zero-sum world, it would be a black conservative versus Hillary Clinton in 2016, splitting black voters from white women.

Of course before Republicans can test this theory, they have to find a conservative black candidate without all of Herman Cain's ridiculous baggage and creepy demeanor.  Some think they have found that candidate this month in Dr. Ben Carson, or at least Dave Weigel seems to think so.

On February 7, at the usually-sleepy National Prayer Breakfast, pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson talked for a surprising 23 minutes about the national debt and the threat of political correctness. It was surprising because Carson has been a famed physician for at least 26 years, ever since he participated in the first separation of Siamese twins conjoined at the head. Not many people realized that Carson had just written a book of political musings, and that he would take this live-on-C-Span opportunity to summarize it.

Carson immediately became a star, as compelling black conservatives seem to do. How could they resist a black physician who criticized the president while the president sat there, bearing it? The next day, Carson appeared on Sean Hannity's TV show. He critiqued the State of the Union on Fox News. He joined Twitter today and rapidly crossed the 7,000 follower mark. (For comparison, black Republican Sen. Tim Scott has 19,000-odd followers after a month in the Senate.) His book, America the Beautiful, surged to the top 5 on Amazon.

And now I see that he's joining Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan on This Week.

Here's part of the speech after the jump:

Why can't we fix it because we’re smart. We have some of the most intellectually gifted people leading our Nation. All we need to do is remember what our real responsibilities are so that we can solve the problems. I think about these problems all the time, and my role, you know, model was Jesus. He used parables to help people understand things. And one of our big problems right now, and like I said, I’m not politically correct, so I’m sorry, but you know – our deficit is a big problem. Think about it. And our National Debt – $16.5 Trillion dollars – you think that’s not a lot of money? I’ll tell you what! Count one number per second, which you can’t even do because once you get to a thousand it will take you longer than a second, but…one number per second. You know how long it would take you to count to 16 Trillion? 507,000 years – more than a half a million years to get there. We have to deal with this.

Here’s a parable: A family falls on hard times. Dad loses his job or is demoted to part time work. He has 5 children. He comes to the 5 children, he says we’re going to have to reduce your allowance. Well, they’re not happy about it but – he says, except for John and Susan. They’re, they’re special. They get to keep their allowance. In fact, we’ll give them more. How do you think that’s going to go down? Not too well. Same thing happens. Enough said.

What about our taxation system? So complex there is no one who can possibly comply with every jot and tittle of our tax system. If I wanted to get you, I could get you on a tax issue. That doesn’t make any sense. What we need to do is come up with something that is simple.

When I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the Universe, God, and he’s given us a system. It’s called tithe. Now we don’t necessarily have to do it 10% but it’s principle. He didn’t say, if your crops fail, don’t give me any tithes. He didn’t say, if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithes. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 Billion dollars you put in a Billion. You make $10 you put in $1 – of course, you gotta get rid of the loopholes, but now now some people say, that’s not fair because it doesn’t hurt the guy who made $10 Billion dollars as much as the guy who made $10. Where does it say you have to hurt the guy. He’s just put in a billion in the pot. We don’t need to hurt him.

It’s that kind of thinking – it’s that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here, building our infrastructure and creating jobs – and we’re smart enough – we’re smart enough to figure out how to do that.

Needless to say, Republicans want this guy so badly they can taste it:  the black anti-Obama will lead the GOP to the promised land, absolve them of all their sins, and allow them to finish their legislative agenda of America as a corporate Christian nation for the 1%, where the government does as little as possible, international corporations run unchecked, and churches remain to help those in need...provided you follow their rules.  Dr. Carson seems to be a big proponent of all of that.

He's perfect for the Tea Party.   Perfectly awful, that is.