Can we believe in the gospel according to Herman Cain?
OPINION - When the communion plate comes around in the church of Cain, it'd be in America's best interest to pass on that wine...
We all know the safest bet to avoid being booed during Amateur Night at the Apollo is to sing a gospel song. Well, GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain is singing some gospel of his own, except his gospel isn’t rooted in the belief of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. Cain’s gospel is steeped in the worst kind of party politics, xenophobia and utter ridiculousness befitting of a reality show but woefully unfit for the highest office in the land.
Never mind the fact that a leaked gospel album he recorded a decade ago surfaced on the internet to his chagrin, Cain needed little help to convince even more people that he’s a strange case.
Cain’s official campaign had nothing to do with the sudden re-emergence of the strikingly 90s, generic, poorly executed, albeit heartfelt, album but it only adds to the lunacy of narrative of the shrewd and accomplished businessman turned political commentator and television talking head.
LISTEN TO HERMAN CAIN’S ‘GOSPEL’ HERE:
The Morehouse College alum has been called a number of things for his frequently outlandish comments, his steadfast mission to prove he’s, in fact, blacker than President Barack Obama and his partisan pandering that many times come off like a well-rehearsed soft shoe routine for his predominantly white base.
The gospel according the Herman Cain at times seems to be coming up implausible solutions for America’s woes, with the earnest ditziness of Jessica Simpson but the moxie of Karl Rove. His irrational, oft-times silly, ideas for moving the country forward even elicit laughs from his supporters but that’s the scariest part, what if his whole shtick is entirely serious?
Most recently, he spoke to a group of supporters about his recent trip to China and how he marveled at the Great Wall and its sturdiness. Inspired by the Great Wall’s great girth, his solution to our complex immigration issues involved the United States building a great wall of our own, much like China’s, which can be seen from space, with technological advances and, wait for it, an alligator-infested moat surrounding the whole thing.
A failed attempt at humor, sure. But Cain’s track record for bizarre ideas turned what was probably a joke amongst fellow Republicans into an entirely believable negative headline.
His Liberals adversaries aren’t the only ones to find his candidacy laughable. National Hispanic GOP groups are asking for him to bow out of the race after his comments on “fixing” immigration but Cain doesn’t seem deterred. He’s so bullheaded in the notion of his post-racial-ness, that he isn’t much concerned with labels either. In fact, he doesn’t even describe himself as African-American. Just a black, conservative.
Fair enough.
But even that subtle move to distance himself from the obvious is why many in the African-American community insist Cain is playing plantation politics and his insistence that none of the GOP agenda is at all racially motivation is absurd.
Reading through countless articles on Cain the only reasonably rational point he’s seemed to make with cameras on is correctly pointing out that all white people who criticize the president aren’t racist. But Cain managed to flub that statement by going the extra mile to interject GOP talking points and appease an audience that featured people who’d previously used racist imagery to depict the president.
For everything he spews about America being post-racial, his defense was all a select few needed to continue their racially insensitive propaganda against the president because ‘Hey, a black guy told them it was cool, right?’
Wrong.
Cain appears to be yet another African-American talking head thrust to the GOP forefront as an anti-Obama option. And his gospel is even more right than Michael Steele, who was thrust to the top the same way.
Steele failed to curry favor in the black community in the way Republicans may have hoped. He emitted none of the youthful charisma, assertiveness or grounded intelligence that President Obama used during his run to the White House instead he seemed to be fighting the constant war of trying to convince those on the fence that the Republican party cared about black people because he was living proof.
At the very least, Steele could get across his unpopular stances and grievances in a manor that, while forced, felt rational. Cain is hardly as eloquent.
He’s garnered backing by abandoning the perspective of his people and assimilating to the specific doctrine and somehow concocting a gospel of his own that operates under the façade that he’s more than just a pawn in the machine so Republicans can say, “we have a black guy too.”
By speaking through Cain, the GOP can make get away with remarks they otherwise wouldn’t be because they realized, in an culture that’s increasingly politically correct, only a black man can speak about Obama without facing the same scorn.
Had Cain never opened his mouth and you just read his Wikipedia, you’d see an impressive self-made millionaire but its his outlandish comments that will keep him in the spotlight and on TV. To think any of those things mean he can effectively govern is to drink the Kool-Aid that has America so off now.
When the communion plate comes around in the church of Cain, it’d be in America’s best interest to pass on that wine. His racial aloofness, anti-intellectual and overly simplistic ideas aren’t the new era of GOP politics, it’s remaking The Honeymooners with Cedric the Entertainer and Mike Epps.
Cain makes it next to impossible for genuine, black conservatives to be heard and that not only does a disservice to political discourse in this country, it does a disservice to his own people and their freedom to decide what party has their best interests in mid. His gospel only seems fit for a party of 1 and as long as the GOP allows it to run, none of the people on that “Democratic plantation” Cain says he left long ago will be coming with him for votes they desperately need if they want any realistic shot at unseating President Obama.
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