Giuliani Is the Worst

[Content Note: Racism.]

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is terrible, has always been terrible, and will always be terrible:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) on Wednesday reportedly told an audience of conservatives that President Barack Obama doesn't "love America."

Politico reported that Giuliani made the comment at a private dinner in Manhattan attended by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and a slew of business executives.

"I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America," Giuliani said, as quoted by Politico. "He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country."

First of all: This is so goddamn juvenile. I don't need my President to "love" me. I need hir to respect me.

Secondly: This is a familiar racist dog whistle that has been used repeatedly against our black President. (And our black First Lady.) He doesn't love his country and wasn't raised that way. Wasn't raised "right."

His loyalty to and love for the United States has been questioned by Republicans at literally every step of his life. Where was he really born? How was he really raised? What is his real religion? Is he a citizen? Is he a patriot? Is he a traitor? Does he love this country?

The President's love of country is questioned on the basis that he doesn't believe it is perfect. This is a constant refrain conservatives shout at progressives—that we "hate America," because there are certain things about the United States that we despise: Its entrenched bigotry; its garbage disaster of a foreign policy; its promotion of avarice above social conscience; its fascination with wealth; its disdain of compassion for people in need; its delight in ignorance; its xenophobic nationalism; the immutable beliefs among so many of its citizens that the markets solve everything; that this country is the Almighty's gift to the world, especially when it's a still a really shitty place to live for lots of struggling people; that those people are always, only, to blame for their troubles; that there's something wrong with the rest of us who don't wrap our hands around the throat of American Dream and wring every last bit of life out of it to our own benefit; its deeply entrenched hostility to the idea that some of us could do with a little less so that others could have a little more; that "Justice for All" has become a punchline.

That's not a complete list. These are but a few things that could stand some changing in this country. That, frankly, were they to change, would make this country more "lovable" to a whole lot of people, inside and outside its borders.

And the things I find, many of us find, detestable about this country are the very things the Republican Party upholds and defends, patently refusing to own up to any problems, instead calling anyone who dares criticize the country America-haters, wrapping themselves in the flag, and declaring themselves the True Patriots, so it's all but impossible for someone like me, no less the President, to express our abhorrence of them without seemingly attacking the United States itself—which makes it all the easier for Republicans turn the US into a place any progressive really, genuinely would hate, by ridding it of everything that we love.

One can't cast one's eyes toward Iraq, or read of another state gerrymandering its districts or finding a way to disenfranchise voters, or hear about a family who lost their home because of the toxic mix of a recession and predatory lending, or a woman who can't access an abortion she desperately wants, or a crumbling infrastructure, or US students falling behind their global peers, or US scientists falling behind theirs, or any one of dozens of issues that have Republicans' grubby fingerprints and crummy signature all over them, and fail to think about the ways in which modern conservative policy has changed our country and our lives, not for the better by almost any estimation.

And then the people behind it all have the temerity to suggest that President Barack Obama doesn't love his country—the proof of his insufficient affection being, evidently, that he hasn't endeavored for the past four decades to destroy it.

The last thing we need is any more of Rudy Giuliani's brand of "love." We can't take another ounce of it.