Dear Arianna Huffington, You Cannot Reason with Close-Minded, Bigoted, Regressive People [View All]

I saw you today on the Dylan Rattigan show, and I saw how you want to reach out to the Tea Party crowd and address their economic anxiety which underlies their rage and anger. Although this is a noble gesture, it is also extremely naive for the following reasons:

1. All of the economic anxiety issues that you espouse, the disappearing middle class, stagnant wages, foreclosures, predatory banking, and Wall Street bonuses were happening under Bush just as it is today, and these folks said nothing about that. No protests. No marches. No demonstrations. So that cannot be the source of their anger.

2. They don't blame Wall Street for the financial crisis. They blame the government for "forcing banks to loan to poor minorities" for the crisis. Even when presented with actual evidence, they still want to believe that it was the fault of "others" for the downfall.

3. Finally, what these people are truly angry about is that an African American is President of the United States. These protests didn't start until after Obama was sworn into office. Eight years of spectacular failure and jaw dropping crisis es brought on by the Bush administration did nothing to motivate them. An African American man sits in the Oval Office, and these people take to the streets.

Ms. Huffington don't let the cable news media obsession with these people fool you. Cable news is all about grabbing ratings points from Fox News and Rush, and they believe that if they pander to these bigots by literally handing over their entire lineup to their asinine protests then they can charge their advertisers more money.

Instead, what Progressives need to focus on is communicating our values to the fair-minded, non-progressives. We need to convince them that our agenda benefits them, their families, their communities, their nation, and their world. Let's not waste time trying to convince a red-faced, spelling-challenged, obese, retired asshat, living on Social Security and Medicare, and carrying an Obama is Hitler sign to join us in reforming Wall Street. They have closed their minds to us, and we will just be wasting time trying to open them.