Sharron Angle targets Mexicans, ramping up her campaign of racism and extremism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Remember -- it was just last week -- when GOP extremist Sharron Angle said, incredibly, that her notorious anti-immigrant ad didn't target Mexicans specifically and that "the real problem is the northern border" (that is, Canadians or otherwise those coming into the U.S. from Canada), and when she told a group of Hispanic children that some of them looked Asian to her?

Yeah.

It was clear she was either full of shit (and lying her face off) or completely stupid (and, in the case of the Hispanic children, completely ignorant and insensitive) -- or, more likely, some combination of the two.

Because she's back at it, as Greg Sargent reports:

Here's Sharron Angle's latest ad attacking Harry Reid over illegal immigration. It's a doozy -- it sounds the alarm about "waves of illegal aliens streaming across our border joining violent gangs." And it features the now-familiar imagery of young swarthy men looking generally menacing.

But please note in particular the momentary glimpse we're given at the three second mark of the United States Border Inspection Station at El Paso, Texas:

 

Does she really have no clue what's going on? Does she really have no clue what's in her own TV ads? That may very well be the case. She doesn't seem to have much of a clue about anything.

But check out the look on her face at the beginning of the ad. She attempts a smile, but that's the look of the self-righteous, true-believing extremist, staring off into space, oblivious but also -- dare I use this word? why not, if it applies? -- evil.

Angle can smile, and try to look benign, all she wants. She's proven herself repeatedly to be an ideological fundamentalist of the far right, although well within the current mainstream of the Republican Party. And this ad, presenting bigoted views we've come to expect from her, is just plain ugly. It specifically targets -- and vilifies -- Mexicans, not Canadians (nor others coming from Canada), as the scary Other, as the great threat to Angle's (predominantly and domineeringly white) America:

Waves of illegal aliens streaming across our border, joining violent gangs, forcing families to live in fear.

Note: our "border" -- singular -- not borders. A white family "living in fear." Angle might as well have shown some hulking Mexican man raping a helpless white woman. Just as the black man was once the threat, so, to Angle, is now the Latino (though perhaps also still the black man). There isn't even a racist subtext here. The racism is right on the surface. The ad isn't even really about immigration at all. It's about race, about one race, a dark, ugly race, invading and terrorizing another race, a clean, pure race, Angle's race.

This has been the thrust of Angle's campaign all along, ideological extremism on issues like taxes mixed with racist appeals to voters' racism, latent or otherwise, but it's now front and center.

No wonder prominent state Republicans are lining up behind Harry Reid. No wonder she continues to avoid the press. No wonder the race is... neck-and-neck?

What's crazier, Angle herself or the fact that she might actually win? Surely there are enough Nevadans who see her for what she is and who object to her campaign of racism and extremism?

Or am I wrong about that?