Number 5 Bigot of 2012
Let’s start this year’s Bigot of the Year awards with a big thank you to all the readers who submitted nominations. We had nearly 20 well-qualified horrors make the short list, many with multiple recommendations. After careful consideration, TSM is ready to roll out the bottom five! I’ve paid special attention to those people and organizations with significant power, privilege, and influence and abuse it to oppress their fellow human beings.
At number 5, we have one of the newest entrants into Hate Radio. Since leaving the Arkansas governor’s mansion in 2007, Mike Huckabee has been a thorn in reasonable America’s side. A bloviating gasbag of toxic opinions, he has flirted with other political aspirations, always deciding instead to earn big bucks for spewing bile and demeaning as many groups of Americans as possible. In less than a year on the air with his own show, Huckabee has been the go-to place for certified hate groups like the Family Research Council to peddle their noxious ideas and work to sustain a white hetero supremacist paradigm.
Huckabee has plenty of those on his own as well. He was the creator of Chik-Fil-A Day, rewarding the sawdust sandwich empire for its homophobia and anti-equality stands. He lashed into President Obama for supporting marriage equality. He was an early supporter of Todd Akin after his horrific rape comments. He loves to blame the LGBT community for every disaster that strikes. Pushing him over the top of his fellow “personalities” were his comments in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Huckabee was the first and loudest to propose that school prayer and teaching “intelligent design” would have prevented the shootings. What a charm-free ball of crazy!
Dishonorable mention at #5 goes to five old straight white guys who burned up huge amounts of money trying to meddle with this year’s elections. Karl “0% Success Rate” Rove, Sheldon “It’s MY Money” Adelson, David and Charles “Pour the Tea” Koch, and Donald “Birther #1” Racist Trump poured hundreds of millions of dollars into post-Citizens United Super PACs, pushing the farthest right agendas. Perhaps we should be grateful that they proved that even that much money can’t buy success, but just imagine all the good they could have done if they had invested in social justice rather than selfish arrogance…
Social Justice For All 
Alias, “Elmer Gantry”; alias, “The Huckster”
David, that is LOVELY! Thank you. Mike Huckabee/Elmer Gantry–hehehehe 🙂
What makes Huckabee especially dangerous, in my view, is he’s usually quite personable and pleasant in his delivery. Someone like Limbaugh is obviously mean-spirited and nasty and egotistical–it is part of his schtick. Huckabee’s relative huggability makes him more dangerous, as he’s better able to draw-in the sweet Grandmas who don’t like blatant meanness, but who really do worry about those unfortunate souls doomed to hell because they’ve rejected Jesus’ Good News.
Huckabee is fascism with a human face, the “well-intentioned” (ahem) parent who sometimes has to say the “hard truths” (double-ahem) but who does it out of “love” (triple-ahem) for sinners, in an earnest desire to make the United States a more godly, and therefore “better” (quadruple-ahem) place.
Jay,
You are right and this is what I had to take into consideration when sifting through the myriad nominations for Bigot of the Year. I tried to look at power, privilege, and influence when determining who merited the dishonorable distinction of Bigot of the Year. When I think of Huckabee, I think of that movie Agnes of God, but in Huckabee’s case the movie would be entitled The Absence of God, starring Mike Huckabee as himself.
I always find it hilarious that men like this believe we have such ultimate power. They think we can destroy societies simply by breathing, that we cause natural disasters, and can single handedly have a greater influence over children then god.
Seriously? Do they even hear themselves. I mean I have little powers, like I can make a kick ass chocolate cake, but sorry I can’t even make it rain.
Bonnie,
Perhaps your powerful chocolate cakes holds mysterious powers? 🙂 Yes, the absurdity of it all seems quite insane and yet people follow him and listen to him. I suspect because, of how Jay phrased it, he tries to come off as “quite personable and pleasant in his delivery.” Bonnie, I do hope you and your family can eventually get to the Northwest.
Me too! Should graduate in August and that will finally free me up to move about the country!
Hurray! We were talking with friends about your current governor and I thought about you and wished I could rescue you.
I do need rescuing from this place. The governor is off his rocker. They did pass that law saying you can carry weapons at school and church here. And of course the ballot said nothing that even remotely mentioned guns in schools. So I feel super safe at school.
How completely vulgar–words fail me! You can carry a gun to school and to church? Oy!
Perhaps I shall write you a blog about it for next year. After Newtown I asked my daughters school what they planned to do about security with the new law, her response, well if anyone wants to bring a gun to school legally there is nothing we can do about it. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and safe inside.
This is so vulgar that words fail me. If you blog about it I will reblog it.
ok remind me:)
Malevolent Mike makes me mad!!!
Horrific Huckabee: Harbinger of Hubris and Hate. 🙂