I swear, every time I hear Newt Gingrich spout off, I think of the excellent 2020 book by Isabel Wilkerson, about the eight core beliefs that support the caste system. The “innate superiority vs. innate inferiority” pillar is what keeps Gingrich on TV.
Conservatives have known him since the first campaign in 1974. Back again Gingrich mentioned the campaign slogan – “Newt’s family is like your family” – although it is common knowledge that he cheated on his wife.
“Jackie is kind of frumpy,” Gingrich’s first press secretary told Ms. Jones. Gingrich reportedly told his campaign treasurer that his wife was not “pretty enough to be the president’s wife. Besides, she had cancer.”
So when Fox News’ Sean Hannity wanted someone to criticize the credibility of Vice President Kamala Harris, the natural choice was… Newt Gingrich. A man who faced an ethics investigation and was forced out as House speaker. The man who avoided paying more alimony and child support when he had a book advance of $4 million. Well, Fox News … America is just sad to hear what Gingrich has to say about credibility.
“Kamala is hopeless because she is Kamala,” she said this month. “Anyone who watches him knows that the idea of ​​him being president makes Biden look good, which is very difficult now. You have to start with the idea that he is imprinted in the country, permanently, he is a very shallow person, uneducated and uneducable. Except for the strange laugh he is not there an important part of him.
Harris graduated from Howard University and has a law degree. His mother left India to come to the United States in 1958 to study biochemistry. His father is an economist who teaches at Stanford. Both earned doctorates in their respective fields from Berkeley.
Gingrich called the vice president “uneducated” and “uneducable” not for truth and honesty but to protect a pillar of caste that would be threatened by the truth about Harris. That’s what Wilkerson identified in his book, “Caste: The Roots of Our Discontents,” as “innate superiority vs. innate inferiority.”
Quoting the 1942 observation of the Yale scholar Liston Pope, he wrote in the book: “The caste system has a way of filtering into each inhabitant, the code is absorbed like a mineral spring, setting expectations where it fits on the ladder. ‘condescending’ considers himself superior to the Negro.The colored man represents his last post against social neglect.
For 50 years, Gingrich’s political position has depended on what the polls say. What has been consistent is his willingness to humiliate. That sharp tongue was a hallmark of his early political career and was on full display when he talked about welfare reform in the 1990s. Her policy debate is an opportunity to use dehumanizing rhetoric to call anyone she deems “less than.” And by proxy, Gingrich’s supporters can also belittle those who need help.
Even after leaving Congress in scandal, and despite his well-documented mistreatment of women, Gingrich still told his audience: “We’re so much better.” And that’s why he felt comfortable saying the trivial things about Harris that he did. He knows that he is lying, but his lie brings comfort to those who cling to the pillars of the caste system.
Ava DuVernay adapted “Caste” for the big screen in 2023 with the movie “Origin,” which recently started streaming and landed in the Top 3 on Hulu. It does a good job of turning Wilkerson’s report into a compelling narrative about our humanity – our joys and pains. And do so in a desperate search for understanding and healing, rather than expressing trauma in a punitive tone.
During last season’s cinematic commercial hurricane that was Barbenheimer, “Origins” didn’t get the attention it deserved. In my second life, I’m glad I found more of an audience.
Voters who see this film well may think about the upcoming election in a different light – seeing the many ways caste continues to manifest in America and the eight pillars that underlie it.
Gingrich is a smart guy. He has a doctorate in European history. He chose his line of attack against Harris strategically, not to criticize the policies of the Biden administration, but to express the discomfort that many people have with the idea of ​​a black woman being president. And it supports the “inherent inferiority” pillar of the American caste system.
While neither major party will pass the purity test, there is only one party that continues to put the microphone in front of people like Gingrich … and it’s not because the audience wants to hear the truth.
