AT THIS POINT, I THINK I'D SETTLE FOR REPUBLICANS CONCEDING THAT DEMOCRATS AREN'T SUBHUMAN

I've long since given up on the notion that Republicans will ever compromise with Democrats, and now I'm reminded that they refuse to do so for a simple reason: they don't think Democrats are human. Or at least they don't think Democrats have full human rights. I was reminded of this when I glanced at Jacob Weisberg's Jon Huntsman profile in Vogue and my eye fell on this this har-har-har good-ol'-boy anecdote about a Huntsman campaign appearance in Greer, South Carolina:

Henry McMaster, the state's silver-haired former attorney general, then makes the political tenor of the room explicit when he rises to introduce Jon Huntsman in his thick-as-gravy drawl. "Some of you folks may remembah that I made a pledge that I looked forward to the day Democrats in South Carolina were so rare we'd have to start huntin' em with dawgs," McMaster intones. "It's come true! You cay-ant find any!"

Good grief.

Now, some of you will read this as racism -- in reality, what's left of the Democratic Party in South Carolina is mostly black. McMaster would have no trouble finding African-American Democrats in the state, but they're irrelevant to him. The only population that counts for him is the white Democratic population.

Though I suppose he's just transferred his ancestors' dehumanization of blacks to (in his fantasy) white Democrats, or (if you don't interpret this the way I do) Democrats in general.

What's the matter, you'll say -- can't I take joke? Nope, not one like this.