In late December, Daily Kos featured writer Denise Oliver Velez asked her readers to select "the group or individual whose words and/or deeds [in 2013] best exemplified bigotry and the active effort to suppress and oppress people of color in the United States, in the manner exemplified by the Ku Klux Klan."
On Sunday, Oliver Velez reported that well over 9,000 votes had been cast in the poll, and that the winner was... the GOP's Tea Party wing, which received 23 percent. First runner-up was Rush Limbaugh, at 19 percent, with Fox News Channel finishing third at 17 percent.
Regarding the tea-partiers' triumph, Oliver Velez opined:
No real surprise here.
Teapublicans are equal opportunity haters. They, and those who fund them—like the Koch Brothers—are truly an American Taliban, and just like the KKK unleashed a reign of terror in the U.S. during reconstruction and into the civil rights era, the teahadists among us and those they elect to office are as much or more of a terrorist threat to our nation than any outside forces...
In Oliver Velez's original post, she listed fourteen nominees that also included George Zimmerman, Ted Cruz, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, and country singer-songwriter Brad Paisley (because of his song "Accidental Racist"). Readers also could select "other" and then specify the supposed racist(s) in the comments section.
