Mike Huckabee-Hardly a Folksy Conservative

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Mad Mike Huckabee isn’t all that he seems, which is not surprising for a Baptist preacher. While he portrays himself as a gentle, god-fearing soul he is, in reality, one nasty dude.

Mike Huckabee, who is announcing his campaign for the presidency today, has crafted an image of a nice, folksy “conservative who is not mad at anybody.” However, this image betrays the reality that the Republican leader has made a career of mean-spirited rhetoric and a propensity for conspiracy theories.

While has gained national attention for his personal attacks on celebrities like Beyoncé Knowles and Natalie Portman, Huckabee has spent years launching harsh attacks on the gay community while playing into right-wing fears about Obama’s upbringing and purported creation of a tyrannical government.

Hostility to Gay Rights

Huckabee’s folksy charm may not sway many gay rights supporters, as the former Arkansas governor has called for the mandatory quarantining of people with HIV/AIDS, defended ex-gay therapy and pledged to restore Don’t Ask Don’t Tell if elected president. Such remarks aren’t surprising, as Huckabee has also compared gays to Nazi propagandists, alcoholics and people who have sex with sheep. Most recently, he linked the purported danger of gay rights in the U.S. to the threat posed by the terrorist group ISIS. He has warned that same-sex marriage is a “perversion” that will lead to divine punishment and the end of America.

Opposition to gay rights has become such an emphasis in Huckabee’s political career that he threatened to leave the GOP because party leaders “abdicated” on the issue of gay marriage.

Despite all of this, Huckabee says that he and other conservatives are the real victims of the gay rights debate. He has accused gay rights advocates of trying to shut down churches and “criminalize Christianity,” even leveling the bogus charge that pastors can be prosecuted for refusing to officiate at a same-sex couple’s wedding.

Huckabee even recommended that people refuse to join the military until after Obama leaves office because of the president’s support for gay rights, which he says amounts to anti-Christian discrimination.

Obama Conspiracy Theories

Huckabee has leveled vicious attacks at Obama by bringing up his childhood, particularly the time he lived with his mother and stepfather in Indonesia, to suggest that the president is not a real American and not a Christian. Huckabee sparked controversy after he twice told conservative pundit Steve Malzberg that Obama grew up in Kenya, where his Kenyan father — whom the president met only once — and his grandfather — whom he never met — turned him against Western countries like Great Britain.

Huckabee said that it was merely a slip of the tongue, lashing out at journalists for refusing to read “page 183” of his book where he clearly stated Obama grew up partly in Indonesia. However, the mythical “page 183” does not talk about Indonesia (in fact, nowhere in Huckabee’s book is the country mentioned.)

In an interview with far-right talk show host Bryan Fischer, Huckabee said that he agreed with Fischer’s point that Obama’s childhood instilled in him “anti-Americanism.” Huckabee added: “The point was that they felt like that due to Obama’s father and grandfather it could be that his version and view of the Mau Mau Revolution was very different than most of the people who perhaps would grow up in the United States…. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.”

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Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.

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