Jeremiah Wright’s resurrection

By Rahiel Tesfamariam

While Barack Obama was still hot on the campaign trail in his first bid for presidency, many Democrats began to fear that his history of church attendance at Trinity United Church of Christ under the pastoral leadership of Rev. Jeremiah. Wright would cost him the election. Four years later, as the NY Times reports that a Republican “super PAC” has plans to unleash an intense advertising campaign intended to resurrect the controversy, it’s important to reflect on why the G.O.P.’s use of the strategy mattered so much then and why it still matters now.

While Joe Ricketts, the billionaire who would have backed the proposal but has now disavowed himself from it, and Mitt Romney (like John McCain before him) have chosen to not participate in this form of character assassination, the mere existence of the proposal and the care that went into laying it out suggests to me that the G.O.P. has no problem playing on racialized fear in its campaign efforts.
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