I started paying attention to the "debate" side of the health care reform process on Saturday, after I heard that some Tea Partiers yelled "nigger" at John Lewis and other black members of Congress. And they yelled "fag" at Barney Frank, too.

I'd read plenty about the vitriol on all sides, of course, but I didn't get pissed off. Rhetoric will be rhetoric, and it's been apparent for months (if not years) that the main Republican argument against expanded health care is (and I paraphrase, but only slightly) that government intervention isn't necessary because folks who don't have health care should simply get better jobs that will provide health care.

Republicans don't make that argument in public much, largely because it sounds elitist and rather ungenerous. There's a reason for that. The "policy" is elitist and ungenerous.

More troubling for Republicans is the plain fact that many (if not most) of the people who will be helped by health care changes aren't white. And while it can be difficult to figure out what the Republicans stand for these days, it's not hard to figure out who Republicans are. Right now, the Republican Party is the white people's party.

While that may still be an advantageous position today, it won't be for long. The Tea Party folks are just the latest manifestation of the "angry white man," guys who are worried that their position of dominance in American society is fading. They're right to worry, of course, because while white guys still run things, the time when that won't be true lies just over the horizon.

America: It's not just for white people any more.

About damned time, too.

In any case, the mild rebukes of the bigots in the Tea Party protest lines are almost stunning. Michael Steele, the GOP party chairman, called them "idiots." Idiots? Idiots are people who say things like "That's what your mama said." Bigoted assholes are, well, bigoted assholes. It would have been refreshing for someone--anyone--to come out and denounce such attacks by declaring that people who say such things are not welcome in the Republican Party. Just, you know, for starters.

But the Republican leadership can't do that, because their rational arguments against the health care bill (remember: poor people should get better jobs so that they can get health care) haven't gone over very well. So Republicans went for the emotional pitch, one full of half-truths (and even no-truths) and increasingly hateful rhetoric. Scare tactics do work, and folks who are already scared (like old white guys) are generally quite willing to go ballistic if given half a chance.

Which means that the Republicans are not just the party of the white folks, but more specifically, the party of the white bigots. I think almost all Republicans would agree that this is not a good thing.

For more than 40 years, Republicans have been trying to re-woo the conservative black voters they lost with their party's strong "principled" opposition to the Equal Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. In addition, Nixon's "southern strategy" worked wonders for his electoral chances, but it also helped the GOP lose three generations of black voters. So now, with their unceasing attacks on the first black president, they're pissing off the first generation in decades that might be (modestly) receptive to their pitch.

It's bad enough to be on the wrong side of history, as Republicans clearly are. It's even worse when you justify your archaic position with dumptrucks full of fear and loathing.

Truth be told, it's difficult for a conservative political party to be on the right side of history. After all, human beings like to see societies move forward, not backward. Making history by declaring pre-emptive war (or, to be more accurate, engaging in pre-emptive war without a declaration) seems somewhat less momentous than something like health care reform, even if it isn't.

The funny thing about all this current nonsense is that a significant number of Republicans (moderate and liberal Republicans, to be sure) did vote with Democrats in 1964 and 1965. Those Republicans could see the road ahead and wanted to be part of the future. Apparently, today's Republicans prefer the past--a past that includes white hoods and burning crosses and pink triangles and the like.

Long live the future.

Jon Worley almost wrote about the time he grilled for Alex Chilton, Jody Stephens and the Posies boys at the first Big Star reunion show back in 1993. But he got a little worked up about something else.