It’s a time-worn trope among Republicans that the first black or woman President would be from their party. Long before Obama’s meteoric rise to the top of the Democratic ticket, talk show pundits were floating the idea, and as recently as August, conservative bloggers and columnists were still making the argument.

Prior to this year’s close race between Obama and Clinton, this idea seemed plausible. The Republican party has been incredibly skillful in recasting itself as being “no longer the home of old segregationist white men”, defining itself as a post-identity-politics party divorced from the country’s legacy of sexism and racism. The Bush administration has exemplified this new approach by placing a number of minorities in some of the highest positions of power—Condaleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and Alberto Gonzales—who have all functioned as strangely race-less and gender-less figureheads of inclusion.

It can be a seductive illusion. Regardless of your take on the individuals’ policies or ideologies (such as Gonzales’ sheer disregard of the Constitution), its undoubtedly historical to have a black woman serve as Secretary of State or a Mexican-American serve as Attorney General. But peel a bit beneath these ostensibly forward-thinking appointments, and you find good old boys hiding behind campaign strategies and reams of demographic and marketing research.

There’s a curious trajectory in the Republican move to portray itself as the party of inclusion. It’s difficult to pinpoint when this became a strategy, as opposed to the blatant race-baiting of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Clarence Thomas’ seat on the Supreme Court is the most obvious marker of this logistical sea change.

Such appointments are merely distactions from the party’s roots—and its continued, hidden, retrograde attitudes. On matters of race and gender, the Republican party has a dismal history, being a place for old white men who still yearn for the days of segregation, for evangelicals who blame victims for rape and abuse, and base their views on same-sex rights, sex education and abortion on superstition, not an alleigance to liberty. This is the party of George Allen and “macaca”, of Trent Lott and his segregationist hero Strom Thurmond, of Orrin Hatch and the “Good Ol’ Boys Roundup”—all relatively recent, racist outbursts from the post-Clarence Thomas Republican Party’s id.

The few remaining members of the party with a meager amount of historical literacy like to point to the Republican party as the party of Lincoln but that’s ridiculous—the Republican party of Lincoln’s time bore no resemblance to the party we now know, and its’ closest modern analogue would be the Democratic party.

The reaction of McCain/Palin audiences in recent weeks to Obama’s candidacy has revealed the racist and xenophobic undercurrent of much of the Republican “base”, if not its inherent sexism—though I’ve yet to meet a woman who isn’t waiting for the rapture who thinks that Palin represents her. Palin stands as an exemplary case of the party’s keen ability to find individuals who abandon the concerns of race or gender to be a beneficiary of the Republican party’s un-Affirmative Action initiative.

McCain cried fowl in last night’s debate about the associations between his campaign and supporters that consider Obama a “terrorist” who should be “hanged”, but this just continues the party’s policy of obfuscating its retrograde attitudes on race and gender. Palin and McCain have skated through these issues relatively unscathed, using proxies to do the dirty work. All the way from anti-Semitic Republican operative Andy Martin’s disturbingly effective efforts to cast Obama as Muslim, to Fox News’ outrageous headline last night that suggested Colin Powell’s “hip-hop dancing” was a sign he would endorse Obama, the racist undercurrent of the party is revealing its scales during this campaign.

As we can see from recent defections of Republican die-hards such as David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, and Ross Douthat,there is no place in the party left for decent, educated and intelligent individuals who are fiscally conservative and socially progressive. All that McCain and Palin have left is the base, the virulent mass of angry white Americans who are proud of their ignorance and blame immigrants and affirmative action for the failed economic policies of Wall Street, global bankers, and the post-Reagan Republican party. They and their proxies have shown the party’s seething underbelly; what’s worrying is what will come now this beast is unleashed.