Reply #27: I think that's a silly ad hoc argument. [View All]

I'm not suggesting that race doesn't play a part in this, or that the republicans haven't been using race to their electoral advantage for some time.

I do think its an oversimplification to say that this situation is entirely rooted in race. Notice how the Republicans went against their supposed principles in 2004 by demeaning John Kerry, a war hero, and attacking his record of service. That wasn't a race issue that I'm aware of, but it was another situation where the Republicans were being overtly hateful. Recall Anne Coulter calling John Edwards "faggot" at the 2008 CPAC; was that racially motiviated?

The Republicans are routinely told who they should hate by Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter and Sean Hannity, and the rest of the right wing goon squad who have been pushing violent and hateful rhetoric non-stop for at least 15 years. The right wing is well trained to hate and demonize anyone their masters tell them at a moment's notice. The difference with Obama is that he is uniquely able to push five or six "outsider" buttons for these people at once. He is black, he has a foreign sounding name, his father was a foreigner, he is self-made, his mother was a white lady who bore a black man's child, he is well educated, he is well spoken, and he blew their favorite illiterate half-term governer out of the water in the last election. This equates to a higher level of vehemence in the right wing resistance to Obama; its why they can paint Hitler mustaches on his picture, and parade around with them without any sense of irony. He literally stands for everything they think of as anathema to their values.

What his race doesn't do, though, is fundamentally change the relationship your average right winger has to left leaning politicians. The usual approach is blind unreasoning hatred no matter who the politician is or what position he/she takes on any given issue.