Guardian UK: Barack Obama must beware the rise of the angry white man

[marmar]

Barack Obama must beware the rise of the angry white man
Bill Clinton faced the sometime violent fury of middle America's dispossessed. Now, the same ugly face confronts Barack Obama

Michael Crowley
The Observer, Sunday 16 August 2009


On that heady evening last August when Barack Obama claimed the Democratic presidential nomination before an adoring throng in Denver, it seemed possible he could change the very nature of American politics. Americans, Obama said, had "lost our sense of common purpose". He vowed to restore "the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort". It seemed entirely plausible, as Andrew Sullivan had argued in an influential December 2007 Atlantic magazine essay: "If you are an American who yearns to finally get beyond the symbolic battles of the boomer generation and face today's actual problems, Obama may be your man," Sullivan wrote. Obama, he argued, could usher in a new era of post-baby boomer politics, one that would transcend the culture wars that had dogged America since Vietnam and the rise of Richard Nixon.

One year later, politics in America has indeed changed, but largely in the sense that the fury that liberals once directed at George W Bush has largely been transferred to the conservatives now raging against Obama. That much has been clear in the spectacle at this month's congressional town hall forums around the country, where the debate over Obama's healthcare reform plan has become a focal point for familiar themes of conservative cultural resentment.

The town hall events attracted gun rights zealots carrying handguns. Anti-abortion fanatics screamed at congressmen about taxpayer-funded infanticide. Anti-government ideologues, including the newly unemployed Facebook provocateur Sarah Palin, warned of socialism, the loss of "freedom" and technocratic elites allegedly plotting to decide which infirm Americans shall live and which shall die before what Palin has despicably labelled "death panels". So much for common purpose and the grace to bridge divides.

To witness the mad, hysterical spectacle is to appreciate what has become increasingly obvious for months now: that despite the earnest hopes of the misty-eyed Obamamaniacs, things are not so different in Obama's America. Indeed, we are witnessing the latest iteration of the long-running American culture war that Sullivan and others promised Obama would transcend. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/16/michael-crowley-barack-obama

[BlooInBloo]

1. White guy tells black guy to watch out for angry white folks? Is this a joke?

[Terry_M]

3. Read the whole article?

A lot more to it than that....

[rusty charly]

2. People hatred of Bush didn't stem from his race,

it stemmed from his ineptitude.

BIG, BIG, BIG difference. And equating liberal frustration at the Bush years hardly equates with what's going on now with Obama. Not in the least.

[Thickasabrick]

4. A reminder of what happened in 1994 is very important. K&R nt

[Apollo11]

5. Fortunately, the same newspaper also has a more accurate article

Michael Crowley is a senior editor of the New Republic magazine. His opinion piece (in the OP) was published in the comment section of today's The Observer (August 16th), which is a Sunday newspaper based in London and sister publication of The Guardian (Monday - Saturday).

Also in today's The Observer, the World news section includes a more fact-based article which sets out how low the right-wing have sunk. Here I am using the original headline from the London edition of the newspaper (not the web version which is toned-down for readers around the world) ...

The Observer, Sunday 16 August 2009

Obama becomes target amid fear extremism will turn into violence

Paul Harris in New York

Hate speech is in danger of entering the political mainstream in America as the number of far-right milita groups soars

The message was clear. The sign carried by a 51-year-old man last week outside a raucous town hall meeting on healthcare in Hagerstown, Maryland, read "Death to Obama". Just to emphasise his point, a second message was also scrawled on the cardboard placard. "Death to Obama, Michelle and 2 stupid kids," it stated.

Welcome to the disturbing new face of the radical right in America. Across the country, extremism is surging, inflamed by conservative talkshow hosts, encouraged by Republican leaders and propagating a series of wild conspiracy theories. Many fear it might end in tragedy.

Obama has been labelled as a threat to democracy and an anti-white racist by senior presenters on the TV channel Fox News. Republicans, seizing on the fierce debate over Obama's plans to reform healthcare, have called him a socialist who plans "death panels" for the elderly. Rumours have circulated that Obama was not born in America and that he plans to ban firearms. Despite having no basis in fact, they have become widely believed. (...)

Such extremism is becoming a major security issue, prompting fears of an attack on Obama's life or some other incident of domestic terrorism. (...)

Read the whole article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/16/obama-rightwing-extremist-fears