Playing With Fire

by digby

I understand why neither the authorities or the media want to make too big of a deal about assassination plots against Obama by knuckleheads. Elevating such things to a Big Story might just make some people think it’s worth doing. But sadly, knuckleheads are often the perpetrators of such crimes and the fact that we have had two plots (that we know of) thwarted already makes me very nervous.

I grew up in a time when American political leaders were assassinated with alarming frequency. It almost happened as recently as 1981, although the perpetrator was a nutcase rather than a racist or someone with a political agenda. It’s not a relic of some distant time in our history. And this election is running on some of those very same fault lines in American life, adding to the victimology of the right wing and feeding into some very ugly corners of the American lizard brain.

If anything happens, I will hold Republicans responsible for failing to call out the disgusting behavior of their rabid base and very explicitly and frequently reminding their neanderthal followers that political differences are not a cause for violence. Lying about Obama “palling around with terrorists” was damned close to endorsing an assassination attempt. It’s no wonder that knuckleheads are out there scheming.

Reader Jake from North Carolina sent this in to me last night:

We (Asheville) are hosting Ms. Palin in the arena this evening in a big, last-minute and hastily planned rally.

People have come from all over the southeast. Primarily, the crowd is local, but there seems to be a large contingent from South Carolina, just about an hour’s drive from here. The crowd was estimated to be about 8,000, but I can tell by how long the line is (and comparing it to concerts that have had large turnouts), that there’s easily 15,000 out there. The line has gone around the block completely and backed up around back to the front door again…

You should see this crowd. These people all look normal enough, until you really start studying them. Most are happy, but about every third one is angry and quite willing to scrap with the occasional protester that wonders by (The good news, about one of every 10 is an Obama supporter.) I’ve spoken to a few, they’re very sure they’re going to win. That Palin is going to be the next VP, and shortly, the Pres. Comments on our local paper’s site show that people are taken with the notion that Palin is just like their neighbors wife.

I didn’t delve into “why” they were so sure that things are going to swing their way. Maybe they believe that they’ve prayed about it fervently enough. Maybe the fact that so many are from the reddest of red states where red state media only serves up red meat to chew on has skewed their world view. One can only imagine. Maybe in their last meeting in the great conspiracy cornfield were they all meet to breed they discussed the proper techniques for stealing votes. Who knows?

It only takes one of those disappointed true believers who have been convinced that Obama is a Muslim socialist in league with terrorists to do something stupid. particularly since millions of them will be convinced that ACORN stole the election for him. If you think that all this doesn’t tie into those white supremacist twits they caught today, think again:

The right wing continues to link the fight for black equality with socialism and communism. At the website of conservatism’s flagship publication, National Review, conservatives like Andy McCarthy argue whether Obama is “more Maoist than Stalinist,” and National Review writer Lisa Schiffren explicitly argued this summer that Obama must have communist links based on his interracial background. Schiffren mused, “for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.”

This conclusion is one she shares with Robert Shelton, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s, who declared that “amalgamation is ultimately the goal of the Communist element.” (To be fair, these conclusions make a bit of sense: could there be a more perfect vessel for a secret communist takeover of the United States than a biracial one-term senator from Chicago with an Arabic-sounding name? At a Starbucks somewhere, Chairman Mao is leeching WiFi for a quick instant message to William Ayers: “It’s happening exactly how we planned it.”)

McCain, a child of privilege who spent the late 1960s in a Vietnamese prison camp, may simply be unaware of the feelings and historical context he has evoked through his campaign’s rhetoric. When Sarah Palin accuses Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and suggests that Obama hates his own country enough to wish it violence, the McCain campaign fuels age-old paranoia built around the conflation of black rights and the radical left. As for McCain himself, his attempts to tamp down the vitriol of his crowds suggest that he is somewhat confused by their response. He wants voters to dislike Obama, but he seems unaware of just what he has unleashed. However, by implicitly invoking the idea that Obama represents a socialist takeover of the United States, McCain is inviting what can only be a rational response from those who would die for their country: violence. What else is a patriot to do when freedom is threatened? Especially when their fears have been validated by no less authoritative a source than the Republican nominee for president of the United States?

Here are Rush’s comments on today’s nonsense regarding Obama’s comments in 2001 about the Supreme Court:

LIMBAUGH: I just think it’s about the economy right now. You mentioned cap gains — that may be a little sophisticated. But this Obama tape that’s out there is not. It’s not too sophisticated. It is easily understood. When you’ve got a guy out there saying that he doesn’t believe in the U.S. Constitution, yet he’s got to take an oath to defend it and protect it. I mean, did Hillary put this out? Where’s this been? How come this has not come out until now? Now there’s a lot of undecideds and that’s where this tape and that’s where the economic mantle on Obama can have some impact here in the final week.

Yeah right, saying Obama doesn’t believe in the constitution is an “economic” argument. It plays directly into some of the more arcane weirdness in the far right about blacks and communism and Muslims forcing Sharia law on your virgin daughters and all sorts of wingnut crazy that’s only going to get worse if the Democrats win. He knows exactly what kind of fear and rage he’s feeding.

These conservatives are playing with fire, just like those firebugs out here in California who persist in playing with matches on the dried up hillsides and causing catastrophes.

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