Sunday, November 09, 2008
Opinion, Politics, "Stop the Presses"

Between partisanship and paranoia

With President-elect Barack Obama’s victory speech still ringing in the nation’s ears, I received an e-mail ...

By Kevin Forest Moreau

A few minutes after midnight last Wednesday, with President-elect Barack Obama’s victory speech still ringing in the nation’s ears, I received an e-mail from a friend (I’ll call him Chad), sent to everyone in his address book. Here’s the text of that message:

“Well, America has voted like they were watching ‘American Idol,’ and actually elected our very first Marxist president. I am horrified at the potential loss of freedom, frightened at how high my taxes are going to go, worried about (as Obama put it) my electricity bill ‘skyrocketing’ under his energy plan.



“For any of you reading this that voted for the Socialist, I hope you’re happy. You’re gonna get the change you so foolishly hoped for. Just like the Cubans got ‘change’ in 1960. Just like the Germans got ‘change’ in the 1930s. I hope Obama’s promised ‘Civilian National Security Force’ treats you mercifully. 



“I am disgusted with the people of this country right now. They have allowed themselves to be led down the primrose path by an extremely biased media and a smooth-talking, racist, Marxist radical.



“In my opinion, if you voted for that charlatan, the blood of the potential demise of our country is on your hands.

“Sleep well, comrades. Sleep well.”


Although I wasn’t shocked by my friend’s sentiments—he’s not one to downplay or sugarcoat his beliefs—I was surprised by the level of anger, bitterness and contempt in his late-night dispatch. Surprised, and disturbed.

Don’t get me wrong. I know many people who didn’t vote for Obama, who disagree fervently, even violently, with his policies. I work with quite a few of them, and I’m friends with many more. (I strongly, albeit respectfully, take issue with some of his stated positions myself.) But as deep as their political convictions run, none of them believe that our next president intends to implement a takeover of our rights and freedoms, like some handsome but deranged villain in a dystopian-future action thriller.

I also know that there are many people whose unhappiness at Obama’s victory goes beyond mere political difference, is steeped in a toxic stew of racial animosity and a bred-in-the-bone fear of anyone who doesn’t look, talk or think like they do.
 
But those people, for the most part, exist in some vague, faraway world with little connection to the one most of us walk through on a daily basis. In our minds, they huddle together in secret—in rundown Midwestern trailer parks, the living rooms of small, rural Southern towns, maybe a heavily fortified compound or two in the wilds of Montana. We know they’re out there. We feel their presence. But it’s largely indistinct, shadowy, like the threat of a terror attack on homeland soil. It doesn’t touch us. It can’t happen here.

People like Chad, however, are different. They’re not fearful loners or religious zealots. And most of them aren’t given to knee-jerk prejudices. I’ve known Chad for more than 20 years, and I honestly don’t believe him to be a racist. He’s smart, well-informed, a respected professional with a broad range of interests and a generous heart. And I believe that for the most part, he’s come to his political opinions honestly, through much consideration and observation.

And yet. My friend not only believes that Obama’s “spread the wealth” philosophy carries echoes of socialism, as many critics have pointed out; he believes it’s only a matter of time before Obama happily hands the keys to the country to Vladimir Putin. This otherwise reasonable, agreeable, funny and deeply likeable guy’s genuine beliefs and doubts have been fanned into roaring flames of distrust and obsession by right-wing radio blowhards and glib TV pundits for whom “fair and balanced” is just a crafty euphemism for the fears and biases they skillfully exploit in the name of ratings and personal glory.

Is Barack Obama perfect? No. Are there real differences of opinion in the electorate that should be debated and addressed? Yes. But that debate isn't going to happen, because Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and screechy weasels like Mark Levin and Michael Savage maintain a 24-hour drumbeat of apprehension, loathing and panic, wearing down the rational centers of the brains of people like Chad. Invited into the cars, homes and offices of sensible men and women, they introduce a corrosive agent into the national conversation, infecting it with a cancerous rot.

I’m not letting Chad off the hook; he’s a grown-up, and he’s chosen to swallow the poison peddled by the fearmongers who’ve insinuated themselves into the infrastructure of the Republican Party. Still, I’m deeply saddened by what I view as Chad’s skewed perspective. And I’m concerned about our own, as well. It’s easy, after all, to recognize the obvious nuts, the racists and the conspiracy theorists, for what they are. It’s a little more difficult, sometimes, to spot those troubled souls who hover in the purgatory between partisan politics and paranoia. SP 

Kevin Forest Moreau is Editor in Chief of The Sunday Paper.