The US has joined the Third World.
I am not talking about its economy, which is in pretty bad shape to be sure. I am talking about its political discourse, which has in these last few days devolved into unruly, hate-filled mobs.
It is, I suppose, the logical conclusion to decades of deliberate political divisiveness, fostered by vitriolic TV and radio commentators and condoned by the ruling party. After decades of hearing the right-wingers call the other guys names, while trumpeting the supposed successes of the guy in the White House, the public has taken the next inevitable step.
Make the other guy an enemy of the nation. Accuse him, a US citizen and senator of a midwestern state, of associating with terrorists, no, actually to accuse him of being a terrorist himself. Call him an Arab. And say we need to kill him.
We are supposedly exporting our form of democracy to the rest of the world. Too late. We have imported the hate-filled, violent forms of "democracy" in Latin American and Africa we used to sneer at. Now, I doubt anyone would want our electoral process; it's too destabilizing.
You don't have to be a mental giant to figure out the reasons for the rise of the "hateration nation." They are the shameful remnants of a shameful past that have lain dormant and unspoken for decades.
Bigotry. Anti-intellectualism. And unadulterated fear.
We've seen it before. Hitler came to power by preying on the public's need for scapegoats: he offered them the Jews. Jim Crow died in the South only after decades of at times violent and lethal attacks on hapless blacks and peaceful civil rights workers.
Martin Luther King Jr. was shot.
It is difficult for me to pretend I am a member of the "hateration nation," but here's how I think their minds work (if you can call it that).
Given: a Democratic, liberal candidate with a funny name. It sounds a little bit like Osama. We know Osama is a terrorist, because the president says we're at war with Osama and all other terrorists. They attacked us on 9/11. They might again. All Arabs therefore must be mistrusted. They hate us. They aren't Christian. They want to overthrow our country and make us all Muslims. We hate Arabs.
Given: The candidate with the funny name is only half American. His father was an African, who left his white wife. The candidate lived in a Muslim country. His middle name is Hussein -- that's an Arab name. So more than likely he's a mole, a spy for the Arabs who are trying to overthrow this great Christian nation. I saw that movie with Frank Sinatra in it. Besides, he's from Hawaii -- it's not really part of America. There's all those Chinese-looking people there.
Given: The candidate is ... black! We can't have a black man as president. I'm not too sure they should have even been allowed to vote. Black men are terrorists of a different sort. They threaten people. They are crime lords. I'm afraid of black men. They're all out to get us whites. Some of them are Muslim, like that Farrakhan guy.
Given: I read the World Net Daily all the time. It says this Obama guy used to hang out with terrorists right here in the USA. They bombed buildings back in the '60s, for some kind of civil rights thing. I think they were just trying to kill whites. They were black. I'm afraid of blacks. Maybe Obama wants to kill whites, too.
Given: That Sarah Palin girl -- isn't she so cute? -- said Obama used to pal around with terrorists. She wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. She goes to church and she's a mom. I bet she bakes apple pies for her family. So she couldn't be a liar. They wouldn't let her lie anyway. It's wrong.
Given: The economy is falling apart. A bunch of friends are going to lose their jobs. Some lost their houses. It's the bankers and those investor guys on Wall Street; it's their fault. The country is in a mess. We need someone to take over who's normal. The last thing we need right now is change. Democrats would tax us to death -- that sweet girl Sarah says so -- so we can't have a Democrat. And especially not one who's black, and maybe a Muslim and maybe a terrorist. He's part of the plot to overthrow the US. Yes, that's it! An Arab conspiracy to take over the USA! We've got to stop it.
Given: John McCain -- the normal candidate -- tries too late to curb the hate. The crowd boos .. him? It's hard to tell. I can't really hear him anyway. I'm too busy yelling.
Result: Mob mentality. No thought, just raw emotion. A (we hope) minority of haterators inciting potential violence against a bona fide candidate for the presidency, who from all appearances might actually win.
Jesus, Joseph and Mary, people! If you only knew how this looks from the outside. The United States, the so-called protector of the free world, has hate-filled mobs threatening to kill a presidential candidate because they think he's a terrorist and because he's not church-supper, midwestern, Wonder Bread white.
Where is the moral leadership there? In a decent world, in the United States I thought we had become, someone of authority would try to quiet down the mobs, try to make them understand the US is a nation of laws, not emotions, not fear, not hate.
Having fomented the hate, it's now too late for McCain and Palin to stuff the tiger back in its cage. Bush? Who listens to him now? But he could try to be a statesman for once. These idiots who claim they're expert commentators, who represent "true" America. They could give it a shot, too. So could those creepy televangelist guys. They could maybe get the mobs to listen to common sense.
I am ashamed. I cannot put it any other way. Hate is not an American or a Christian emotion. Threatening candidates is patently illegal, and yes, unAmerican.
I have a fear, too. I'm not afraid of terrorists, or Osama, or black men, or even a possible depression. I'm not afraid of threats from without. I'm afraid of hate from within, and what it could create -- a USA I'm not sure I would ever want to return to.
As FDR said back in 1941, when we really were at war, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Too bad no one that eloquently reassuring is alive today.