I see it all the time. Liberal media commentators, most often persons of color like MSNBC's ubiquitous Joy Reid or, case in point today from the beautiful and brilliant Angela Rye (sorry, I'm a guy) on the Marin Bashir show who closed a passionate comment about the stunning irony of the war on Obamacare by saying of republican spokes-persons that "their constituents don't have the health care that they need...they continue to vote against their interests because members of Congress, who HAVE the best health care in the country, are telling them not to support this [ObamaCare] just because of who the president is and what he stands for." As much as I respect the likes of Ms. Rye, Ms. Reid, Prof. James Peterson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Karen Finney, commentator and radio host Joe Madison and other MSNBC "friendlies" , it is pure supposition and frankly a dangerous and un-unhelpful tendency to conclude that republican intransigence and contrarianism is "just because of who the president is and what he stands for" or "it's all because they hate Obama". Please excuse me for generalizing as not all the names I've mentioned have said those exact same words, but very often I'm afraid they similarly imply ideas to the same effect. And that is a biased and defensive way of reacting to something which may have nothing whatever at all personal against the president for who he is and what he stands for.
The truth is that today's Congress is not the Congress of our youth or our history. With the possible exception of a fossil or two like John McCain who has been in the Senate since Grant took Richmond, the whole Republican side of the two party system has become something other than one of two parties of the representative form of democracy our country has practiced for over two hundred years. The critical element as central as elections has been stripped and/or eroded away by what qualifies as at least a defacto tyranny if not a fully premeditated assault on government of the people, by the people and for the people for reasons clearly stated that have absolutely nothing to do with President Obama, who he is, or what he may seem, although the part about "what he stands for" is germane. But it's not specifically health care, it is for the traditional American form of democracy where losers abide by the outcomes of elections and remember that a political defeat does turn one automatically into enemies of the state who will destroy it if they do not indeed get just what they expected to in their unsuccessful election bid or legislation proposal.
One of several definitions of tyranny is "rule by the illegitimate". Losers of democratic processes i.e elections and/or votes on legislation in the Chambers of Congress who then take the country to financial ruin on short-sighted and vain premises, or shut down the government with unwillingness to do their jobs of facilitating the wheels of American process as determined by the will of the people and the majorities which represent democratically chosen victors, is "rule by the illegitimate".
We can not continue to have one party who observes tried and true American democratic traditions and another which has taken to becoming not friends in the same nation who do their best until the next election cycle for the good of the country but a full-time treacherous internal enemies with hungry partisan media industries with no scruples except to keep the pressure on, right or wrong, fair or not. And despite the easy appearance that it has everything to do with the president's skin color and his father's name and nonsense speculation that his birth place is outside of traditional bounds of the USA, if the president were a woman it would be sexism being used just as this disloyal horde who swept into the House of Representatives in 2010 did it with subtle but voluminous sexism--airing hundreds and hundreds of political ads using the honorable first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, as a human tackle dummy and punching bag over and over in ads that didn't need to mention her at all but just had to include the Rush Limbaugh dog whistle comment of "...voted with Nancy Pelosi on...." as if to imply every incumbent Democrat was joined at the hip with Nancy Pelosi on every vote (to all but remind everyone constantly of the disgraceful way that misogynist hate monger Rush Limbaugh portrayed the first woman speaker routinely).
There is no certainty--only appearance that republicans have turned enemy just because of who the president is and what he stands for. There is however not only evidence of a true historical break with American democratic tradition which foments a perverse loyalty to a clique, a mob, a gang--a criminal loyalty to each other's secret disgrace of having signed an unlikely tyrant's blind ideological totality which they then hold higher than the true oath of office sworn with hand on the Bible. It is this glue of fear and disgrace--and the fear of incurring the wrath of the mighty overlords who will dispatch them to career assassination by right wing partisan media if not complete evisceration by the Chief Inquisitioner of the fake republican stand-in mob, Rush Limbaugh.
What is the stated goal of the very real and unique brush with American tyranny we are facing which is nowhere near as subjective as race hatred of president Obama?
It is "to shrink the US federal government until is is small enough to drown in a bath tub". That is what the thing called the "sequester" is doing. But it's never enough for this gang of low-grade signatories of Norquist's blind ideology. They've been getting use out of the political dog whistle word "spending" for so long, they can't stop even though the deficit has come down by 60% and will cure itself if we just had some cooperation from our fellow Americans. But no. They have left the America we still believe in. They want to kill it. Drown it. They are reckless and vain and petty. They know not where they take us, as long as it's them and not the people the majority had chosen to do so.
The colluders in this tyranny are not united as much in their hate of President Obama--no, not nearly are they united in that as they are in fear of breaking ranks and incurring the foam at the mouth wrath of the Chief Inquisitioner of the stand-in republican gang of third rate boobs who signed Grover Norquist's patently un-American blind ideological totality to have a chance to play Congress-people on TV while simply acquiescing to a mob that has replaced the republican party and meddling wealthy industrialists who want no law so they can profiteer unfettered by law, conservation or common sense. They got a war wrong and we let them off the hook. Shame on us.
Please brothers and sisters, and you Mr. President, this is not about you. Norquist, Club for Growth, the Kochs, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, and a host of others have republican Congress's balls in the same vice, and some gleefully put them there and don't need to have anything squeezed, tyvm Mr. Cantor. They are the worst kind of liars and cheats--the ones who wrap themselves in the most flags and want god in your school while privatizing your prison. We need to stop this over-simplification that this is just racism and see that we're are living two untenable realities. One must prevail. And it must be the one for which US law already exists--not the make it up as you go along insanity of today's right. You and I know they have nothing to go to and just want to rip down. They are not a qualified demolition crew to say the least--just a bunch of ambitious nuts to whom law must be applied. Racism is a red herring in this case and their think-tanks love that there a liberals seeing little more than it's all about hating on Obama. That's not to say there's no racism, just that we do a disservice by ignoring tangible wrong-doing on an epic scale by dismissing it all to hopeless old racism. Those think tankers get paid well to know the value of illusion even if it's unflattering.