Atop the list of Daily KOS recommended which came today,7/4, was a diary entitled "An open letter to the people who hate Obama more than they love America" written by Daily KOS member Ministry of Truth. I have no criticism--just a perspective which may illuminate more than brute emotion. The appearances of hate, bigotry and racism the author mentioned are surely there in abundance to be seen. It's how they are thought of and what they are called which may reveal a criminal use of them we haven't seen on this scale and don't yet understand which is being used to rattle emotions on both sides of the political divide. It is said that "they have all the money but we have all the people". So why should elections be close if not much less lost to the unqualified, reckless, petty, ignorant?
For one, we on the left should not start our view of right wing bigotry at the expense of the country with President Obama--our first black President. He got a chance to be re-validated and a majority of the American people did so. No, the right wing bigotry much less framed and written into history that changed America must for the worst is the despicable media hate campaign ran against the first woman Speaker of the House in 2010. The Democrats, as they are apt to do, tried to break a ceiling with Speaker Pelosi and if you don't remember, I sure do that her name and image were used more than gratuitously in 2010 in political ads linking he with a hit jobs on every Democratic incumbent. It worked so well, Mark Sanford could still take advantage of Pelosi hatred years after through his choice to debate a Pelosi cardboard cutout instead of his real female opponent--Elizabeth Colbert Busch. Might not an implied message be that the woman herself does not matter. For all intents and purposes women are interchangeable.
An idea like that can only come from men who have withdrawn from democracy themselves and become units of a true "group-think". Only these units of sameness have long acquiesced to a gang group-think who for the favor of donors, refuse to act as independent minds in a democracy but live lavishly with the appearance power under the quit but constant threat of loss of privilege. Their wives face shunning from much-valued social privilege they enjoy, and their children not only risk banishment from the "A team", they can find themselves out of the "A-school"minus the promised mentor-ship which opens doors for the family name in perpetuity. If those perks draw one--especially the socially illiterate if not snobbishly anti-scocial into high stakes "gang" activity--like saying whatever you have to to get into Congressional office where you can do the gang's bidding, add on a stint in federal prison for good measure for breaking the right wing ranks and not acting how you're told to send the messages you were told to whether you really hate, etc as much as you are made to appear.