So Rudy Giuliani thinks Obama does not say that he loves his country. There are two petty issues here, but I want to emphasize a bigger one.
First petty issue: this is simply untrue. Obama has said repeatedly that he loves his country.
Second petty issue: Saying you love your country does not mean you do. Anyone can say that, most do, including known traitors. What is more important is demonstrating that you love your country. Loving your country does not mean agreeing with everything the country does, nor does it mean (sorry, Sean) claiming in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary that we are the best at everything we do. Loving your country means wanting it to be the best that it can be, it means recognizing areas where we are falling behind other countries and learning from them how we can do things better.
But all of this is beside the point. My question is, when and how did it become OK to challenge the patriotism of people you disagree with?
I am 65 years old, I vaguely remember the Eisenhower/Stevenson races, and I certainly remember the contests of 1960 and later. People disagreed with each other back then nearly as much, and as vigorously, as they do now. But I cannot remember any time between 1960 and now when there was ever a question of the other guy’s patriotism.
People back then generally agreed that there was a problem, and disagreed on how to solve it. People today are exactly the same, with one important difference: in addition to claiming that the policies advocated by the other side would lead to disaster and screw the country, politicians these days have no qualms about saying that the other team wants to screw the country on purpose! They are actively working for the downfall of the country, not because they are misguided and believe falsely that their policies will actually be good for the country, but because they desire this downfall.
How did this become part of the political discourse? Why can we not disagree over policy and its likely outcomes without impugning the motives of the people we disagree with?
I’m no historian, but much as we liberals hated and disagreed with Nixon and Reagan, I don’t recall anyone claiming that they were motivated by a desire to destroy their country. My first recollection of politics becoming personal, at least in recent history, was during the Clinton years. Republicans from the beginning tried to portray the Clintons not just as people they disagreed with on matters of policy, but as common criminals. There was Whitewatergate, Travelgate, Filegate, even a murder charge; in the face of all this, it is amusing that what they eventually got Clinton on was sex. Yet through all this, I don’t recall anyone suggesting that Clinton was actively seeking the demise of the country.
Things were no better in the Bush/Cheney years, with the tables turned. This time it was the Democrats calling the Republicans criminals. The lead-up to the Iraq war was so obviously premeditated and manufactured, speculation was rampant about why the administration would do what it did. Was it W wanting to one-up Poppy? Was it pure profit-making for Haliburton and other companies? Was it cronyism with other Middle East leaders? There are many theories about motives for the war other than that the administration thought it was the right thing to do, but still, through all this, there has never been any talk that I am aware of that the administration invaded Iraq because they thought it would be bad for America, that they were actively trying to do harm to America. Relatively few would deny, at this point, that they actually did harm the country, but no one has accused even Cheney and Rumsfeld, the chief bogeymen of the Democrats, of desiring that outcome.
Then comes Obama, and the gloves come off. From the moment he was elected (actually, before), the right wing blogosphere was full of outright lies that have now been repeated so often that nearly half of Republicans actually believe them: Obama is a Muslim, Obama is not a US citizen, etc. The opposition, far from satisfying itself with disagreeing with him, has called virtually every act he has taken an affront to the Constitution, and instead of arguing, as the opposition should, that he is destroying the country, they argue that he wants to destroy the country. Not just the looney right, but formerly respected politicians like Giuliani, say that he does not love his country and is actively trying to bring about its downfall.
This is new, isn’t it? Or am I missing something?
It’s almost amusing, because the people who are actually rooting for America to fail are all Republicans, who have worked like the devil to make sure that nothing Obama proposes could possibly succeed, and who have said out loud that they hope for his policies to fail so they can prove him wrong. As low as Democrats can go, even at the height of the Bush years, while we were predicting the failure his Iraq war, I don’t know any who were actually rooting for its failure.
I do not know how American politics can sink any lower. However, Hillary is on the horizon, so I’m sure they will find a way.