Home > Right-Wing Extremism > Obama Rage

Obama Rage

April 20th, 2010

A lot of people have spent a good chunk of time trying to analyze why the right wing is so hysterically, incoherently apoplectic about Obama. The conservatives screech that they’re being taxed to death, when all Obama has done is lowered taxes for the vast majority of Americans. They go into fits of rage over how Obama is so liberal that he is in fact a communist or a socialist when his record shows him to be at worst a left-leaning centrist. And they seem completely immune to consistency or fact, going ballistic over how Obama’s nuclear treaty when in fact it is absolutely in line with the dream and legacy of Ronald Reagan, a man these people worship as a near-god.

A big part of it is simply stubborn ideological opposition. “Stubborn” is too weak a word, of course: monolithic, primal, absolute, unyielding, spiteful, rage-filled opposition is a bit closer to the actual flavor. Like the Republicans in Congress, they would oppose a bill to prevent the drowning of puppies if it was something Obama was pushing for. It could be a bill completely identical to legislation presented by the GOP just two years ago and they would call it every name in the book and oppose it with every fiber of their being. As Limbaugh and others said from the start, they want Obama to fail. They backtrack a bit in saying that they want him to fail because they think his policies are poison and thus opposing them is saving the country, but the facts over time betray their real agenda. Several times they have steadfastly opposed legislation and policies they previously endorsed and even forwarded themselves. No, they want Obama to fail even (or especially) if it means America also fails. Because this is not about doing what is right, it is about power. It is about besmirching any effort by anyone to the left of the right wing as being so toxic and so abject a failure that the public will not even consider electing anyone but stolid right-wingers. And if America has to take some damage in the process, well, in the long run we’ll be better off, so the reasoning probably goes.

There are other elements as well. Selfishness–or perhaps, more fairly, a skewed sense of entitlement–is certainly one of them. “I’ve got mine, you go to freakin’ hell” could be the motto for many of these people. Their states are at the rich end of the government trough, their leaders boast of their ability to shovel pork to their constituents, and the people themselves viciously defend their absolute right to collect as much social security, medicare, and other entitlements and handouts as they can grab. At the same time, however, they explode with indignant anger at the thought of anyone else getting the same benefits out of their tax dollars. Thus we get the otherwise incoherent shouts of “government-run medical insurance is an evil communist plot and don’t you dare touch my Medicare!” They want–no, demand–the benefits wrung from the tax dollars of others, but flare up in wild rage if anyone else tries to do it. They envision “anyone else” as being liberal elites who want to spend other people’s money, poor people who slack off and then live off of government handouts, and illegal immigrants who come to America solely for free education, health care, and social security payments. The image of the leftist, lower-class, con artist “welfare queen” Reagan conjured up a quarter of a century ago has acquired alien and ideological grafts and has mutated into a grotesque, many-tentacled monster ransacking the public treasury. The right-wingers see themselves as the “real Americans,” the only ones who are hard-working, honest, and actually contributing to society, and everyone else is stealing from them.

And then let’s face it, one more element is that awful, dirty word that right-wingers instantly become indignant upon hearing: racism. I will fully concede that it is not the most powerful element; the aforementioned ideological opposition and self-centered attitudes are the dominant forces at work. But it is undeniable that racism is a thread in this tapestry, often running beneath the fabric but nonetheless an integral part of it. Most of it is muted, understated, veiled, or the subject of displacement. But it is there, and it is deeply woven. The larger right-wing crowd tries to ignore the white supremacists standing in the back, and they are in denial over their own subtle racism which is, they would say, not racism but simply a “reasoned” and “rational” case of “recognizing the facts.” They make a big deal over how they are always unjustly branded as “bigots” and “racists” and yet see nothing inconsistent with holding up signs of Obama dressed as a witch doctor, or forwarding emails with photos of the president photoshopped to resemble a 1980’s pimp and Michelle as a hooker out of Super Fly. From Curious George imagery to Rush Limbaugh’s “Magic Negro,” from the disputably objectionable cartoon of police shooting Obama-as-chimpanzee dead to the overtly racist “Obama family portrait,” there has been no shortage of either racism nor its tacit approval and enjoyment among the right.

The racism element also ties in with the sense of entitlement. A theme which has long run in American society is the persecuted majority, or the oppressed ruling class. The white majority, the male dominance, the Christian throngs, the right-wing power base, what have you–it is the picture of a social group which holds a drastically disproportionate majority of the power, wealth, and privileges in society, and yet sees itself as being unjustly robbed and persecuted by the very people who lack the very same power, wealth, and privileges. White males dominate the higher-paying, higher-ranking positions throughout society, with racial discrimination undeniably playing a substantial part, and yet somehow these same people are put upon by minorities and women trying to get “special privileges” like equal pay, fair employment practices, or simply laws which would protect them from being beaten to death. Christianity permeates society, pushing all other faiths and beliefs to the sidelines, vilifying Islam and atheism (“supporting” Israel only because they must control Jerusalem before they are killed or converted to Christianity upon the Second Coming), is unconstitutionally injected into all levels of government and slowly creeping into the marriage bed with the state–but when a few stores advertise “holiday sales” instead of “Christmas sales,” there is suddenly a “war on Christians” which is grinding them into the dirt and depriving them of their sacred rights. This “persecuted” part of society feels that conservative white Christian males being in control is simply the natural state of things, and when they see any part of this disturbed, they feel as if they have been robbed, and therefore we get the otherwise confounding cries of “taking back our country.”

Jon Stewart called this out appropriately as “confusing tyranny with losing,” but it’s more than just that. It’s a privileged clique stalwart in their belief that they are supreme and all-deserving, hell-bent on maintaining control, becoming hysterical because they see the signs of that control beginning to slip away.

Overall, it is a pretty ugly picture. But it is an accurate one.

Categories: Right-Wing Extremism Tags: by
  1. Troy
    April 21st, 2010 at 02:28 | #1

    Dunno. I think you’re being rather unfair to some if not many of our friends on the right.

    A lot of the weirdness going on is just tactical opposition from the Gingrich playbook of 1994. The American people are pretty dumb so it might just work.

    “The conservatives screech that they’re being taxed to death, when all Obama has done is lowered taxes for the vast majority of Americans.”

    I don’t know what the percentage in the teabagger contingent, but from what I gather plenty of them are making over $250K, the magic threshold where class warfare starts.

    (I don’t have a problem with this — I think redistribution is great in the absence of a more rational set of more targeted taxes on specific economic activities and not just taxing gross income from all sources).

    The current government is running a reverse ‘drown in the bathtub’ strategy. Spend so much that taxes have to be raised. The ultra-rich, being 5-10% of the population, don’t have the votes to stop it, but they can drum up a lot of noise in opposition.

    People paid 3% of their salary into medicare over their working lives so it is seen not as a welfare program when they start to collect its benefits. The average well-to-do 50 yo teabagger has paid at least $50K into medicare. I’ve paid over $30k, and that’s with most of my working life in Japan.

    There’s a lot of racism but its fueled by cultural bigotry, wanting to live in the white-bread 50s of their youth, not the crass society we’ve become if you watch the TV.

    When I came to Tokyo in 1992 I marveled at the lack of graffiti and the well-ordered state of things. Standards have begun to fall in this area, no?

    You’re right that Christianism is also very strong in the opposition. Many if not most Christians buy into the Falwell bull—- that Jebus will stop answering our prayers if we depart from O.T. stuff that slags on teh homos. “Old Testament law for thee but not for me”.

    This is less hystericism and more a calculated PR effort of creating a groundswell. This is how democracies are manipulated. cf. the Swift boaters in 2004. Same people. Same putting the ends in front of the means.

    Clinton 1993-2000 and Obama 2009-now are just glitches in the matrix to these people. This is largely a conservative electorate. It’s hopefully changing for the better, but as people get older they get more conservative.

  2. Tim Kane
    April 21st, 2010 at 07:24 | #2

    I’m not quite sure where this fits into your analysis, but its seems to me that the right hasn’t gotten over the catastrophic failure of the Bush years. And its causing them to go crazy.

    Bush pretty much had his way, policy wise, he went whole hog wild with his conservative policies: neo-liberal/supply side bias economic policies, conservative domestic policies and Neocon foreign policies.

    Basically Bush drove the nation into a ditch and brought much of the world with it. In my view, he nearly caused global civilization to collapse. In my view the jury is still out on that too.

    4 tax cuts in his first 4 years, massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper class (supply side bias policies when clearly we had well passed supply side saturation), destruction of personal liberties, invading foreign countries and lying about it.

    The Republican’s haven’t retooled. They are still preaching tax cuts for the rich. They still want to push the same policies that nearly destroyed civilization (twice,if you count 1929).

    So they want Obama to fail. If Obama fails then their failure is taken off the table as an issue – because both sides are failures.

    I think Republicans are succeeding. The stimulus bill was at least half of what it should have been, and probably a third of what it should have been. It should have been funded, in part at least, by tax increases on the rich. Instead it was 50% or less the size of what it should of been and then on top of that, half of it was in the form of tax cuts – the very thing that drove us into the ditch to begin with. 1 in 5 American workers are either under-employed or unemployed. Many for over a year. If this is the situation come November, then the Republicans will largely have succeeded.

    When Labor lost to Margret Thatcher, Labor responded, initially, by lurching even farther to the left. When Thatcher trounced Labor the second time, then Labor went back to the drawing board and re-tooled and subsequently enjoyed quite a bit of success.

    I see no interest in Republicans ever retooling.

    Basically, since the Great Depression, the Republicans had to sink to ever lower standards in order to win elections. Thus, the party of Lincoln became the party of white southerners, many of whom are racist. The nomination of Palin to the vice presidency announced that they had sunk to an even greater low.

    The Republican’s remind me of the wrong mother in the biblical story of King Solomon and the split baby. The fake mother was willing to settle for the baby being split in half. The real mother couldn’t tolerate this and so gave in. King Solomon wisely realized who the real mother was. The electorate, however, lacks the wisdom of King Solomon. Thus, it gets back to the old chestnut: He who cares the least controls the relationship. And thus, Republicans, with a minority, are able to be the architects of failure during the Obama years – because they care the least about the fate of America.

    (I don’t want to imply Democrats truly care, though some clearly do, it’s a relative thing, they simply care more than Republicans, and so, baring the wisdom of Solomon, the Republicans control the relationship, even with a minority).

Comments are closed.