How did we get here?

No, I am not asking about how we got to the place where we have orchestrated outrage that has metastasized into dangerous, violent, out-and-out rage—not exactly.

Not asking why it is so easy for so many to invoke Nazis, Hitler, and the Holocaust, nor am I asking why folks feel secure in asserting that Barack Obama’s health care plan (whatever that is—if you know, please do tell) will require grandma to take the gas pipe rather than an aspirin.

Nor am I asking how it is that such large numbers of Republicans still question where president Obama was born—and now also contend that this story is under-covered—and how these birthers can get crossbred with the teabaggers and the “Obama-care is genocide” set to so derail and pollute the national debate that we are right now very much in danger of turning off a brand new generation of recently energized voters because they are just tired of all the noise and what they see as “politics as usual.”

And I am not even asking how we got from a time 200 days ago when over a million people would come out in the freezing cold to see this president take the oath of office, and something like three-quarters of America was ready come out and support the president in any big fight he chose to take on. . . to a place right now where the president would rather trust his fortunes to a half-dozen conservative senators who have one objective above all others: kill a meaningful public health plan and protect their corporate masters.

(OK, I guess that sounds like two objectives—but it is really one. Trust me.)

I am not asking how we got from a campaign that promised we would guarantee everyone in the land affordable and effective health care to a place where we are on the verge of passing anything, no matter what it really accomplishes, just to say we passed something. Not asking that, either.

Nope. . . not asking any of the above. . . not tonight. Here’s what I am asking:

How is it that Obama is president? How did we, America elect Barack Obama?

I ask that tonight because here is what I am seeing in all the organized outrage and outrageous organizing; here’s what I am seeing in teabagging anti-care birthers: racists. Rabid and perhaps irretrievable racists.

Yes, we are a racist country—still—with a racist past, but most would contend that we have made some strides in the last 50 years. But what we are seeing in these protests—as pre-arranged and bought-and-paid-for as they might be—is still something real, a fear of other, an unwavering dislike, a complete inability to accept that we now have a black/bi-racial/African American president. For this minority, it is really too much to bear.

And, as you can see, it is so unbearable that they are willing to, if not organize, be organized. Willing to come out and shout at people in positions of power. Willing to appear on camera chanting and behaving in ways most would say are anti-social and rude. Willing, increasingly, to threaten, provoke, and even carry out physical violence.

If these folks are so exercised now, where were they a year ago? By this point in the summer of 2008, it seemed kind of clear to most that there was at least a chance that America would elect a non-white man president. But did we see this? I mean, we saw some crazies. . . a sign here. . . a billboard there. . . but nothing like this, I don’t think.

Here’s what I do think. I think there is difference between then and now, and that difference is George W. Bush. Or, rather, the difference is that the Bush presidency is now in the past.

What I think—what the last few weeks have made me feel—is that George W. Bush was so awful, so venal, so incompetent, and so pathetic that he actually demoralized these people into hiding. Bush marginalized their hate with his horribleness.

What I am saying—and so answering what I am asking—is that George W. Bush was so bad, America elected a black president.

You understand what I am saying—please don’t take that quote out of context—I am saying that Bush the Younger sucked so hard that America, for a moment, was able to push past its inherited and perhaps inherent racism, and vote for the most obvious alternative. And now that Bush is gone—even though the misery lingers on—some folks are feeling free enough again to indulge their fears, their anxiety. . . their hate.

That’s how we got here. . . I think. . . how about you?


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