Anti-Obama GOP Furor Dare Not Speak Its Own Name
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So this Dutch correspondent says to me, “Which of the Republicans do you like the most?”
And I said, “Well, I guess of the Republicans, I like Bob Dole the most.”
(With a fake Dutch accent) “Oh, but he is so old!” he said.
And I said, “Well – – – – you know, – – – he wasn’t too old to save your sorry Dutch ass.
– Al Franken, White House Correspondents Dinner, May 4, 1996
The point was three fold. It was unfair to focus on the age of Republican Robert Dole. Robert Dole in many ways demonstrated what was best about America. And Dole’s personal story was intertwined with a larger history. America, personalized in Robert Dole, was exceptional enough to have saved Europe from the Nazis in World War II.
Democrat Al Franken is now Minnesota’s United States Senator.
I was reminded of Franken’s pointed put down of a critic from Holland as I reviewed the words spoken by the very new President Obama as he attended a NATO summit in France in April of 2009.
I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
– President Barack Obama, at a News Conference in Strasbourg, France, April 4, 2009
President Obama then went into a softer, gentler, but still tough, version of Al Franken, as he explained why his view of exceptionalism, American exceptionalism, was was more than opinion. He reminded Europe thatAmerican exceptionalism had been demonstrated within human memory in Europe’s own history.
…the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an Alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that.
This was not spoken to the American Press Corps in a carefully staged event in Washington. It was on European soil in the heart of a country that knew up close what his words meant. America was exceptional enough to have saved Europe from the Nazis in World War II.
American conservatives, still, were outraged at his words. They still are. He had, they maintain, said that America was no more exceptional than any other country. “…the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”
The Tampa Bay Times respond to conservative anger this way: “A Yankees fan who admits a Red Sox fan loves his team is not saying the Red Sox are as good as the Yankees.”
Frankly, I don’t mind the baseball argument, since pretty much everyone knows the St. Louis Cardinals are better than either.
There has been no scarcity of events at which the President has spoken of his pride in America.
When he has advocated important policy changes:
I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it’s our willingness to affirm them through our actions.
– President Barack Obama, at West Point, May 28, 2014
When speaking to the nation about war, peace, and the use of military force:
…we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.
– President Barack Obama, on Syria, September 10, 2013
When rebuking Vladimir Putin for denigrating America’s exceptionalism:
…but I believe America is exceptional — in part because we have shown a willingness through the sacrifice of blood and treasure to stand up not only for our own narrow self-interests, but for the interests of all.
– President Barack Obama, to the United Nations, September 24, 2013
Presidents have been the focal point of American anger from the beginning of the Republic. War, the economy, regulation, taxes, all provoke passionate argument. Sometimes the argument is about policy, sometimes about constitutional issues, or political actions, sometimes about scandal. But everything has involved, at one level or another, a President’s performance in office.
Until this President.
Attacks on President Obama have been different. They have been personal in the most basic way: they have been challenges to his person.
Recent remarks about the President’s love of country have simply been part of this larger pattern.
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
– Reported by Politico.com, February 18 2015
In the past, we have heard the traditional attacks on Obama scandal, policy, and politics. But barely submerged, sometimes bubbling into full view, has been a strong current of hatred that is very personal.
The fact that, for many, that red hot vitriol preceded his even taking the oath of office in 2009 is striking. It lends certainty to the suspicion that the violent outrage does not come from allegations of scandal or from boiling disagreement over policy. It is the other way around. Unless clairvoyance or time travel is part of the calculation, those accusations and disagreements are not the cause, they are the result, of violent outrage.
The fact that so often the policy has been long standing, beginning in administrations from past generations is dismissed. After all, multiple wrongs do not make a right. The dismissal leaves in place the question: Why were those past “wrongs” unremarkable back then. What makes them suddenly rise to the level of the exceptional now?
The fact that one scandal after another has not survived examination, even examination ferociously conducted in a spirit of rage, produces odd theories. Absence of evidence of any high level wrongdoing must itself be proof of high level cover up.
The attacks on this President have been aimed at his very identity as an American. He isn’t like you and me. To quote again, “He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
Political niceties make it impolite to state what is obvious to the naked eye. The outrage that preceded policy, the anger that came before disagreement, were provoked by something. The most violent critics saw something from the beginning, something that was too obvious for them to ignore, something profoundly infuriating, but, in a modern age, something that cannot be said aloud even by conservatives.
It is an anger that dares not speak its own name.
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Republicans, far too many to name here, have repeatedly said that President Obama has been the most divisive president we have ever had. It is sad in the fact that the divisiveness has been the Republicans themselves. They have the nastiest, and most anti president toward President Obama since before he took any action as President. From the time he took office and Mitch McConnell state on the floor of the United States Senate that his job was to make him a one term president, through the most filibusters ever used in the Senate to bring the country’s effort to recover from the recession, the Republicans have been anti Obama. The “just say no” campaign of the Republican House members. Even the conservative Democrats turned on Obama he has had an uphill fight. His naive efforts at trying to work with the Republicans thinking they would put the country ahead of their own individual prejudices have been thwarted at every turn. But, they will say they see no wrong in what they have down. A lot of people who would have never thought of themselves as blatant racists found themselves caught up in the anti Obama rhetoric. In my eyes they should all be tried for treason for putting their personal prejudices before their oaths of office. Everyone who sign the Norquist list of promises for no taxes should have been thrown from office for violating their oaths of office because they were making commitments on issues with out first knowing the facts at hand. But that did not happen. One can only hope that the American people will see through this charade and toss them out in 2016.
It has to be said. Clearly many Republicans don’t hate Obama for being a Democratic President, they hate him for not being white.
What a sad sad time we live in eh?
[…] Mad Mike’s America – Obama Derangement Syndrome: a fond look back; […]
They dare not speak its own name because its name is RACISM!!!! Great article.
Very good article. The republicans hate the president personally, and many of them hate him because he’s black. Make no mistake. That’s what drives their “furor.”