Delegitimizing the President
There's one thing about the current conservative movement in this country that I just don't get: The absolute hatred many of them have for President Obama. And no, hatred is not too strong a word. The more I read about and try to understand what's going on on the right, the more it becomes clear to me that many members of the hard-core conservative base absolutely despise President Obama. I get the political differences. He believes government has a positive role to play in a modern industrial society, and they don't. He believes there's nothing necessarily evil about taxes, and they believe that taxes should never ever be increased under any circumstances. I get that. What I don't get is the deep, gut level animosity toward the man himself.
The evidence of this is everywhere. I saw many interviews with conservatives, particularly during the primaries, who claimed to be in the ABO party (Anyone But Obama). OK, kind of a clever joke, but it was clear they were serious that they wanted this man out of the White House at any cost. I heard people say things like, "I can't stand to watch him. He makes me sick.". On a personal level, I was at a firing range a couple of years ago, and someone there at the range, assuming I was a fellow conservative, pulled out a graphic he had made superimposing a target over a picture of President Obama, giving a knowing nod to me as he did so.
Perhaps the most clear manifestation of this is in the "birther" movement. This is a group that despite all evidence refuses to believe that President Obama was born in the United States, or that he has any right to be president. "There's something secretly foreign, and not right about the guy. Could it be the color of his skin? Nah, that would be racist. But, mark my words. There's something WRONG with that guy!" And of course, there's no more colorful example of a birther than the famous Donald Trump. Remember him? He's the guy who did several fund raisers with Mitt Romney. Oh, and isn't he also the one who tweeted "Revolution!" after they lost the election?
Many progressive or liberal pundits attribute a lot of this to racism. I'm a little more reluctant to make that argument, and I know the right is tired of the racist card being played as often as it is. However, I do believe that at least on a deeper subconscious level, this hatred of the president has roots in the fact that he doesn't look like us, and is therefore not one of us.
A natural outgrowth of this animosity is a desire to delegitimize the president: to make it seem as though somehow the American people didn't really elect this guy, and he doesn't really have a right to be in this position. You see some evidence of this in the plethora of election post-mortems being done by the conservative press. Some are constructive and some aren't. Someone recently brought my attention to this article by Michael Medved entitled "Obama's Dirty Little Secret". While I normally have a lot of respect for Michael Medved, I found this article to be just another attempt on the right to delegitimize the president. What's the "dirty little secret"? President Obama apparently ran some ads saying negative things about his opponent, and some people believed those things and didn't vote for his opponent. Scandal! How could he do that? Oh wait... that's what every candidate in every election has done for the past two-hundred plus years.
Even though I've attempted to make sense of it in the above paragraphs, I still just don't understand this animosity. I've read dozens of the President's speeches, watched many more on video, looked at the legislation he's promoted, and seen him interact with the public on the campaign trail. While I can see that many people would disagree with his political philosophy, I just don't see how you can hate the man so much.
Here's the thing, though. President Barack Obama has been elected twice now, both times with a substantial majority of the electoral college vote and both times with a majority of the popular vote. He is the legitimately elected President of the United States. The majority who voted for him and most of the minority who didn't vote for him accept him as the President, pray for him, and are willing to accept his leadership. Those on the right who can't or won't do that will simply be left behind as the country moves forward.
The evidence of this is everywhere. I saw many interviews with conservatives, particularly during the primaries, who claimed to be in the ABO party (Anyone But Obama). OK, kind of a clever joke, but it was clear they were serious that they wanted this man out of the White House at any cost. I heard people say things like, "I can't stand to watch him. He makes me sick.". On a personal level, I was at a firing range a couple of years ago, and someone there at the range, assuming I was a fellow conservative, pulled out a graphic he had made superimposing a target over a picture of President Obama, giving a knowing nod to me as he did so.
Perhaps the most clear manifestation of this is in the "birther" movement. This is a group that despite all evidence refuses to believe that President Obama was born in the United States, or that he has any right to be president. "There's something secretly foreign, and not right about the guy. Could it be the color of his skin? Nah, that would be racist. But, mark my words. There's something WRONG with that guy!" And of course, there's no more colorful example of a birther than the famous Donald Trump. Remember him? He's the guy who did several fund raisers with Mitt Romney. Oh, and isn't he also the one who tweeted "Revolution!" after they lost the election?
Many progressive or liberal pundits attribute a lot of this to racism. I'm a little more reluctant to make that argument, and I know the right is tired of the racist card being played as often as it is. However, I do believe that at least on a deeper subconscious level, this hatred of the president has roots in the fact that he doesn't look like us, and is therefore not one of us.
A natural outgrowth of this animosity is a desire to delegitimize the president: to make it seem as though somehow the American people didn't really elect this guy, and he doesn't really have a right to be in this position. You see some evidence of this in the plethora of election post-mortems being done by the conservative press. Some are constructive and some aren't. Someone recently brought my attention to this article by Michael Medved entitled "Obama's Dirty Little Secret". While I normally have a lot of respect for Michael Medved, I found this article to be just another attempt on the right to delegitimize the president. What's the "dirty little secret"? President Obama apparently ran some ads saying negative things about his opponent, and some people believed those things and didn't vote for his opponent. Scandal! How could he do that? Oh wait... that's what every candidate in every election has done for the past two-hundred plus years.
Even though I've attempted to make sense of it in the above paragraphs, I still just don't understand this animosity. I've read dozens of the President's speeches, watched many more on video, looked at the legislation he's promoted, and seen him interact with the public on the campaign trail. While I can see that many people would disagree with his political philosophy, I just don't see how you can hate the man so much.
Here's the thing, though. President Barack Obama has been elected twice now, both times with a substantial majority of the electoral college vote and both times with a majority of the popular vote. He is the legitimately elected President of the United States. The majority who voted for him and most of the minority who didn't vote for him accept him as the President, pray for him, and are willing to accept his leadership. Those on the right who can't or won't do that will simply be left behind as the country moves forward.
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