Why do so many right wingers have fantasies of a civil war and/or the assassination of Barack Obama?
Some examples:
Here is a reminder for those who need reminding. The red areas voted for McCain—or rather, for Palin. The blue areas voted for the other fellow.
You see here the first vague outlines of our next civil war. Be not afraid.
How Long ‘Til This Joker is History?
And them, there are the right wingers who don’t just talk about a race war as revenge for Obama’s election, but actually take concrete steps to foment one:
BROCKTON — Maria DeSilveira stood on the front porch of a relative’s home yesterday clutching a framed photograph of her handsome father as tears rolled down her face.
“My dad didn’t deserve this,” she said of Arlindo DePina Goncalves, 72. “There’s too much racism in this world.”
Police said Goncalves was the third and final victim of Keith Luke, a 22-year-old Brockton man who authorities said devised an “evil plan” fueled by racism to kill as many “nonwhites” and Jews as he could before taking his own life.
Luke, authorities alleged yesterday, killed Goncalves and a 20-year-old woman, raped and shot the woman’s 22-year-old sister, but failed in his plans to attack a Jewish synagogue and end his life.
It’s hard not to see the connection between those who post online their fantasies of violence toward Obama, minorities, liberals and Democrats and those who takes such lunatic, evil ravings to heart and act accordingly. I give you one last example, the blogger who calls himself Scipio commenting about this video by Obama supporters:
MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge
Here’s what Scipio (a self described Christian) had to say about the people who appeared in it:
Looking at them, there is not a one into whose guts I would not shove a sword if I could possibly get away with it.
The bloodlust of so many on the right always surprises me. When Bush was President it was directed primarily outward, toward Muslims and Arabs and “illegal immigrants” invading our precious borders. But now that Obama has won, it seems they lust for the blood of their fellow Americans. People such as you and I. It is beyond me what motivates their intense hatred and desire for a bloody retribution against all those who they perceive as wicked merely because we exercised our right of free speech and our right to vote. Fear cannot be the sole cause of their wish to bring about of an American Holocaust in which they would be the God’s Holy Avenging Angels of Death. It has to be something more that festers in their hearts and minds. But what that twisted, evil justification may be, I will never understand it.
I have to reiterate, Obama’s greatest threat comes not from the lunatic fringe, but from government insiders.
Obama dealt two hearty blows to the CIA before he’d even been in office 24 hours. He strengthened the Freedom of Information Act, behind which the CIA has long hidden their activities, and he took away the CIA’s toys, i.e., the black sites at which they torture those they think are out to destroy us.
The last presidents to challenge the CIA were JFK and Carter. Carter was rewarded with a single term, but JFK was on his way to a second one, so they took him out.
I really think Obama is moving so fast that he may not live out this term unless we firmly and openly discuss why Kennedy was killed and who was likely behind it, so that those who might be tempted have to wonder if they want to go down in history as the guys who murdered our first president.
I saw all these news stories yesterday about threats against Obama, and couldn’t help but feel groundwork is being laid.
In a way, the dire economic situation might help save Obama’s life, if he can make any dent in it at all, as the dollar would plummet even further were he to be killed. Small comfort, though.
Yup.
I hope not, though.
I hope that the evolutionary movement that produced Obama as a viable presidential candidate has even reached into the Intel establishment.
We shall see soon enough.
Let us pray.
AG
Obama knows the same history we know. He’s moving fast, because he knows if he doesn’t move fast, they will move on him.
Look at the violence spelled out in the Left Behind series. These books are best sellers. Frightening, IMHO.
I don’t think “many” rightwingers associate with this kind of crap. The ones I encounter, while they seem illogical and deluded to me, don’t say anything close to this, and would be as disgusted by it as you or me. Let’s not make the same mistake Bush made by militarizing the response to Sept 11: making a bunch of psychotic criminals into representatives of a popularly respected ideology. They are nothing of the kind. They are broken souls driven to join up with sociopaths in order to feel an illusion of power that they lack in real life.
While I disagree with the “so many” characterization, I do think rightwing propagandists like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Coulter, and a bunch of “fundamentalist” preachers make their careers by purposefully egging on the fantasies of murderously demented freaks like those quoted here. Their “civil war” will be just a tragi-comic march to oblivion, staged to keep their inciters living large.
I think it is more widespread than we like to believe:
That surge in gun sales that was reported right after Obama’s election appears not to be waning: […]
On the surface, this seems to be just about guns. But it runs much deeper than that — and darker.
The fear being whipped up by the NRA and the gun fanatics has no known basis in reality. In the list of thirteen priorities for action in Obama’s first year and beyond (see the New York Times on this), jobs and the economy completely predominate. Gun control not only is not on the list, there hasn’t even been a whisper of it from the Obama team this year. […]
These fears are becoming widespread on the ground, particularly in the rural areas where gun rights have been a favorite bugaboo since the days of gas-station attendants and Beaver Cleaver. I know about this somewhat from personal experience; the fear that “Obama is gonna take our guns away” is certainly commonplace when I spend time in the rural West. But you can hear it bubbling up in a Washington Post piece about rural dwellers’ mistrust of Obama:
“That comment he made about guns and religion, it’s frightening, you have to admit,” says the secretary at his accountant’s office.
Loewer agrees. “I don’t believe in going around with a gun strapped to your hip, Wild West-style,” he says. “But you ought to be able to protect yourself.”
… Near the refrigerated cases, a petite woman holding an inventory scanner greets him. She’s wearing a name tag that says “Audrey Loewer, general manager, serving you since 1972.”
Obama did not get her vote, either. “I don’t know what will happen to people around here if he puts restrictions on guns,” Audrey says. “Me and Wayne, we’re lucky, we have jobs. With the tight economy, there’s gonna be more thefts.
[…]
Those are the sentiments among more mainstream members of the Conservative set. Travel a little farther out to the fringes of right-wing thought, and it becomes virulent and potentially violent.
On those fringes, what we’re seeing is a reformation of the militia movement of the 1990s, which organized in large part over hysteria ratcheted up by Bill Clinton’s gun-control measures, particularly the assault-weapons ban that passed in 1994. But there are a couple of twists this time around — Barack Obama does not appear eager to push any gun-control measures through Congress for the time being, so the fear and paranoia required are even more ephemeral in their basis than in the ’90s; and more importantly, the new militia is being constituted of a different base — younger, more militant, more paranoid, and more likely to have an actual military background.
I think you’re right. I had a conversation last summer with a perfectly nice and otherwise decent woman from Houston — ex oil-exec wife — who was persuaded that if Obama won the Blacks would be out to take revenge on the whites. I didn’t push the issue with her, but I think she actually believed it. She may have changed, and she wasn’t a rapid wingnut, which to me proves the malaise is deeper than we want to think.
My sister believes this.
you do realize you’re enticing conspiracy theorists of all stripes to come out of the woodwork?
Always and forever.
The last dinosaurs were the most dangerous.
Bet on it.
AG
Scipio is a complete barking loon.
I love that map though. I’m certain that the typical semi-educated xtianist Scipio-reader has no clue what it actually tells us. I mean, to the naked eye it’s roughly 2/3 red, how could McCain have possibly lost!
Did any major city vote Republican? Salt Lake City maybe.
I see the red areas as barren land and farm country. So these loonies are going to invade the cities and suburbs with their deer rifles. True crazies.
Salt Lake County (which includes Salt Lake City) went for Obama, albeit by only 296 votes. My guess is that the suburbs went for McCain, but the city itself went for Obama. It’s something of a blue oasis in a sea of red (unless you count the red-and-white banners for the University of Utah football team).
Phoenix voted red, I’m sure, as did Oklahoma City. I guess it counts as a major city, it’s the 31st largest city in the country.
Do you really believe that they think of you or me as “their fellow Americans”? There’s “real” Americans and then there’s the others. This is why they’ll refer to a fellow Republican as a liberal if said Republican differs from conservative orthodoxy on two or more issues – s/he has become “other” and is no longer considered part of the team. They define “American” to be that which aligns with their personal preferences, such that anything that differs from their point of view is Un-American, even if that happens to be the Bill of Rights.
It’s a Brave New Postmodern World in which we live – truth is what we say it is…
Oscar’s right on this one. The people who voted Obama and the Democrats into office are the Enemy.
The economy is going to get a lot worse before there’s any chance whatsoever it’s going to get better. There are going to be millions more people out of a job by the end of this year.
A lot of them will be looking for someone to blame.
Some of them will blame Obama.
A few of them will want to do something about it.
A scarce few may be angry and or crazy enough to follow up on those impulses.
I’m hoping all of those will be dealt with by the authorities.
But honestly, it’s only going to take one lucky one. One.
What makes me sad is that the times affect each and every one of us, even these people who wish Obama dead. Yet he’s going to work every day and trying to do right by everyone, from the obstructionists in the Senate on down to the McVeigh wannabe’s in Nowheresville USA.
This really isn’t that surprising, authoritarians always act like this and the right wing is full of authoritarians.
Everyone should read The Authoritarians by Prof. Bob Altemeyer, it might clarify a few things. You can download the book as a free PDF from the link.
I had read Dean’s book, but had never seen this one. So far I have only read part of it, and it is fairly interesting..
My favorite comment so far from Skippy-O’s comments section:
“This entire post is one big mobius strip of stupid.”