But while racism might inform the intensity and shape the nature of the attacks on Obama, they do not drive them. Obama’s administration has raised taxes on the rich, expanded public spending, pledged to withdraw troops from Iraq and argued — if only halfheartedly — for universal healthcare. Conservatives have good reasons to be against him that have nothing to do with race.
“It’s hard to specify a single source for the opposition,” says the Reverend Wendell Griffin, a Baptist pastor and judge in Arkansas. “Part of the opposition to Obama is philosophical. There is in every society a strand of thought that glories in the myth of rugged individualism [and] he challenges that notion. He believes that the idea of a government is to have a concern not just for the individual but for the society as a whole. Some people don’t like that.”
Griffin went on to list racism, economic desperation and the fact that he is no longer an underdog as other reasons.
Obama’s right-wing dissenters may be eccentric and racially exclusive but they have also proved highly effective. They have a populist message that excoriates Bush and the bank bailouts as well as Obama, and they have a TV channel — Fox News — to which they are devoted and which is happy to promote their work. A recent poll showed that if the Tea party — a protest movement set up earlier this year to rally opposition to the stimulus bill and “big government” — were a party it would beat the Republicans.
Every week a “9/12” group meets at the non-alcoholic All Bar None in Lexington, Kentucky. This was an initiative started by Fox presenter Glenn Beck in order to return the US to the values of patriotism and godliness that he says it embraced the day after Sept. 11.
Fourteen showed up the night I was there. A straw poll revealed that none of them blamed Obama exclusively for the US heading in the wrong direction, with all preferring to blame the entire political establishment. Half believed Obama is a Muslim, just one thought he was a Christian and the overwhelming majority thought he was a communist, socialist and Marxist. None believed that he was born in the US; most said they did not know.
“A lot of information about Obama’s background is missing,” Abigail Billings says. “The media in America is not doing any research. They’re not asking any questions. They’re not reporting any longer. They’re now opinionated talk shows. They’re no longer offering factual news coverage.”
They all watch Fox News.
Many on the Left are also disgruntled with Obama. They believe that healthcare reform without a public option will be inadequate, that the war in Afghanistan will unravel, that the stimulus bill was insufficient to kick-start the economy and that his economic team is being run by Wall Street. But unlike the Right, they have so far failed to turn their disillusionment into a potent political force.
“I’d have thought in the past that if [cultist and convicted murderer] Charles Manson ran against a Republican in Floyd County he would win,” Bartley says. “But Charles Manson could beat Barack Obama here right now. Thousands of miners out of work, the entire local economy in the tank. But he’s got a couple of years where he could turn this round. If he does that he could win. If he doesn’t, Charles Manson could come in and win.”
RSS