Dear Conservative Friend (Obama Hatred)

Dear Conservative Friend,

Okay. I get it. You don’t like the President.

That’s all right—I didn’t like the last one. I thought he was a Doofus who disgraced the office by his lack of qualifications, his know-nothing approach to complex issues, and the Rovian nastiness with which his administration governed. I disagreed with most (not all) of his policies. Also, as a lover of the English language and of clear argument, I felt like tearing my ears off every time he opened his mouth.

I did not, however, pretend that he was not the President. I did not pretend that he was part of a conspiracy to replace America with a dictatorship. I never believed that that he was—merely by virtue of not being of my political persuasion—somehow allied with forces of Cosmic Evil. I understood that, while he was wrong on all counts, he believed that he was right, and that he was working sincerely by the light of his convictions. I disliked him, but I did not demonize him. I understood that democracy means having to be in the opposition party from time to time.

I gather that the situation is not analogous on your side of the aisle.

I love American democracy more than anything. I love that we can disagree vociferously without killing each other or getting hauled away by the secret police. What disturbs me these days, though, is the paranoid unreality of the fantasies that come up again and again in conservative opposition to Obama. Correct me if I’m wrong, but these are some of the ludicrous positions that seem to be getting pretty close to mainstream on your side:

1) Barack Obama is not a real American, having been born in Kenya and falsified his birth records, believing (as a young black man in the 1970s) that he had an excellent chance of thereby becoming President.

2) Obama is a terrorist, raised in Moscow or Cairo or some secret Viet Minh training camp later leased to Al Qaeda as part of the Global Anti-American Conspiracy

3) Obama has broken the theology barrier and is somehow simultaneously a radical Muslim AND a militant atheist.

4) Obama is an ignorant street kid who parlayed a job as a community organizer (whatever that is) into political capital. The scary part is how he so effectively disguised his lack of real political knowledge by becoming a state legislator, U.S. Senator, and Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago.

5) Obama is a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist, whose every policy initiative is part of a diabolical scheme to replace American capitalism with Central Planning and Workers’ Soviets before November of 2010. And now he wants all these "Czars," just like the Bolsheviks.

6) Obama is a murderer, planning to kill elderly, flu-ridden Americans in order to, I don’t know, produce more Soylent Green or make voodoo bowls from their skulls or something.

7) Obama is a racist, burning with hatred of everything and everyone white. Of course he was raised by a loving white mother and grandparents, and most of his administration is about as pasty as I am, but The Blacks are ungrateful that way.

8) Obama is a demagogue, relishing every chance to stage Nuremberg-style rallies for his bloodthirsty minions (who routinely attend these rallies armed to the teeth, calling for the impeachment and punishment of Republican politicians and their supporters). No President in U.S. history has ever gone so far as to insist on press conferences, addresses to Congress, or videos advising students to stay in school.

9) Obama is a fascist, cleverly disguising the usual warning signs of fascism (such as extreme militarism and jingoistic identification of a minority enemy) behind an elaborate smokescreen of traditional pluralism, Great Society rhetoric, social liberalism, and business as usual D.C. deal-making. He was even legally elected, just like Hitler!

10) When, in a centuries-long functioning democracy, one’s own political party passes for a time into a minority role, the best and most reasonable response is secession.

Perhaps I exaggerate a little, but the alterations are meant to keep things light. Taken straight, the implications of belief in these positions is just too embarrassing to contemplate. They remind me of the Limbaugh-inspired allegations of a few years back that American liberals (what with their Civil/Gay/Women's Rights and their Darwin-toting secularism) ultimately long for a world governed by Wahhabist Sharia Law. These fantasies have a serious purpose, however, which is to imaginatively delegitimize the Obama presidency—not just to oppose it politically, but to insist that it is not real.

So my central question is this: what kind of politics requires such elaborate fantasies or conspiracy and persecution? What’s so hard about simply admitting that the other party won, and that, while you hate their policies, they pursue those policies out of a sincere desire for the good rather than out of some diabolical commitment to Evil for the sake of Evil? What's so hard about getting down to the business of politics without encouraging your angriest fringe towards patriotic assassination?

And what, by the way, is so scary about attending a town hall meeting without bringing a rifle? Are you afraid that you’re going to be Socialized right there in the parking lot?

I won’t belabor each of these points in detail, but let me address at least one of them: the “Birther” complaint that Obama isn’t even an American citizen.

The facts are right there: the Hawaii birth certificate, numerous corroborating documents, everything. Every reporter, politician, and grad student in America has seen them, and they didn’t even have to travel to Hawaii: American universities have a habit of keeping microfilm copies of every newspaper they can get their hands on, including Honolulu’s major papers, both of which ran routine birth announcements for Obama in 1961. Those microfilms have been getting a good dust-off lately, I’m sure. The dust itself suggests that, if this be conspiracy, you’ve got to give it credit for getting a very early and prescient start.

But I think there’s an even better argument to be made against the birther fantasy: the fact that no candidate gets far along towards political success without all parties (political and otherwise) vetting that candidate’s background to the utmost degree. Consider this: the birther rumors got started as early as 2007. Do you believe that the GOP didn’t put every effort into uncovering whatever evidence might have derailed an Obama candidacy at the first possible moment? For that matter, do you think the Bush-Cheney Justice Department didn’t perform routine and not-so-routine background checks on Obama as early as possible? Is it plausible that the FBI missed the signs of the Kenyan conspiracy, and that we had to wait for the intrepid guesswork geniuses of the internet to bring us the truth only after the election?

Perhaps I am wrong, and the positions I’ve listed above aren’t really in the mainstream of GOP thought. Indeed, I hope I am wrong. But it’s very disturbing to see a Republican congressman afraid to admit on the record, for fear of offending his base, that he believes Barack Obama is legally an American citizen. (Just such a spectacle was the prompt for this writing, in fact.)

Even more distressing is the Republican Party's response to the violence and hatred that spills out at the edges of the anti-Obama movement. Where is the decency that should lead office-holding conservative politicians, at least, to call shame on supporters urging the murder of the President? Why the GOP embrace of Assassination Chic?

Let’s make a deal: if (after you rise up and stop Obama’s Red Army when it finally tries to put white Christians in FEMA concentration camps) it is shown that Obama really was the deep-mole sleeper-agent foreign element that you present him to be, or even if he is just shown to be a genuine full-on America-hater, I will own up to my mistake. I will vote for your heroes. I will attend to whatever pundits you like, and I will gladly embrace my re-education. After all, if Obama is really that evil, I can only thank you for stopping him and saving my country.

If, however, Obama finishes out his term without trying to destroy America through Marxist-Fascist-Racist insurrection, will you promise to think twice before demonizing the opposition in terms that make working democracy impossible? Will you promise to try admitting that, while liberals may be wrong, they are not actually sworn agents of Hitler, Stalin, or Satan? Will you promise to take your political opponents seriously as, at least, fellow Americans?

That would be enough. Thanks.

Paul Roberts