The right think Obama is an ideological Typhoid Mary

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/18/conservatives-liberals-us-obama

As much as liberals despised Bush, people never thought (except maybe on the fringes) that he was secretly out to destroy the US. We felt some of his administration's principles weren't American as we understood the concept (the arrogation of executive power, or the approval of torture). But there was none of this Manchurian Candidate business. Liberals assumed that Bush was doing what he, his team and their supporters believed was the right thing based on their understanding of American values and needs. Conservatives do not believe this about Obama. Clearly some of this has to do with his background. Greenberg and Carville stress that race was not a factor in their all-white Georgia focus group, and while I would agree that conservatives' problems with Obama are far more ideological than racial, I have to believe that race is a subliminal factor of some sort. But it also has a lot to do with history.


One often hears conservatives speak of how Obama is destroying "my country". They use the "my" because conservatives tend to feel a type of ownership regarding the country that liberals don't. They are certain that they represent "real" American values, and that liberals represent alien values.

There's a long history here, which is bound up in everything from the two sides' different definitions of patriotism – "my country right or wrong" versus "I want to improve my country because I love it" – to religion to militarism to cosmopolitanism to a thousand other things. Every American presidential campaign, on some level, is about the Republican trying to frighten people into believing that the Democrat doesn't share "your values" and the Democrat trying to reassure people that he does. So, for conservatives, Obama is not just a guy whose views they vehemently disagree with. He's an ideological Typhoid Mary, a carrier of unknowable and barely comprehensible infections.

That is qualitatively different from liberal hatred of Bush. It is also, to be blunt, paranoid – because it's rooted in metaphorical narrative far more than in fact. And that means facts can never win an argument. Obama could leave office in January 2017 with the capitalist economy roaring and American power and security enhanced and these voters would still believe we'd escaped state ownership of everything and one-world government by a whisker. It's been part of the psychology of the American right for decades, and it sure won't be dissipating as long as Obama is in office.

[PDJane]

1. Actually, I rather thought that Bush was destructive

Because that's all he knew. He has always been corrupt, greedy, irresponsible and steeped in cronyism.....and his policies were all of those things when he attained office.

As for the right's opinion of Obama, most of that is sheer projection. The rest of it is an unwillingness to take responsibility for what was done to the country and to the world.

[opihimoimoi]

2. The Right has consistently lied and bull shitted their way into office

THEY ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED

[Demeter]

3. What Do You Mean "We", Englishman?

Americans who were paying attention KNEW that Bush was destroying America from the inside out, and protested vainly. Now we wait for Justice to reward him for his efforts. Probably also in vain.

[Jeep789]

4. Lost me on the first paragraph

Bush may have been to stupid to know he was destroying America but his handlers certainly knew and did a great job of it.

[zbdent]

5. but we're constantly reminded (by the people who still worship whatever Repugs excrete)

that Bush really is much "smarter than you think, and that he's much smarter than you!" (meaning that he was smart enough to be the son of the Vice President/President and had people falling all over you just because of that) ...

[democracy1st]

6. how did he loose you ?

[aquart]

7. Well, yeah, I did think he was destroying us.

I believe I often said so.