On August 16, 2009, Rick Perlstein, wrote an op-ed piece in The Washington Post under the title “In America, Crazy Is a Pre-existing Condition - Birthers, Town Hall Hecklers and the Return of Right-Wing Rage.” In the article he gave examples of some of the seemingly irrational attacks launched against U.S. President Obama and put them into an historical context.
Town Hall Meeting Fury
During the summer many town hall meetings were hijacked by hecklers accusing Democrat politicians of betraying the United States by supporting President Barack Obama.
Democratic Senator Arlen Specter had a taste of the boiling rage abroad in some sectors of American society. At a town hall meeting in Lebanon, Pennsylvania on August 11, 2009 an infuriated man got in the Senator’s face and started yelling at him. CBS News reported on the man’s outburst: “One day, God’s gonna stand before you,” the worked-up man said as the senator looked at him without expressing emotion. “And he’s gonna judge you and the rest of your damn cronies up on the Hill - and then you will get your just desserts.” The man’s fury was based on Specter’s support for Obama’s health care reforms
At other town hall meetings, voters have accused President Obama of being a Communist bent on undermining the American state. And, some have shown up carry guns.
Jimmy Carter Blames Racism for Anti-Obama Anger
What’s behind this anger? Former President Jimmy Carter thinks he knows. In an interview with NBC Television (September 16, 2009) said, “I think that an overwhelming proportion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he’s a black man,”
Mr. Carter is not alone in this view. Writing in The New York Times (September 13, 2009) Margaret Dowd opined that Mr. Obama is “at the centre of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension…This President is the ultimate civil rights figure – a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe.”
Irate Opposition to Presidents not New
In his article in The Washington Post, Rick Perlstein points out there’s a long history of this kind of hostility. “In the early 1950s, Republicans referred to the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as ‘20 years of treason’ and accused the men who led the fight against fascism of deliberately surrendering the free world to communism.”
John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic to be elected President, came in for more than his fair share of outrageous accusations. And Lyndon Johnson, who followed Kennedy, was the object of vitriolic attacks over his civil rights legislation. Bogus stories circulated in the south that whites were going to be enslaved, just as there are specious claims today that Barack Obama intends to set up “death panels” under his health care reforms that will decide who gets medical treatment and who doesn’t.
Leadership Vacuum Filled by Loudmouths
Writing in The Independent (September 17, 2009), Johann Hari puts forward the theory that the outbursts of hatred against Obama are the result of a lack of leadership on the political right.
“The twin shocks of the financial meltdown and the Democrats’ landslide election victory last November,” he writes “have pole-axed the Grand Old Party.” In the absence of a voice of moderation from the Republican Party, hotheads such as radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on Fox News are happy to fill the void and stir up antagonism towards Obama.
Hari says “It is the slogans and paranoid world view of these ‘shock jocks’ that have inspired opponents of health care reform.” He suggests that there will be more of the same until the Republican Party rises from the ashes of its defeat.
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