I read this article on Yahoo today: "McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd". When your own supporters won't listen to you defend the integrity of your opponent, that's a sign that your own rhetoric has gone too far.
The fact that the GOP has whipped up the troops into a frenzied hatred of Obama strikes me as being more than reckless in the face of what could potentially be an Obama win. Disrespecting the opponent in such an irresponsible way just seeds further divisiveness on the whole, and can only lead to disaster in the long run, especially if the Dems win.
I'm thinking now of how much I've come to resent Bush and his cronies, not to mention his social conservatism and general ideological platform... But I can't imagine ever shouting things to the tune of "kill him!" or "off with his head!" or even "traitor!", mostly because that kind of thinking represents only the basest and most violent tendencies of our (animal) behavior.
The xenophobia that appears to be the lifeblood of the Republicans these days scares the hell out of me. This is barely concealed racism. In the case of calling Obama a terrorist, it is out-and-out racism, just not in the form that we were expecting, tying Obama to a religion (one that he doesn't profess, by the way) rather than to his skin color. But at the end of the day it's the same thing: they just don't want the guy who's "different" to be their president.
I used to respect McCain for being a different kind of Republican. I used to buy the "maverick" tag line. But his choice of Palin and the way he's been running his campaign has destroyed my trust in him, just as surely as for the other side his camp has made it impossible for nearly half the country to ever trust Obama.
Unwise policy when we all have to live together.
I am frightened.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment