Reflections On Ohio, Continued
I am thinking the way you have written this, the tense you use, you are seeing this as a new development. But I suspect it is not. Most of what I read sounds to me like this is the steadfast 1/3 right wing of the country that has been there since at least the 80's, the conservative talk radio audience etc. One of the reasons why is what you describe here hit me as dejas vus allover again as to what happened with the Clinton presidency...Scaife et. al. plot to get back at him for winning, developed into riling up the right wing machine, developed into riling up the conservative 1/3 of the country that shows up steadfast and true in nearly every darn poll on the matter, developed into a distracting impeachment. Nothing new here?
The first big difference between now and the Clinton years is the massive economic unrest and upheaval. The country is headed into the shitter for a while (at least a year), and I have a feeling that any borad-based turnaround will be slow, but steady. The rhetoric will be matched with economic desperation in a manner that this country has not seen for a long time, and the risk of violence is much stronger. There will always be folks like Limbaugh and Hewitt. They are much more dangerous when their listeners are completely destitute and they can easily blame the black guy.
Second, although it's true that the Delay conservatives hated Clinton with a passion, they never questioned the legitimacy of his election in the office (as opposed to his remaining there). He was still the president of the United States, and they had to respect the office, if not the man. The difference with Obama is that by setting his election up as some sort of usurpation, there is no reason to follow his orders or policies. To me, the two situations are related, but distinguishable in fundamental ways. The situation we are in now is much more dangerous.
The mob is there, and the torches are lit.
