Building a Fire in the Summer

By Hootsbuddy

Anyone who has ever tried to light a fireplace knows how long it takes to make a big log get going. You can pour some charcoal starter on it but that's not enough. It will burn up before the log catches fire. You can turn on that little gas starter at the bottom, but it takes a long time for a good fire to show up in time for guests. When you're expecting company, the best way to get a cozy fire is to start with small kindling and a few smaller split pieces of wood. Then place a couple of not-too-big, good dry logs on top. These will catch quicker, burn longer and put up a show that will set a big log burning for the rest of the evening.

Why am I talking about fires at the hottest time of the year?

It might be a comment on the disparate but goofy Christmas in July marketing. But I'm afraid it's more serious. I'm using the image as a political metaphor. About a year ago Dave Niewert and a few others who keep an eye on the rabid right picked up on a really sick development during the presidential campaign. A few extreme voices openly advanced the idea that they wanted Barack Obama to be elected president, not because they liked him but because they thought his election would stir up the kind of fear and hate on which they feed.

Before we go on, I need to make clear that I'm not writing about everyone who doesn't like the president. A loyal opposition is alive and well with honest reservations about the direction the country is taking. Principled, sincere Conservatives outnumber the nut cases in overwhelming numbers as the newly energized Blue Dog coalition testifies. Indeed, I have spent my entire life in the South and can assure the reader that good-faith Christians (in both legal and lay meanings of the word) are the bedrock of our society.

That said, it's time to revisit a couple of last year's predictions and ask whether we might not be seeing them come to pass.

Mark Potok at Hatewatch picked up the theme last June.

With the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate clinched, large sections of the white supremacist movement are adopting a surprising attitude: Electing America�s first black president would be a very good thing.

It�s not that the assortment of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and others who make up this country�s radical right have suddenly discovered that a man should be judged based on the content of his character, not his skin. On the contrary. A growing number of white supremacists, and even some of those who pass for intellectual leaders of their movement, think that a black man in the Oval Office would shock white America, possibly drive millions to their cause, and perhaps even set off a race war that, they hope, would ultimately end in Aryan victory.

David Neiwert picked up on the theme and expanded on it at FDL.

Strangely (well, perhaps not that strangely), this is remarkably similar to the line of thinking promoted a couple of months ago by NRO's John Derbyshire, when he urged readers to "Imagine an Obama presidency overwhelmed and floundering" and predicted: "Nonblacks will flee from the Democrats in droves, though. A Republican landslide in the 2010 midterms (think 1994); a clear GOP victory in 2012 (think 1980)."

Of course, none of them seem to have considered the prospect of what will happen if an Obama presidency succeeds -- which, I guess, should be expected, considering their blind spots. Especially the ramifications for improving black-white race relations and the succeeding diminution of old-style white supremacy and its irrational, obsessive hatefulness.

But believe me, a lot of us have.

Of course, it's easy to dismiss such "analysis" as mere racist ranting, but there's also a significant element of self-fulfilling prophecy to the vitriol. That is, these folks have every intent of doing their damnedest to see find a way to make Obama's presidency fail.

The openly advertised wish that Obama should fail was clearly articulated by Limbaugh a few weeks ago and underscored by none other than a U.S.Senator who predicted that the health care issue could be his Waterloo. This is kindling, folks, no matter how they want to spin it, kindling to start a fire.

As far back as February, 2008, Neiwert picked up a similar theme and commented on it at length. His essay at the link is worth a long, hard re-reading.

What is not particularly encouraging is that [columnist George] Will's voice is a minority among conservatives -- the vast majority of whom seem to be adopting either the Sailer / Steele worldview (it's about white guilt) or, worse still, picking up the Obama is a liberal fascist Muslim commie theme. Either way, for all these conservatives, the only thing that matters about Obama is his race. 

Yet these same conservatives will roll their eyes at the very implication that this kind of obsessiveness   reveals any innate or underlying bigotry on their part. Why, they'd be just peachy with a black conservative president -- though they seem reluctant to explain why there happen to be so few such creatures even in the Congress, let alone in any kind of leadership position within the movement. 

And then they'll tell us with a straight face that in transcending identity politics, Obama is in fact all about identity politics. Why, the Queen of Hearts couldn't have argued it any better. 

Of course, we've been hearing variations on this schtick for some years: Efforts to overcome the effects of institutionalized racism, such as affirmative action, are in fact acts of racism themselves, we're told. Being intolerant of racists is just another kind of bigotry. And it's those minorities and their identity politics who are all obsessed with race -- why, whites (and especially white conservatives) are now perfectly color-blind, dontcha know?

I picked up on the theme because it reflected another of my pet peeves.

To this day bashing Jimmy Carter remains a cottage industry, not only for those on the right, but a good many others who may not like what they know to be reprehensible but who for political reasons don't want to rub anyone's fur the wrong way.

Come to think of it, Tennessee's Al Gore ain't treated a lot better by the same crowd.

For some the impulse to bash is not benign. There is a small but dangerous subset of ignorant people willing to cross the violence line.

Steve Benen points to an interesting polling trend, the upward march of the anti-choice crowd. Take a look at the chart at his post and decide for yourself. He want to think the uptick is an anomaly, but I'm not so sure.

The Gallup report on these results suggests that it's possible public attitudes shifted in the wake of the George Tiller assassination. Maybe, but it seems even more likely to me that the May results, showing "pro-life" identification with a nine-point edge, were just an outlier. There were no reasons -- political, demographic, or otherwise -- to explain that kind of dramatic one-year shift, and it's not surprising that the numbers quickly shifted back within a couple of months. Once in a while, when poll results seem wrong, it's because they are wrong.

I also want the poll to be wrong, an "outlier" as he said. But something in my gut tells me that it indicates more than a blip. I can't look at that chart without thinking about recent stories covering teabag parties, Palin adoration, Granny-killing health reforms and the recent upsurge of mob behavior all over the country.

I want this all to be wrong. I want to be a hand-wringing, sky is falling idiot. I need reassurance that I'm paranoid. But the fog which turned rain, then sleet, then to a crippling ice storm makes me wonder if a growing number of people are deliberately trying to light a yule log in August.