Challenging the Fear

Backlash: Six Challenges to McCain's Racist Fearmongering

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted October 15, 2008.

In the minutes following the second presidential debate last week, CNN analyst and former Reaganite David Gergen was gripped by an apparent fit of honesty. Amid the prevailing view that Obama had come out ahead, Gergen warned that it was still too soon to say that Obama had the race in the bag. "I think it's too early to declare victory," he said. "because Barack Obama is black."

Gergen's blunt analysis acknowledged what many Americans know to be true, but have not vocally admitted in this historic presidential campaign. "Until we play out the issue of race in this country," Gergen said, "I don't think we'll know (how Obama's race will affect him)." So much for "post-racial" America. As we see the country "play out the issue of race" in these closing weeks of the presidential campaign, fearmongering attacks from the McCain camp have spiked to obscene new levels. While forced recently to push back against some of the most blatantly racist public remarks about his opponent, McCain is largely responsible for stoking mistrust for Obama, repeatedly calling Obama "too risky" for America, asking "Who is the real Barack Obama?" and approving campaign ads that plumb the lowest depths of racist fearmongering. Even the often-repeated claim that Obama will "kill jobs" characterizes Obama as a predator politician who will endanger Americans.

McCain may be the one who "approved this message," but much of the dirty work has been carried out by the campaign's resident pit bull, Sarah Palin. On Oct. 4, at an appearance at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., Palin warned about the Democratic presidential candidate:

"This is not a man who sees America as you and I see America. We see America as a force for good in this world. We see America as a force for exceptionalism. … Our opponents see America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who would bomb their own country."

The well-documented result has been a chillingly heightened lynch mob atmosphere at McCain/Palin rallies, where McCain's lines asking, "Who is Barack Obama" now meet with shouts of "terrorist!" and "kill him!" At an event in Allentown, Penn., according to MSNBC, "At one point one man could be heard yelling, 'Off with his head,' when McCain spoke about Obama's tax plan."

This "is the Willie Hortonization of Obama," University of San Francisco associate professor James Taylor told the San Francisco Chronicle. Or perhaps more accurately, it is the "Osamafication" of Obama -- a brutal and nasty campaign to appeal to Americans' basest instincts and worst fears.

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