# Obama gets 400% more death threats than W did **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 5, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385 "2009-08-05T03:01:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/81 "2009-08-08T02:52:58Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Boo hoo, the Southern Strategy, waah. It’s called democracy. 😕 The fuck are you on about? I never said it wasn’t democracy. > [@Fotheringay](#): > > I didn’t say it was a coincidence. I said it was not directly related. > > What we are discussing here is whether racism is the extreme end of the conservative spectrum. What you claim has no bearing on that, even if true. Perhaps the trouble is that you’re defining the philosophy independent of its practitioners, as if it exists in some pure unsullied state. I’m more interested in defining it according to who holds it. And it seems to me that the hardcore racists hold far more positions in common with the modern Republican party than with the modern Democratic party. If you’re arguing that racism doesn’t follow logically from the positions of William F. Buckley, well, I might concede that after pointing out Buckley’s [initial support for segregation](http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/qa-with-sam-tanenhaus-on-william-f-buckley/). If you’re arguing that not all Republicans are racist, I’ll naturally agree. But I am saying that a socially conservative worldview that exists in a racist society will be more comfortable for racists than a socially liberal worldview will be. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/82 "2009-08-08T02:53:59Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Actually, he “needs” 15,000. A 400% increase means five times as many as the beginning number, just as a 100% increase means twice as many. > [@kaylasdad99](#): > > A 400% increase wouldn’t be 4W. It would be W + 4W. **5W** It would have to average 15k/yr. > > I’m glad this thread is here. Because it gives me an opportunity to air my pet peeve about this too-common mathematical error. Usually pet peeve threads are related to spelling, and I get distracted. > > ETA: DAMN YOU, **LHoD**! 🙂 That’s why I love this place. The insistent desire to nitpick something irrelevant but entirely correct. EDIT: I realize, upon reading this post, that I might appear sarcastic. I’m not; I really do like that people here do this. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/83 "2009-08-08T04:08:46Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > The Dems couldn’t win with Americans, so they had to import their electorate via the 1965 Immigration Act. Immigrants aren’t Americans? What the fuck is wrong with you?! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/84 "2009-08-08T04:18:57Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Boo hoo, the Southern Strategy, waah. It’s called democracy. All those millions of horrible scary racists would have voted anyway, whether their dreadfully unfashionable candidates had run as Republicans or Redneckians. In 1965, weren’t a number of those racists going to various lengths to ensure that some people in their constituencies who’d been there for generations couldn’t vote at all? I seem to recall reading something about that. > [@](#): > > At least the Republicans went after existing voters. Yeah, you’re right. Where do people born after 1965 get off, thinking they can vote? Fuckin’ newcomers. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/85 "2009-08-08T04:54:20Z")
Why hasn’t anyone mentioned cities like Boston and Philadelphia as having major problems with racism despite being generally liberal? Boston is about as Northeastern as it gets yet has a huge legacy of racism starting as a major slave trading port, massive discrimination against Irish and Italian immigrants, up to the biggest school busing problem in U.S. history. Now we have a Harvard professor that had to meet with the POTUS himself with a police officer to address racism in the area. The affluent suburbs are almost completely segregated. In fact, Boston is still one of the most segregated cities in America when it comes to whites and blacks. Where I came from in Louisiana, we self-segregated in some ways but we all interacted on a daily basis and respected one another except for the criminals on both sides. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/86 "2009-08-08T16:03:28Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Immigrants aren’t Americans? What the fuck is wrong with you?! They’re not Americans until they’re legally in the country, and they can’t vote until they’re citizens. Those doors were flung open to the Third World in 1965 by a Democrat Congress and President with the result that [Obama won instead of lost](http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/11/obama_victory_took_root_in_kennedy_inspired_immigration_act/?page=full). ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/87 "2009-08-08T16:11:33Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Why hasn’t anyone mentioned cities like Boston and Philadelphia as having major problems with racism despite being generally liberal? Because it doesn’t follow the simpleminded narrative so many on this board cling to. I’ve made the observation that Cleveland was a hotbed of abolitionism and civil rights until the early 1900s, when massive immigration introduced hundreds of thousands of foreigners who (a) directly competed with blacks in the labor market, (b) were prejudiced against blacks, as most nonblack foreigners always have been, and (c) had no guilt (nor should they have) over past injustices. Result: decades of conflict including massive violent riots, self-segregation and prejudice with no end in sight. Much the same could be said about many northern cities. But that doesn’t fit the narrative. There’s no tobacco-spitting redneck taking his white hood off the hook for a night ride, so it never happened or doesn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/88 "2009-08-08T19:13:35Z")
Hardly anyone on this board clings to a simple narrative. We all know that “liberal” =/= good. However, American liberal philosophies tend to be less self-contradictory than American conservative philosophies. Sure, there are exceptions like the racist aspect of populism, but they’re much fewer. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/89 "2009-08-08T19:31:49Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Why hasn’t anyone mentioned cities like Boston and Philadelphia as having major problems with racism despite being generally liberal? Maybe because that has nothing to do with the thread topic? And anyway, someone (you) did mention it. The board is only as good as its members. If you want something mentioned in a thread, don’t whine over the fact that nobody else mentioned it: bring it up your own damn self. That said, what does that have to do with anything? Should we equally beat our breasts over the lack of mention of black conservatives, animosity between many blacks and hispanics, or the anti-Italian bigotry around the turn of the last century? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/90 "2009-08-08T19:31:51Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > They’re not Americans until they’re legally in the country, and they can’t vote until they’re citizens. Those doors were flung open to the Third World in 1965 by a Democrat Congress and President with the result that [Obama won instead of lost](http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/11/obama_victory_took_root_in_kennedy_inspired_immigration_act/?page=full). Well, guess what, there are a hell of a lot of legal immigrants in this country, and they have just as much right to vote as you do. Xenophobic asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/91 "2009-08-08T19:41:14Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > They’re not Americans until they’re legally in the country, and they can’t vote until they’re citizens. Those doors were flung open to the Third World in 1965 by a Democrat Congress and President with the result that [Obama won instead of lost](http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/11/obama_victory_took_root_in_kennedy_inspired_immigration_act/?page=full). Wow, nice. I just looked at this link. Apparently by “the third world,” you mean “everywhere except Europe.” This ignores a couple of hugely important realities: 1. The major waves of immigration from Europe to the US came from countries undergoing severe poverty (e.g., Ireland during the Potato Famine, Italy during the [epidemics and famines of the late nineteenth century](http://library.thinkquest.org/26786/en/articles/view.php3?arKey=4&paKey=7&loKey=0&evKey=&toKey=&torKey=&tolKey=)). The idea that “third world” immigration only occurred post-Kennedy is historical nonsense. 2. A lot of our non-European immigrants come from countries like Japan, India, China–not third world countries. True, folks living in impoverished countries are likelier to want to move to another country than folks in wealthy countries; this pattern surely predates the rise of the nation-state. But Kennedy’s law allowed folks from non-European wealthy countries to come here as well. Your post goes way into xenophobia and borders on racism. Unless you’re entirely ignorant of our country’s history of racial identity and immigration waves, I see no way to read your post that’s not racist. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/92 "2009-08-08T20:03:48Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I’m equally irritating as **Der Trihs**? Now that’s an insult! He who lives by false equivalence dies by false equivalence. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/93 "2009-08-08T20:25:31Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Boo hoo, the Southern Strategy, waah. It’s called democracy. All those millions of horrible scary racists would have voted anyway, whether their dreadfully unfashionable candidates had run as Republicans or Redneckians. At least the Republicans went after existing voters. The Dems couldn’t win with Americans, so they had to import their electorate via the 1965 Immigration Act. I guess when the government no longer serves the people, it’s time for the government to elect a new people. And if republicans succeeded in getting enough votes to serve their voters interests in instituting racism on government level, how would that go for democracy? How about for the American ideal of everyone’s equal under the law? All Americans are culturally assimilated immigrant populations. Only a mouth breathing KKK asslicker doesn’t know that. Further only someone just as stupid wouldn’t realize why the government can’t represent racists interests, and those being elected under such are either antidemocratic, or liars. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/94 "2009-08-08T20:51:09Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > They’re not Americans until they’re legally in the country, and they can’t vote until they’re citizens. Those doors were flung open to the Third World in 1965 by a Democrat Congress and President with the result that [Obama won instead of lost](http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/11/obama_victory_took_root_in_kennedy_inspired_immigration_act/?page=full). So we started letting in brown people as well as white ones. How _horrible_. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/95 "2009-08-08T23:04:00Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > The Dems couldn’t win with Americans, so they had to import their electorate via the 1965 Immigration Act. lol what ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/96 "2009-08-08T23:57:26Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > The Dems couldn’t win with Americans, so they had to import their electorate via the 1965 Immigration Act. The [Immigration Act of 1924](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924) was quite openly and unabashedly racist; the avowed purpose of the national-origins-quota system was to preserve America’s character as a white-majority nation. The spirit of the times in the '60s obviously could not allow it to remain in place when domestic racial segregation was being systematically abolished. Furthermore, the [Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_Amendments_of_1965) passed by a vote of 326 to 69 in the House and 76 to 18 in the Senate. (Opposition came mainly from Southern legislators – Democrats, then, though some may have crossed over to the Pubs later.) That’s solid bipartisan support. Do you **seriously** believe calculations of the Act’s potential relative partisan effects on elections decades down the road played any part? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/97 "2009-08-09T00:06:32Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Yeah, if you’re gonna court racists, you should court black and brown racists, not white ones. :rolleyes: It’s like this, **Polecat:** The [National Association for the Advancement of White People](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_White_People) is a racist organization. The [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Colored_People) is not. African-American voters have good, sound, **non-racist** reasons to prefer candidates of their own race. White American voters have not. **There’s no equivalence.** The reasons for that are rooted in aspects of American history and society known to all. [It’s possible to imagine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Man%27s_Burden_(film)) a society where the shoe is on the other foot – where blacks are historically dominant and whites historically oppressed and marginalized and impoverished – but that is not the society we live in and it never has been and it never will be. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/98 "2009-08-09T00:11:06Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > All Americans are culturally assimilated immigrant populations. Well, except for those of predominantly pre-Revolutionary British ancestry. Their ancestors were **settlers,** not immigrants. That’s an important difference. They established the core culture (or, arguably, cultures\*) to which later waves of immigrants (and even the surviving American Indians, for the most part) ultimately assimilated. - See [_Albion’s Seed,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed) by David Hackett Fischer, for the theory of multiple regional “hearth cultures” in pre-Revolutionary America, corresponding to the region of the original settlers’ origins in Britain. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/99 "2009-08-09T01:46:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, except for those of predominantly pre-Revolutionary British ancestry. Their ancestors were **settlers,** not immigrants. That’s an important difference. They established the core culture (or, arguably, cultures\*) to which later waves of immigrants (and even the surviving American Indians, for the most part) ultimately assimilated. That argument would hold a bit more water if there weren’t any people here before them, even if they did found all or most of the cultural institutions which later became the USA. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385/100 "2009-08-09T04:21:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That argument would hold a bit more water if there weren’t any people here before them, even if they did found all or most of the cultural institutions which later became the USA. In cultural-assimilation terms, the Cherokee who were here first are in the same boat as the Irish who fled the Potato Famine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-gets-400-more-death-threats-than-w-did/505385.md?page=6)