Before anyone around here goes nuts…note the word “extreme”.
Have you seen Huffposts slideshow of yesterday’s most offensive signs? Pretty stunning stuff. And completely disconnected from reality. And just nuts. Because that’s what nuts is: a disconnection from reality.
“The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s Ovens”??? :eek: Wow. Way to cut straight to the Godwin. (The Obama is the New Face of Hitler seems almost mild…)
Based on what is the intensity of this hate? The nature of Obama’s tax changes can’t be the reason. (Somehow I don’t think all the people freaking out are making $250K and up - reality disconnect = nuts. Oh, and for the record, even if they are - still nuts.
Because he’s black?
Because he’s so popular?
Because he hasn’t done anything to warrant this. He hasn’t been in office for a full three months yet. Hello.
I was pretty damned unhappy with Bush the minute he got into office (with WAY more reason right there… Obama won it fair and square, no taint, no showing what a vile person he could be in the fight itself, as with Bush) and I wouldn’t have gone where these people have gone.
This just blows me away, really it does. And makes me sad. Because it always makes me sad when I see people cling to their own reality no matter how unreasonable it is, no matter what amount of disconnection it takes.
So I put this in GD because I didn’t want to rant really, I’m not so much with the pitting, and it’s political and I figured someone would want to say it’s not nuts.
While I’m not defending George W. Bush a similar level of irrational hate for him was seen during the election, during the election controversy, and into the first few months of his presidency. I remember some nut balls referring to George W. as a murderer personally responsible for all the executions in Texas while he was governor. It’s been a while so I can’t remember some of the more outrageous claims.
Certainly this style of political speech is nothing new in U.S. history. Just look at when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson ran against one another. Things do seem to be a lot nastier these days and I wonder if this recent trend started with the way Republicans treated Bill Clinton while he was in office.
Personally I didn’t find all of the signs on the linked site to be all that offensive or silly. Certainly the ones painting Obama as Hitler and comparing his tax plan to the Holocaust are so offensive they just become silly in my opinion. However there are some legitimate concerns about the stimulus package and whatever long term ramifications they might have.
Did you really think that tens of thousands of people would participate in a political protest and no wingnuts would show up? Not all of the loonies are on the left.
Obama has used the financial crisis to massively increase the national debt. Whenever, the debt goes up alot some people get upset. In 1992, crazy Ross Perot was serious contender for the presidency based on his running against the debt.
Hating the political opposition is part of human nature. The left hated Reagan and Bush. The right hated Clinton. Then the left hated W. Now the right hates Bush. They all feel like they have reason for the hatred, but most of it is just tribalism.
I see what you mean, they’re all the same, really, just your political persuasion that makes them appear different! GeeDubya lied us into a futile and senseless war, and sullied our reputation for years to come, and Obama bought a puppy!
On a related note–it was a little over five years ago when moveon.org sponsored their Bush in 30 Seconds contest, in which their supporters could submit anti-Bush videos for people to vote on. Out of over 1500 videos submitted, two of them directly compared Bush to Hitler. MoveOn took the videos down, but not before the right threw a massive shitfit about it. The chairman of the RNC even called on the current Democratic primary candidates to condemn MoveOn for letting these videos get through. (Here’s a thread about it from the time.)
Now, five years and change later, it’s not even out of the mainstream to call Obama a fascist, and Glenn Beck has made the Obama=Hitler connection directly on his basic cable TV show.
The difference, I think, is that the anti-Bush rhetoric didn’t have talk radio and Fox News to focus it and fan the crazy flames. Eventually we had the blogs, and eventually it became more acceptable to criticize Bush in mainstream sources, but that took a while.
Interesting, isn’t it - if you sympathize even a bit with a protest you’re mighty forgiving of some of the people in it.
The antiwar protests generally included their share of unpleasant avowed anti-Semites, anarchists and commies. Their pictures would be prominently displayed on conservative blogs, but their presence wouldn’t be much mentioned here.
Why should we be surprised when the tables are turned and the left zeroes in on the wackiest signs and individuals they can find?
Under it all, of course, is a broader body politic - and Code Pink and teabaggers each make up a small part of it. This goes without saying, really, but perhaps today it should be said again.
Sure. He was looking for an excuse. Just any excuse. Finally, it came to him that he could increase the national debt by exploiting the financial crisis! This was to his benefit because…uh…?
How do you know the motives of others – especially of those you’ve never met? Hate is a pretty harsh word for me. I think that I feel more rage toward some Presidents than hatred. They often appear to lack empathy. That can happen on either side.
I wonder if Hitler (providing their is an afterlife) ever gets pissed at all the times someone compares him to another. I mean the man started WWII killed millions upon millions of people, sent millions of his own people to their deaths. A man so twisted that the entire world practically rose up against him…
And Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich…
Hitler has to be wondering what else he could have done worse to avoid any comparison ever.
It’s not the same as it was for Bush. There was a lot of animosity towards Bush, but it did not rise to these kind of hysterical, paranoid levels in the mainstream of the left. The Truther type wingnuts were safely out on the edge of the wing. They certainly weren’t being being whipped up and led by major media outlets.
Remember when Moveon.org sponsored an ad contest and somebody uploaded an ad comparing Bush to Hitler. It was quikly taken down, it was never endorsed by the website or its denizens and never aired, but it was a scandal akin to the Dreyfus Affair in the tight wing media. Now we have a clearly mentally ill Glenn Beck sobbing hysterically for America while he runs footage of nazi stormtroopers in the background. Is there anything at all on MSNBC or CNN comparable to Beck or Hannity? Not even Olbermann takes things to the levels that they do.
We also didn’t see any “liberal” networks openly sponsoring and hyping anti-government protests where words like “armed revolution” and “secession” are tossed around freely, not just by the wingnuts in the crowd, but by Governors and Congresspeople.
I think the difference on the right (besides the fact that their wingnuts are in the box seats while ours are in the parking lot) is the edge of religious mania that goes along with it. They really do think that people who disagree with them politically are enemies of God. Tax cuts are not really the issue to them. They think it’s a holy war.
While I’m sure that some genuine anti-semites showed up somewhere sometime at anti-war protests, this particular meme is based on painting anyone critical of Israel as antisemitic.
I would also pint out again, that the nutburgers who showed up at anti-war protests were not elected members of Congress or Governors of Texas, and were not hosts of national cable news shows.
This…
…is why such behavior really frightens me. Oh, not for my personal safety. Not yet anyway.
But I am frightened that the divisions between us have now become so deep and so wide that there will be no healing them. I’m frightened that we will never again be “one” country.
Nope.
You never were “one country” in the sense that all Americans agreed on, well, anything. There are too many of you spread out over too large an area to get any kind of social unity except in the most basic generic terms. And some percentage of your population will always be nuts and eager to cast the current president in the most evil light, because it helps quiet the angry hungry voices in their heads.
Ah yes. I forget about that mindset. But even then, I think there was a lot more support for Israel among liberals than there is now. Now there are American rabbis whose support for Israel has lessened.