America Beats Back the Haters

One additional thought on Obama’s victory Tuesday night.

The efforts to unseat the President began much earlier than the night Mitt Romney was chosen by Republicans to run for America’s highest office on their behalf. It began the moment Obama was declared the winner in the 2008 election. On that night, someone at FOX News went to the basement and turned a key, and the hate machine sputtered to life. Fueled by the Right Wing media, the Tea Party, Christian Evangelicals, panicky billionaires, cranky old racist white guys, the Supreme Court, the NRA, conservative politicians, and an ill informed, easily manipulated slice of the electorate, and abetted by the mainstream media, the machine began cranking out bile and bunk by the truckload, painting Obama as a socialist, Kenyan, Muslim, American apologist, liar, ineffective leader, communist, Manchurian Candidate, racist, radical and enemy of true Americans.

Billions of dollars, hours and words were spent on spreading Obama hatred throughout every corner of the country. It was organized and incessant, without a day going by when we didn’t hear a new incendiary charge from Limbaugh or Beck or Brooks or Trump. Anti-Obama movies and documentaries were made. Books were written. The Right Wing megaphone gave us hour by hour headlines — fake birth certificate, born in Kenya, apology tour, pals around with socialists, Benghazi, hates American values, sympathizes with Muslims, wants our enemies to win — the list was endless. And the mainstream media, instead of repudiating the vile stream of lies, obliged its corporate masters by either burying its head in the sand or playing the “one-side-says-this-the-other-side-says-that” game, so as not to alienate any particular demographic. The news, after all, is a profit-driven venture.

And what do they have to show for what has to be the longest, most expensive ongoing propaganda campaign in the history of a democracy? Nothing. Zip. It didn’t work. Obama won reelection despite their best efforts. The merchants of hate are now shaking their heads in disbelief. How could this happen? How can we have failed? One reason was that as time went on, conservatives started to believe that the fantasy world they had created was, in fact, reality. They believed their own lies and ended up conning themselves.

Obama’s victory was noteworthy on many levels, but none is as important as the national repudiation of the power of America’s hate mongers, racists, misogynists, bigots and liars. Obama not only won reelection, but they lost. Big time.