An extremely interesting thing happened on Friday at a McCain rally. He actually was forced to defend Obama’s character as a “decent, family man,” and was subsequently booed at his own rally (here) He was taking questions from the audience, when one person called him “dangerous,” and another said he was “an Arab.” McCain rejected those proposals by saying that while he has some fundamental policy differences with Obama, Obama is not actually seeking to destroy America (or whatever those people believe).
This incident was not isolated. In the past week, the following phrases have been yelled out at McCain or Palin rallies: “BOMB OBAMA!,” “HE’S A TERRORIST!,” and “KILL HIM!” So why all the hate-speech in the last week? Coincidence? No, of course not. It is because, for one, people have started introducing Palin at rallies by referring to her opponent, Barack “Hussein” Obama (which is officially condemned by the McCain campaign, but hmmm, it keeps happening). Also, Palin is traveling around the country talking about Obama’s secret terrorist connections (which is false), and McCain has been running ads to that effect. Officially the ads question his judgment, but of course the word that sticks in the mind of the intended audience is terrorist.
So the steep rise in hate-speech at the Republican rallies this week was no coincidence. The amazing thing is that McCain seemed to be surprised that his recent tactics have been working so well. Now, I don’t know why McCain reacted as he did, but I am more interested in why those crowds have been reacting so strongly to affirmations of Barack’s middle name. The Republican strategy here is to paint Barack as un-American, as not “one of us.” I believe that the reason that the “un-American” attacks are so effective (and they worked on Kerry, too: he’s French!), is because most Americans have a deep belief that Americans are just better people than are people of other countries.
This leads me to my topic for the next two weeks: the doctrine of American exceptionalism. For a primer, check out this video of Colbert making fun of Sean Hannity’s articulation of exceptionalism that America is “the best greatest country that God has ever given man on the face of the Earth (here). Next week, I want to try to make a connection between this doctrine and the recent death-threats that Obama has been receiving at Republican rallies.
