Hate and Racism as a Campaign Tool

It's been months since I've blogged. I've been healing two broken toes and my running has not been going well. Fortunately, I've had this presidential campaign season to keep my mind occupied. Unfortunately, firing up the brain cells doesn't burn as many calories as firing up the slow twitch muscles. Nevertheless, I've been compelled to write letters to the editor and given my tendency towards sarcasm, none have been published this year. What a surprise! Here's the most recent missive, destined to be ignored but for those who read it here:

John McCain said yesterday that racism will play no role in the upcoming election. In the last two months Americans have engaged in the most despicable acts of unchecked racism and hate that I can remember in my adult lifetime. A plot by White-Supremacists to assassinate African-American citizens and Barack Obama was uncovered this week by the FBI. College students hung an effigy of Barack Obama from a tree at the University of Kentucky. American citizens shouted jeers of “kill him” at a Republican vice-presidential rally. Talk show hosts emphasize Obama’s middle name of Hussein as an epithet of fear and derision to rouse their candidate’s supporters.

The candidates themselves have conducted a campaign designed to cast suspicion and evoke fear among their own constituents and undecided voters. John McCain referred to Obama as “that one” in a presidential debate. Just this week Barack Obama has been cast by Megyn Kelly of Fox News as a “Marxist”, by vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a “Socialist”, a Palestinian sympathizer, a terrorist, and an anti-Semite. John McCain’s minions have proclaimed that Obama’s election will mean the “death of Israel.” It should not come as a surprise that there are people in our country that feel their words and actions are not only vindicated, but supported by their Republican candidates.

Peter Bronson (of The Cincinnati Enquirer) fuels the flames of hatred by asking “Who is Obama?” He suggests that the media have given Obama a pass when it comes to investigating his background. Bronson is either woefully uninformed, is technologically-challenged, or is simply a cog in the Republican fear-mongering machine. The answers to all of his questions regarding Ayers, Rezko, ACORN, and Obama’s position on abortion have been asked and answered in great detail ad infinitum. It is not the fear of the unknown that has pushed so many people “out on a ledge” but tacit permission by the candidates themselves supported by media personnel like Bronson, Hanity, Limbaugh, and Cunningham who turn ordinary citizens into thugs.