Your tax dollars, hard at work calling you a racist.
Race Alone Doesn’t Explain Hatred Of Obama, But It’s Part Of The Mix – NPR
. . . It’s possible that no Republican would have voted for the Affordable Care Act if it had been promoted by a President Joe Biden or John Edwards. (Hillary Clinton raises a different set of issues, as we’ll be reminded over the next couple of years.)
But the fact that it was a president of color who pushed the law through has added fuel to the fire, argues Smith, the San Francisco State professor.
“There’s a perception that Obama’s major achievement is a transfer from middle-income white people to low-income minorities,” he says.
Obama’s tenure has been marked by consistently disappointing economic news. At times of such anxiety, demographically similar groups of white reactionaries always gain renewed prominence, says Parker, co-author of Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America.
At the present moment, Obama’s own race and the much-discussed rise of previously marginalized groups including Hispanics and gays serves to heighten that recurring reaction.
“That makes these people nervous,” Parker says. “They feel that they’re losing this America that they’ve known.” […]
All of this — his ideology, his background, his manner and the unforgettable fact of his race — bleed together, making him a figure held in a type of disdain that’s notable even in an era of heavily polarized politics.
“Obama’s race and his Ivy League background and the sense of his elitism, all of those come together to make his case the worst we’ve seen,” Smith says.