So How Do We Tell If She's Made of Wood?

I get it.

I just want to put that out there at the beginning so that if, when reading this, you think, "You just don't get it," you will know that I, in fact, do get it.

The McCain-Palin campaign can't possibly believe that the intense fear and white resentment they are stoking will not hit a ceiling. Granted, Republicanism of the past 40 years or so has been very successful in its adroit use of fear and racism, but everything has a shelf-life, no? No. Maybe?

Who knows?

Anyway, this intense push to identify Obama as the embodiment of terrorism, a different America, the scary "other" we don't know, could work, but if it does, it won't work in the way it has in the past.

Background please- Okay, when Bush I used racial fear and resentment against Michael Dukakis, the people you feared remained a faceless swarthy mass. Scary to be sure, but scary without a body or name. Scary because it was without a body and name. It wasn't the black kid behind the counter at McDonald's. You like him. And it wasn't the Mexicans mowing your lawn (probably Guatemalan, actually, but brown south of the border is all Mexican, right? ). Those guys are okay. Quiet, unassuming, hard-working, deferent. You weren't scared of them, but that wasn't the object of your fear. You were scared of the composite sketch, the unidentified welfare queen, the Latino male 17-23 y.o. with a slight build. Eesh, that is scary. That's the Southern strategy and it worked, especially as a form of white on white violence.

It got all kinds of people to forget about politics as it actually affects their lives as humans and worry about matters of identity wrapped up in things like Flags, Gods, and Sex, so they became perfectly willing to wage war against themselves.

Whatever.

But Barack Obama has a face. His face. He's got a name. Sure it's a weird name, but you see him and you're not actually afraid. You realize he's not so bad. Sure you still hate BLACK PEOPLE, but Barack isn't BLACK PEOPLE. He's Barack. He's like the Mexican that married your daughter versus the ILLEGAL ALIENS that are stealing your country. The faceless other can't be faceless when it actually has a face.

So it won't work like that, but like I said, it could work.

Intensifying the fear and anger will do just that- intensify the fear and anger. And even though it won't break through the lunatic 20-30% that you can see on the YouTubes, it will give that minority a momentum disproportionate to its mass.

Only lunatics were calling Bill Clinton a terrorist or radical leftist, but the fear and resentment of that era sprung up in a federal building in Oklahoma City. Now, our mainstream candidates are only steps away from calling the opposition a terrorist. (That's mainstream, folks... Volks.)

If McCain and Palin were not the Republican ticket, they could probably still fill beer halls by offering the rhetoric that they have resorted to. It wouldn't be hard to find plenty of people "mad as hell" or a bunch of frustrated white guys who are desperate for someone to affirm their belief that Obama is a secret Muslim terrorist. We would probably be able to see it for what it is though- crazy.

But maybe that crazy will strike fear into enough people that they don't want to risk an Obama presidency, not because of Obama, but because of the crazies who could not accept their secret Muslim, radical Christian, gangster elitist, terrorist president.

It is perhaps a much more brilliant ploy than it appears on the surface. Or maybe it's the only thing McCain has left since he's faced with the unsavory prospect of running as a Republican in a post Atwater-Rovian context.

Whatever the case, 30% could sometimes be enough. Historically, 40% has been*.

It may actually be a fear of white people that keeps Obama from the presidency. Ironic, no?

*This line is a cray historical allusion. You can disregard it.

Irony Can Be So Ironic
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Soozy- The Briefs
America Is- Violent Femmes
Lover Man- Sarah Vaughan
The Function- Talib Kweli
3 Speed- Eels