Because There's No Plausible Deniability For Using the "N-Word"

Watching all these teabaggers and "birthers" yell and scream at healthcare town halls has been frightening, mildly amusing, and most of all, confusing. I've already blogged on the hypocrisy and radicalism of these nut-job astroturfers, but even that didn't cover why the outrage is so overwhelming. Don't give me the rising debt - where were all these screams when President Bush doubled our national debt in his eight years in office, not to mention that the CBO's scoring of the public-option H.R. 3200 bill will actually produce a $6 billion surplus (see here for link). Don't give me "government run healthcare can never work!" - if your parents are over 65, they are already on government run healthcare - it's called Medicare. And it is rated 2X as favorable as private insurance (see my first link for source). And it has only 2% administrative costs, compared to 25-30% for private insurance.

So, then, would could possibly be the reason for the crazies coming out in droves with their 'Obama = Nazi' signs and their 'No Obamacare' signs and even their guns? What could exactly be the reason that at town hall after town hall we hear people ranting how "they want their America back". Back from what? What exactly is being proposed in the public-option healthcare bill that prevents you from maintaining your own individual status quo? It's called an option for a reason, i.e. if you'd like to continue to get bent over by health insurance companies, be my guest. And all these mobs can't be protesting about bringing socialism to America, because it already is here in the form of our police, fire, and ambulance departments, our public schools, our public parks, our trash removal, the list goes on and on.

Ah, but if you are a codebreaker of dog-whistle politics (and I am), then it's actually pretty obvious what these crazies mean when they say "they want their America back."

They can't stand the fact that (gasp!) a black man is President.

All these outcries aren't about the public-option or socialism or anything related to healthcare reform at all. They can't be; these wingers have shown their ignorance in stunning proportion. People who scream "don't let the government ruin my Medicare!" are pawns to the highest form of irony imaginable. Remember, these are the same people who screamed and yelled about the wildly popular and effective "Cash for Clunkers" program, which even some Congressional Republicans said is a great form of stimulus. Simply put, these people are against Obama for one and only reason - because he is black and represents the beginning of the end of white privilege. It's why the birther movement exists - the wingers have to find some reason to disqualify Barack Obama as a valid President. Keeping in tune with their disgusting and racist nature, these conservative psychos from Free Republic even attacked President Obama's daugther Malia, calling her "a typical street whore", and "ghetto street trash".

But (somehow) even conservatives are smart enough to know that if they use the "N-Word" in their protests, their cause is finished. So they result to dog whistle politics, which they have gotten very skilled at. When wingers say they want "their America back", it's all code for "I can't believe that n****r is President!" But by calling Obama a Nazi, or saying he's a socialist, or saying he's ushering in a "dismantling of our nation", they are all shielded from the accusations of racism. Repeating the title of this post, there's no plausible deniability for using the "N-Word".

You know, there have been other times in history where conservatives rallied in mobs against a product of a progressing society. In case you haven't been enrolled in a United States history course in a while, let me remind you:









People hailed Barack Obama's election as President as a sign that we are finally entering a society where racism will start to dissipate. But ever since the end of the Civil Rights era, we have had only a semblance less racism; in reality, it had entered the world of the underground, suppressed by those who despite increased opportunities for black people, were not threatened by their gains. But with the first black President, and the first Latino Supreme Court Justice, and with the demographics pointing to a swift increase in the population of non-Caucausian citizens, they are now starting to feel threatened. To these people, desperate times are amongst us, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

But thankfully for the sane, their version of America is over. The coming demographic numbers do not lie, nor does the mandate of the American people who elected a black man President.

To those of you pushed to intimidation, lying, radicalism, and violence all because we have a black President, I have a message for you.

Get over it.

**Update**

One of my readers of this commentary from my post stated that people are protesting about moving away from laissez faire economic policy. And one of my other readers responded with a brilliant and succinct (i.e. - Tweetable) response:

"People don't carry signs that say "Death to Obama" because they're worried about economic policy."

Q.E.D., indeed.