Many consider "America -- love it or leave it" one of the quintessential conservative slogans. These days, however, according to Daily Kos writer Mark E Andersen, right-wingers don't seem to love America, but that doesn't mean they're leaving. They're still here, fearful and angry about a changing America, just like they were a few decades ago when they fought against racial desegregation.
From Andersen's front-page post this past Sunday:
The good ol' days. Democrats were communist hippies and Republicans believed in patriotism, law and order. My how things have changed (or not).
We have a rancher refusing to pay grazing fees and calling in "militias" for help to prevent federal agents from doing their jobs...
...[T]he Wisconsin Republican party is voting on a plank in their platform that supports secession under extreme circumstances. Which I am pretty sure means that if there is a black or female president that is a Democrat the state can secede. I thought the whole secession thing was settled between the years of 1861 and 1865...
What has changed to make the American right go from being patriotic, never criticizing the government and following the letter of the law to this bizarre combination of fake patriotism/hating the government, tin-foil hat stuff? Is it because we have a black president? Is it the barrage of Fox News misinformation 24 hours a day? The dumbing down of the U.S. media? The astro-turfing of the Koch brothers? The anti-intellectualism of the American right? Fears of the unknown?
In April of 2008, then-candidate Obama stated during the Pennsylvania primary:
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
President Obama took a whole lot of heat for that comment in 2008 and he was forced to apologize; however, he could not have been more correct with that statement. Thanks to the do-nothing Congress, no help has come for the common man/woman. The middle class is dying and people are scared. They cling to what is comfortable to them and their fears are being stoked by right-wing media and Republican leaders who will not say or do anything to correct those who are spreading lies...
The protest signs from the right are very similar as they were in the 1950s and 1960s (although they could spell better back then). During those decades, American conservatives feared integration. They saw society changing and it scared them. At times the protests and their actions turned violent. And you know, the same things are happening today. The world is changing. They are afraid of these changes. In 20 to 30 years we will look back upon their protests, their threats of secession, and the American right will look pretty silly once again...
