The Victimization of Barack Obama Begins

One of the legitimate reasons for hope in the potential of the incoming Obama administration is what the election of an African-American president could mean for race relations in the United States. Obama's race is of course not in itself a qualification for office. But his election does symbolize how far America has come from its discriminatory past. Truth be told, America has been ready to elect a black man to high office for a much longer time than the left will admit. Until Obama, there simply have not been African-American candidates that have proved acceptable to the broad middle of the American electorate.

But all of that hope for a new day and a new discussion on race in America is in the process of being thrown out the window before Obama even takes office by the mainstream press and some denizens of the political left. The press has been full of stories since Obama's election of attacks on Obama supporters, vandalization of Obama yard signs, chanting schoolchildren, and figures hung in effigy. These and other stories have been presented as representative of the common reaction of those who did not support President-elect Obama in the election. In reality, however, these are examples of fringe elements in American society doing what fringe elements do. They are no more representative of the typical reaction of Americans as a whole than the deification of Obama among his more dedicated supporters is a representation of his true potential.

Whole forests could have been felled to provide the paper on which to write stories of the reaction to President Bush's election and reelection. Yet, somehow, these stories were not prevalent in the press in 2000 and 2004. The narrative then centered on how depressed liberals and Democrats were at losing the elections and what Democrats needed to do to win the White House again.

The focus in the press and on the left on an insignificantly small number bad actors can only be intended to set Barack Obama up as a victim of the very racial politics that the media said his election would transcend. Ultimately, this will have the opposite effect on race relations from that which America has been promised in the Obama victory. It will serve to divide people even further along racial lines, by design. For all its rhetoric about uniting America, the left prefers to have the electorate divided along class lines, racial lines, gender lines, and ideological lines. Were Barack Obama to bridge the gap that divides people based on their race, it would spell the end of a political tactic that the Democratic Party has used since at least the early 1960s to win elections.

So Obama must be denied his signature achievement before he even has a chance to achieve it. Hence, Obama, his supporters, and his yard signs must become victims of the bitter racial hatred in America that 52% of voters managed to cast aside when they voted for him just last week. The overwhelming majority of people who did not vote for Barack Obama did so based on his beliefs, not the color of his skin. And an overwhelming majority of those same people hope he succeeds as president, for the good of the country. It is time for the press and the left to stop dwelling on issues of race and get on with uniting the country, as they promised Obama would do.