If conservatives really, really hate being called fascists ... #4

-- by Dave

... then maybe they should stop talking and behaving like them.

Maybe they should find a way to stop frothing at the mouth and race-baiting like Theodore Bilbo clones at the very prospect of an African-American man winning the presidency.

Indeed, maybe they ought to find a way to stop sounding like eugenicists every time they talk about black people in general -- particularly the constantly recurring theme about black criminality.

Actually, most of the race-baiting that conservatives indulge is sublimated, pseudo-academic stuff -- sophistry posing as sophistication. But it doesn't take much to scratch off the surface deniability -- and what's underneath is the same old shit:

His trash talking was an unattractive carryover from his days playing pickup basketball at Harvard, and capped a mediocre night. ... In the Illinois legislature, he had a habit of ducking major issues, voting "present" on bills important to many Democratic interest groups, like abortion-rights and gun-control advocates. He is often lazy, given to misstatements and exaggerations and, when he doesn't know the answer, too ready to try to bluff his way through.
Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal

"The brutal truth: Obama is a 'wigger'. He's a remarkably exotic variety of the faux African-American, but a wigger nonetheless."
-- Steve Sailer, American Conservative

At the core of the Democratic front-runner's faith — whether lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two — is African nativism, which raises political issues of its own. ... Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?
-- Investor's Business Daily editorial

"I have a telegram from the White House... They're going to have to change the name of that building if Obama's elected."
-- Businessman William R. Farr, at the National Western Stock Show banquet

Many whites assume that the mixed-race and Hawaiian-born Mr. Obama is, in Mr. Steele's words, "indifferent to the whole business of race and identity." According to Mr. Steele, the author of 1990s acclaimed "The Content of Our Character," they see voting for Mr. Obama as proving that they personally aren't guilty of racism.

Mr. Steele suggests that many whites hope electing Mr. Obama president will show blacks that white racism isn't what's holding them back anymore. Numerous white Democrats, I would add, view backing Mr. Obama as confirming their moral and cultural superiority over other whites (those redneck racists). Whites strive for status mostly against other whites, and conceive of minorities primarily as handy props in these intra-racial struggles.

While some whites envisage Mr. Obama as the Cure for White Guilt, blacks are in no hurry to grant the white race absolution for slavery and Jim Crow, since they benefit from compensatory programs like affirmative action.

-- Steve Sailer, Washington Times

I think it's worth imagining a certain scenario. Imagine the Democrats do rally around Obama. Imagine the media invests as heavily in him as I think we all know they will if he's the nominee — and then imagine he loses. I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. Forget Hillary's inevitability. Obama has a rendezvous with destiny, or so we will be told. And if he's denied it, teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid.
Jonah Goldberg, NRO

Well, as I observed at the time:

There in fact already are "certain segments of American political life" that have become completely unhinged by Obama's candidacy itself, not merely the (now rapidly diminishing) prospects of his defeat: they're called the lunatics of the racist right, who have in fact gone so far as to promise his assassination -- which is why Secret Service security around him has been so tight.

I don't know about you, but perhaps, rather than speculating about a possible violent trend involving, oh, you know, those unnamed colored people who might -- just might, mind you, though there has been no violence yet associated with any of Obama's supporters -- go a-rioting if Obama actually lost, maybe it would be worth the expenditure of space in the public discourse to talk about the very real possibility that someone may in fact take violent action to stop Obama from becoming president.

The old Strom Thurmond faction is alive and well in today's Republican Party. And while party officials know full well they can't openly embrace it, there's no doubt that there's an undercurrent there towards which they can wink and nudge:

Today CBSNews.com informed its staff via email that they should no longer enable comments on stories about presidential candidate Barack Obama. The reason for the new policy, according to the email, is that stories about Obama have been attracting too many racist comments.

"It's very simple," Mike Sims, director of News and Operations for CBSNews.com, told me. "We have our Rules of Engagement. They prohibit personal attacks, especially racist attacks. Stories about Obama have been problematic, and we won't tolerate it."

CBSNews.com does sometimes delete comments on an individual basis, but Sims said that was not sufficient in the case of Obama stories due to "the volume and the persistence" of the objectionable comments.

CBS News, June 4, 2007

But of course, consistent with their ongoing use of the projection strategy, we also find Fox News accusing Obama of racism. Because that's how things work in right-wing la-la-land.

[A note about this series.]