The Obama Assassination Plot In Context

Colorado is one of several states nationwide where a few motorcycle clubs engage in drug running with some members adopting White supremacist or neonazi ideology. The regions where this is more common include the Rocky Mountain States, the Western Midwest, the Pacific Coast, the Southeast, and New England.

Turf-related murders or revenge killings do occur within such groups, however, since this is primarily an illegal commercial enterprise, rather than an ideological mission, it would be very unusual for participants in such a criminal network to want to call attention to themselves by carrying out the political assassination of a major public figure such as Barack Obama.

In barroom bluster or heated arguments within such subcultures, hyperbolic threats would be a common occurrence, but seldom resulting in actual acts of violence. Police informer reporting of such threats needs to be investigated, but placed in the proper context.

What really scares me is that right-wing talk show hosts and other media scaremongers are creating a hyperbolic rhetorical environment in which credible threats are likely to be generated.
Indeed, the frames through which scaremongers demonize Obama as a political candidate are by now fairly well drawn and generally familiar:

1) Christian Right -- Obama is part of the End Times Antichrist attack on true Christians

2) Ultra-conservatives -- Obama will destroy America through affirmative action, gay rights, abortion, and big government collectivism

3) White Supremacists -- Obama will mongrelize America and subjugate White Americans.

To me this is the real uncovered media story. The threat posed by the men taken into custody in Colorado has, it seems, been relieved. It is much more difficult, however, to address the larger and ongoing threat posed by an established culture of fear-mongering antipathy.

Comments

[lewes17266]

They love to emphasize his middle name by calling him B. Hussein Obama - "Christian" Ann Coulter does this with pride.

[homesteader]

I've got acquaintances in this small Southern town who really believe that he is a Muslim, and like their parents on the subject of Catholics and JFK, are not not not going to vote for him.

Oh, yes, and he's black.

(the same people believe that women should not be ministers)

[Chip Berlet - Huffpost Blogger]

My mistake. You are quite correct. Sorry I left it off the list. I expect there are others.

Let's collect them all! Other entries in the

Demonize Obama Contest:

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[Skua]

You left out 4) He's part of a Muslim sleeper cell that will betray America into the hands of nuclear terrorists. Who was the right-wing radio host who said that if Obama won he would leave America before "they blow it up"?