The Political Lynching of President Obama

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2008 has sent the Republican Party into a hysterical tailspin. This party has been considerably anti Black since the early 1980s and has its base among Whites in the eleven states of the former Southern Confederacy, who are the Republicans primarily in this tailspin.

The cry that shoots up from this element, and from other Republicans, found in the Mid-West and West, is that Obama has to fail as President! These elements are relying upon the Republicans in Congress to do whatever they can to make him fail. Feeling charged with this task, they have formed themselves into a political lynch mob in this body and have been engaging in actions to try to achieve this objective that amount to a political lynching of the President.

The Republicans in Congress have been against virtually everything that the President has proposed and sent to Congress for discussion and legislation. They have engaged in the tactics of saying "no" of "no show" for legislative committee meetings, of being obstructionists (rather than the party of the loyal opposition), and of being against bi-partisan political action.

In the U.S. Senate, Republicans have used the rules of that body to delay, thwart, or prevent legislation from being discussed or passed, or as a means to try to kill legislation, or to block Administration appointments. They have used the filibuster to date 112 times, something wholly unprecedented in American political history, to try to do all of the things mentioned.

The filibuster has always been an undemocratic political device, and is not to be found in the discussion of the Senate in the Constitution. It permits a single Senator, or an elected numerical minority of Senators, to dominate, thwart, or prevent an elected majority of Senators from passing policies or laws. It also allows less populated states to have a greater voice in the chamber than large populated states.

Why is this anti-democratic, dictatorial political device permitted to continue?

And yet the present situation in Washington, D.C. where the Republican Party in Congress is pitted against the President in such a confrontational manner is not wholly unprecedented. It is to be recalled what occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Walter White, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, went to the White House to ask President Roosevelt to get Congress to pass an anti-lynching bill.

Roosevelt told him that that was not something he would try to do even if he wanted to. He was concerned about the reaction of the southern white Democrats who controlled most of the important committees in the House and Senate. He said to White, as revealed in the latter's autobiography, A Man Called White: If I come out for the anti-lynching bill now, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can't take that risk.

In other words, as Roosevelt saw it, southern Whites in Congress and in southern states, would rather see the country collapse than have their ability--which they regarded as their inherent right--to dominate and control Blacks, and to be able to do with them or to them whatever they wished.

But even this kind of extreme behavior from southern Whites was not unprecedented and had a horrendous antecedent.

The eleven southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861 were willing to break up the Union, rather than see the U.S. government engage in action to end slavery in the region and the White domination, control, and gross economic exploitation of Blacks. This is another meaning to be assigned to the Confederate flag.

In 2009, it is Deja Vu once again. President Obama has proposed a major overhaul of the American health care system, climate change and energy independence policies and legislation, major educational reform, and effective regulation of the corporate financial sector that had recklessly plunged the country into a financial and economic mess. All of these things are important for the American people, the country, and the country's future.

But the Republicans in Congress are seeking to prevent this kind of legislative agenda from being passed and signed into law. They exhibit a lack of hesitation, conscience, and moral distress about inflicting possible catastrophic harm upon millions of Americans and the country, as long as they can prevent Obama from succeeding as President. This assertion cannot be put down to wild talk or baseless accusation. There are, as seen, historical precedents.

Including the recent instance of Deja Vu whereby southerners especially in the House and Senate were against Obama using federal funds to try to save Chrysler and General Motors, which are both important to the economy of the Mid-West. They permitted themselves to countenance the failure of these auto-makers and the hardships this would present to the people and economy of the region, if it meant that Obama would not have a political success.

So what is the primary motivation for trying to make Obama fail as President? Some pundits have said that the Republicans in Congress are seeking to weaken Democrats for the 2010 elections, and President Obama and the Democrats in the 2012 elections.

This view seems plausible, but it has little merit as Republican behavior in Congress results in the public giving the Republican Party low ratings in the polls.

Former President Jimmy Carter was closer in pinpointing the primary motivation for this incredibly extreme and reckless political behavior demonstrated by Republicans in Congress and without the government. He said it could be traced to the racist belief found among these hostile elements that a Black man should not be President of the United States.

This is a good answer, but it is one that has to be taken further to gain the full meaning of it.

The Presidency has become the last stronghold of white male dominance and exclusivity in American life, which has seen both features severely eclipsed over the past several decades.

The following used to be positions held exclusively by white men in the country, but are no longer: U.S. Senator and Representatives, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, UN Ambassador, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, U.S. Attorney General, governor, Lt. governor, state attorney general, mayor, police commissioner, fire commissioner, Fortune 500 corporate president or CEO, major college or university president, major foundation head, astronaut, NFL head coach, Major League baseball manager, NBA head coach, NFL quarterback, and other flight positions in the country.

But there was the office of President. That office was still held by a white man. It was still in the hands of the "proper" one to lead the country, who could establish and implement policies, legislative programs, and laws, and who could also build constituencies and galvanize people, institutions, and regions of the country to keep America the way it was "supposed" to be.

But the white male dominance and exclusivity in the White House, and the hoped for future this might provide, was taken away when Obama, a Black man, became President.

This loss and racist fear of the future has plunged many Republicans and the Republican Party itself into depths of irrational political thinking and political behavior.

For instance, electing a Black man, Michael Steele, to head up a political party that has been considerably anti-Black since the early 1980s. And thinking that this could be interpreted as something other than racist "tokenism".

Trying to convince themselves and trying to prove by forgeries that President Obama was not born in the United States and was not a citizen of the country.

Showing utter disdain for Obama as a human being, which is so telling.

Calling Obama, alternatively, fascist, Nazi, communist, marxist, socialist, terrorist, or jihadist, which are all euphemisms for what they would really like to call him publicly, but can't get away with doing so.

Endeavoring to silence or censor moderates or kick them out of the Party, fearing that they would be supportive of the President and his legislative agenda.

Believing that the minority Republican Party in Congress should be regarded, even by the Democrats, as the majority party in that body.

Seeking to build a party of ideological purity, that succeeds in alienating political independents and dividing the Republican Party and moving it to the edge of splitting into two parties: the Republican Party and the Southern White Party.

Virtually making bi-partisanship un-American and a form of political evil, while endeavoring at the same time, to make extreme partisanship American and a form of political good.

Wanting Republicans in Congress who do not seek to govern, to legislate, or to do the country's business. But to be "nay-sayers" to policies, programs, and laws, and who seek in any way possible to obstruct or sabotage the legislative process and paralyze the functioning of the Senate, and thus, of the U.S. government--to try to make Obama fail as President.

Believing that putting this kind of political face before the American electorate--as the "do-nothing" and "obstructionist" party--is the way to gain voters and donors for the Republican Party, and give it a viable future.

Politically lynching President Obama is the means that the anti-Obama Republicans in the Congress and without are using to try to win back the White House for a white male occupant, to get "their country" back, and as the means to "prove" that a Black person does not have the inherent capacity to be President of the United States.

We are told that they are honorable and fair-minded Republicans in the Senate, but they are all involved in this political lynching of the President. So what does this say? What would be the response of the Republican women in the Senate if the political lynching was of a female President? Would they participate in the lynching or be supportive of it?

Now that Democrats have lost their 60 votes in the Senate, it is to be expected that the Republicans will seek to step up their lynching of President Obama. They will not only require 60 votes for all significant policies and laws in the Senate, they will also reject or suppress policies, programs, or laws that the Democrats in the House send to the Senate. To date they have suppressed over 290 bills.

This is the political future that Republicans in Congress and without offer the American people, beginning with the Congressional elections of 2010. They envision this as assuring Obama's failure as President, and it also has them saying to the national government, the American people, America's relationship to the world, and the country's future: "You can all be damned!"