Thinking scientifically, we have an independent variable (race), and a dependent variable (right-wing vitriol and obstructionism). We need to control our variable, so let’s pick two subjects (of different race) who are nonetheless similar in terms of party and prominence.

So, is the hatred, vitriol, and obstruction levied in Nancy Pelosi’s direction not at all comparable to the abuse that Obama gets? I’d say it’s almost as bad, in some cases worse. Of course, Pelosi arguably deserves a lot of it, but that shouldn’t enter the equation if, in your estimation, the right-wingers aren’t rational to begin with, and are acting primarily out of racism.

In the end, of course, Obama did pretty well. And this post is not about him or about him being president. It is about the ubiquitous racist attitude in the teaparty and libertarian movements. And I agree with you that racism and sexism are very different things.

I utterly disagree what an emasculating insult is a feminizing insult. To assume that link is … well, it is doing exactly what you were suggesting I was doing. But I can see where someone might think that.

Greg, you do realize don’t you that insulting (or denying) somebody’s manhood is sexist? Why, oh why, is the ultimate insult to a man telling him that he’s like a woman? Think about the level of contempt for women that implies. It’s right up there with that Jewish prayer which says, Thank you God for not making me a woman.

I would also be interested in knowing why you think the situation would be completely different if Hillary Clinton was the president pushing for health care reform. Racism and sexism are not identical, but they’re both ugly and irrational – and useful to manipulators of public opinion.

A lot of them Hoped (and Believed) for Change because Obama hit very hard on the Social Justice buttons, against what the Bush Administration was doing in Iraq (the 16 months are up in which he promised to bring troops home), against torture, against imprisonment without trial. And now Obama has gotten the Supreme Court to approve his holding prisoners in Bagram beyond the reach of the Constitution; and he has a program to assassinate US citizens away from any battlefield without any trial, on his orders alone. Was this what we voted for? Was this what Obama campaigned for?

Then there are the hard-core, always-anti-Obama, McCain/Palin voters; call them Republican or Tea Party or Right Wing or whatever you like, they were never going to vote for a Democrat of *any* color, anyway. Didn’t vote for Kerry in 2004, or any previous white Democrat; so how is it racist that they didn’t vote for a black Democrat, either? What they are is *partisan*.

To be very clear here: I’m utterly opposed to the GOP and its Tea Party bulldog. I think letting them back into power would be catastrophic for America and the world. But right now Obama and the Democratic Party are only somewhat better by comparison, which really irks me as a lifelong Democratic voter to say — they should be shining examples, and they are not — they have shamefully gone along with authorizing the abuses of the Bush Administration, which strictly speaking should make them all (along with their GOP colleagues) liable to prosecution at War Crimes Trials.

I wanted better; I expected better; and I thought I was voting for better. I didn’t get it. That doesn’t make me “anti-Obama” now. Not while all the alternatives are still worse. But I am indeed “anti” some of his policies. Aren’t you? Assassination, at least?

And I’m asking that as an Obama voter and volunteer.

Not everyone who disagrees with you has base motives for doing so.

People (specifically liberals) aren’t against health care because they are racist. They are against it because they don’t want to pay for it. All those middle class people aren’t racists, they’re just indifferent to the suffering of others. All they want is their TV and their car and to pay as little for it as possible.

Which matches you: you want great change and political reform, but only if it’s cheap. If it’s hard and expensive and takes a long time, then you’re going to throw in the towel just like all those other people.

Oppression is not so much an overt effort by the minority as it is a lack of effort from the majority. Complaining that other people are only interested in what profits them is absurd, since you’re trying to change their behavior to your profit. Instead, let’s focus on explaining to people how our positions profit both sides. It’s the same way you save the rain forest; not by appealing to people’s nobility, but by showing how environmentalism is actually more profitable.