We Reap What We Sow: Lynch Mob Elections

Election night, 2008. A deluge of news media gave us breathless and shallow reports of this “historical” election, as we all watched in anticipation of George W. Cheney declaring martial law, invalidating the election and declaring himself dictator for life. But somehow that didn’t happen.

In the U.S. it’s easier for Presidents to step down and live a cushy life than it is to cling to power, and since Barack Obama garnered enough votes to render voter fraud ineffective, we sent John McCain back to Arizona to represent the cranky old retired people who elected him to the Senate in the first place. And the news media was there to cover his sudden return to reason in his concession speech, after months of boldly selling his soul for votes from those ignorant enough to believe his half-hearted and insane attempts to stir their blind patriotism. But if you were watching with me that night, you probably noticed something very disturbing about that speech. It’s good that McCain acted reasonable and didn’t try to rile his supporters up any more than they already were. In fact, he very nearly had to shout them down in order to continue the speech. It’s not at all unusual for the partisan crowd at a concession speech to let out a few boos and hisses, but this crowd sounded ready for a lynching, and given the nature of this campaign, it should not be surprising.

Republicans’ campaign tactics reached a new low this time around, and I’m not talking about the television ads. The real story this time involves mailings, the internet, and private gatherings, often “church” functions. These are the venues most easily denied or disavowed by the official party apparatus, and consequently where the most outrageous offenses occurred. Without network camera crews in their faces, Republicans were able to voice their angry, bigoted, ignorant, and hateful views to each other, openly despising Barack Obama because of the color of his skin. Not since the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan (and Republican opposition to the Civil Rights Act) has there been so much bile in printed form available to anyone dumb enough to get past the cover. And the Republican party gave its tacit approval for all this mindless smearing and more.

The result, however, left something to be desired. Though that crowd at McCain’s election night party seemed ready to kill on command, what’s more telling about the Republicans’ tactics is that there were so few reasonable people in the house to shush the others. Indeed, those party members with any conscience at all either sat this one out or voted Democrat. The ignoramus portion of the voting bloc had their passions stirred, but the reasoning portion was disgusted and wanted nothing to do with it. In the final days leading up to the election, the kookiness of McCain’s campaign started flowing out into the mainstream, with mailings being traced to their source, disgusted campaign workers leaking horror stories, video of cuckoo-bananas supporters and McCain’s acceptance of them making the rounds on the internet, and so on. The divide and conquer campaign tricks so popular amongst Republican candidates wound up splitting their own supporters’ vote.

And did I forget to mention how homogenous the Republican crowd looked that night? If party leaders had paid attention in school or read a book or two, they would know by now that our country is ever more diverse with each passing year, and that whatever majority they assumed they had behind them will soon be a minority. Dividing the country by “race” will hardly be successful in such a future.

Our country has come along way in recent decades, and though far from perfect, there are some achievements worth hanging on to. Many people of my own generation have either never been force fed racism by their parents, or never listened. Most of my generation (and younger) do not belong to a party. And many of us live our lives trying to defy stereotypes. So go on running fearful racist campaigns, Republicans, and see where it gets you. Just hope the Democrats don’t answer by running campaigns casting suspicion on evil white men. They didn’t need to this time (McCain’s own ads practically did that for them) but given where our population is headed, it might well have worked.