Dissent and Consent

On my way home I pass a sign in front of a used car dealer in Lahoma, OK, that reads, "I'm 71 years old and hope to live long enough to see Obama not running my country." First, I'm glad the gentleman has lived to 71, and I hope he lives many more years. I'm not so sure about the "my country" part, though. The shrillest voices in the nation seem to be the "nativists," or "reclamationists," or, as I like to think of them, the Puritans. They are the "chosen people," the latter day Israelites who lay claim to the continent via divine convenant, versus the "strangers" (non-Puritans, non-whites, non-traditionalists, non-conservatives) who, via American mythology, don't quite belong in the ranks of true believers, much less in power, much less in the "White" House.

I watched the marchers in Washington, D.C. who held up signs equating President Obama to Adolf Hitler. They completely missed the irony.