This is what someone I work for just said to me. I'm stunned. I'm stunned and really, really pissed off.
Sadly, I'm hardly the only one to experience something like this since last November; and while we're all well aware that this bullshit is out there, this is the first time since the election that I've encountered it first hand.
It burns me.
So I have to write something down.
I could write something just to vent my obvious disgust and frustration that I work for someone who could say such a thing. It's really demoralizing to say the least. I can't think now because I'm mad, so I'm writing this diary instead of working.
I could also preach to the choir, and ask to commiserate with the many wonderful, like-minded souls in this community. That would obviously make me feel much better. Others could share their stories as well, and we could paper over our anger with shared experiences. I could do all of that, and I certainly welcome that.
However, this story is so bizarre that I'd rather address this post directly to racists (those of you that lurk here or who are here as an attempt at rehabilitation), ex-racists, Republicans, ex-Republicans or anyone who understands the mentality of a person who could say that they wished someone would assassinate the President, and then attempt to justify it thusly:
Me: You don't really want someone to assassinate the President, do you? I mean, really? It's one thing not to like the President's policies, but that's what we have elections for. If you don't like him or his policies, you vote for someone else in the next election.
Them: Well, I just really don't like the decisions that he's making. At all.
Me: So you want him killed?
Them: I mean, I even voted for him.
Me: What?
My thoughts: (Does s/he mean Alan Keyes?)
Them: Yeah, I voted for him because I didn't think he'd last and I preferred Biden to Palin.
My thoughts: (Daamn. Palin's so abysmal that a racist will vote for a black person over her.)
Me: Why didn't you vote for McCain?
Them: He would've been dead by now. Look, ...
Me: So you're no fan of Palin?
Them: Oh no, absolutely not. She would have been a disaster.
Me: But you don't believe that she really would have been in charge had she become President, do you?
Them: No.
Coworker: Yeah, someone would stuck their hand up her ass and moved her mouth the way Cheney did Bush.
Them: Bush was an asshole. Look, ...
My thoughts: (Here comes the obligatory disclaimer.)
Them: ... my problem with Obama has nothing to do with color or anything like that. I just really don't think he's making the right decisions.
Me: Do you really want him killed?
Them: Oh no, absolutely not. I would never really wish that on anyone.
My thoughts: (You just did.)
By way of background, this person is a rock-ribbed Republican, was a full-throated supporter of the Iraq war and sent company-wide emails inviting those that objected to Bush's re-election to leave the country.
I don't know what to make of this. I really don't. Obviously elections have consequences. Someone who openly wishes harm on the President nonetheless voted for the President because they were convinced he'd be killed (such that we'd have President Biden). And my co-worker also chimed in that though he voted for Obama affirmatively, he knew a lot of Republicans that had made the same calculation.
Obviously Lindsay Graham's remarks about cynicism really hit the mark.
But there's more than cynicism at play here, isn't there? I know enough about the psychology of racism and hatred more generally to know that hatred is ... well, it's what you get when you mix hostility and shame. If you ask me, I'd say that a lot of people who don't particularly care for blacks voted for Obama because the Bush administration was so awful that even they knew, though they wouldn't admit it publicly, that we had to change course. So they justify voting for a black person by telling themselves that he'll be killed, such that a vote for a 'n-----' is not really a vote for a 'n-----'. Now that he's actually President however, these same people are incensed.
If you ask me, that's what I think is going on in this conversation and perhaps with these scrotum rallies more generally. But I'm not sure, and I'd love to get some of your insights and feedback ... and love because that really, really sucked having to experience that when all I wanted was my tea and some goddamned donuts.