Enemies Of Misstate

It used to be that I could say to people interested in American politics that, for all of the incompetence and evil demonstrated by Bush II, there were two points in his favour: He unfailingly used his power as President to fight AIDS in Africa (even if that fight was informed by his ideology and may have been more efficient had he done otherwise) and that he was good about trying to suppress anti-Muslim sentiment within the Republican base. He, as a Republican in a position of power, was able to say to the base of that party, hey, show some respect, respond to the higher ideal. In that environment, it was generally not acceptable for the population to openly discuss and dismiss Muslim-Americans, or Muslim-Seemy-Americans as all terrorists.

Then Obama became President, and suddenly, branding him as a Muslim was not just common but mainstream. Political operators with less courage than Bush were unwilling to push back on this idea, or were actively willing to engage it to curry favour with a population they could plausibly deny.

Now here we are.

That overton window has been skewed so hard right now that a Democratic President with the middle name Hussein can’t actually diminish attacks on Muslim-Americans with a call for peace, because the people who hate Muslims consider him part of a conspiracy. And that this idea is mainstream.

How fucking racist is the power structure that literally the President of the United States doesn’t have the power to speak out against racism?

S’fucking weird.