Obama Victory Brings Violence at Ole Miss and Far Right Fury

I have noted many times that a constant undercurrent of today's GOP and much of the 2012 campaign season at least from Republican candidates has been the message that some citizens  are not "real Americans" and, therefore, should be deprived of civil rights and even the right to vote.  Beneath it all is a  message that plays well with white supremacists and it is no coincidence that Romney/Ryan prevailed across the former Confederacy where racism remains alive and well.  This realty burst to the surface with the reactions to Obama's victory at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi, and among various far right groups.  Huffington Post looks at these frightening examples of the extremism that is now normal throughout the GOP.   Here are some highlights:

[Yesterday's] lopsided results made it clear that this election had in no way been stolen.

But not so at Ole Miss, which last month marked the 50th anniversary of deadly segregationist riots. Shortly after midnight, several hundred mostly white students protested furiously, reportedly yelling anti-black racial slurs and throwing rocks at passing cars. An Obama/Biden campaign sign was burned before campus police broke up the crowd in Oxford. There were apparently no arrests or injuries.

The reaction to the reelection of our first black president from the radical right -- and that seemed clearly to include some University of Mississippi students -- ranged from sputtering rage and name calling to calls for a new Southern secession, mass emigration to Europe or even the breakup of the United States.

There was one thing large numbers seemed clearly to agree on: The changing racial demographics of our country, expected to lose its white majority by 2050, was key to the result.

"Welcome to a truly white minority world," wrote one commenter on Stormfront, the world's largest white supremacist Web forum, which is run by a former Alabama Klan leader. "The future is now. There is no denying this. The sun has set on humanity's greatest era: 1500-2000. ... [T]he only way to survive this war of Annihilation is separatism. ... [W]e have to choose regions or states."

The loss of a white majority in the United States has helped drive a truly explosive growth of the radical right in the last three years, and that now seems likely to accelerate. In recent years the number of hate groups has risen to more than 1,000, and the number of anti-government "patriot" groups has shot up from just 149 in 2008 to 1,274, according to research by the Southern Poverty Law Center. For months now, groups on the radical right have increasingly fretted about a possible Obama victory. Now that that has occurred, the radical right may grow more dangerous still. 

Remarkably, similar sentiments seemed to crop up in what is taken as the political "mainstream." Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, fearing an Obama victory, said last night, "The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff." At another point he said, "The demographics are changing. It's not a traditional America any more."

The anti-gay right reacted with fury, as well. In a long thread at the anti-government site Free Republic on the passage of same-sex marriage referenda, commenters were apoplectic -- and frightened. "Get ready for God's wrath," wrote one. "The people are choosing Satan's finest." "Fudgies win again," wrote another. "Incidents of HIV [to] rise again." And a third: "America is going to pay for its unbelief and its love of abortion and homosexuals. ... And IT DESERVES IT."

In fact, as pointed out on CNN's religion blog, the whole election was a "nightmare scenario" for conservative Christian leaders. Noting the approval of two same-sex marriage referenda, the reelection of a president who supported such marriages and the rejection of hard-line anti-abortion candidates, CNN said the election results "seemed to mark a dramatic rejection of the Christian right's agenda."

As the death rattles of the Christofascists and white supremacists continue to progress, we need to expect the level of hysteria and the likelihood of far right violence to increase.   These extremists and hate merchants will not go quietly into political and social oblivion.