Notes From D. R.

Spare us, O Lord, from the false allegations of social racism that will come up if—and hopefully when—John McCain defeats Barack Obama this fall.

A McCain victory will likely spark a months-long whinefest from the left, a circus of endless lamentations from “progressives” about how “typical white people” just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for an African-American.

Liberals will try to smear a McCain victory because they will not be able to admit to themselves that Obama’s gaffes and views played a central role in his defeat. Like the paranoia folks who still believe that the 2004 election was “stolen” from John Kerry, the left will forever insist that old-school bigotry blocked Obama from becoming President.

The left has tried this before, attempting to smear Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush as beneficiaries of the electorate’s hidden antiblack sentiments. These allegations were manifestly false, but the left didn’t care: they had to find some way to discredit these Republicans from the moment they won—and what better way to do so than to use race?

The left’s likely attempt to depict McCain as a beneficiary of white racism will result in some unpleasant racial hostilities. November 2008 could be as ugly a time for race relations as October 1995—that perverted month which bore witness to O. J. Simpson’s acquittal and Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March.

The left will need to set blacks and whites against each other if Obama loses. An Obama defeat will discredit the left: how pathetic will “progressives” look if their hero, their Jesus, becomes the God that failed, a flawed deity who couldn’t defeat a Republican “Devil” in the midst of an unpopular war, economic unease and soaring gas prices?

In order to regain political momentum, the left will have to cast McCain’s win as a resurrection of pre-Civil Rights era hatred. Only the most ignorant and paranoid of Americans will fall for this garbage, of course. However, if enough non-thinking Americans buy into this malarkey, the left will be back in business.

Democrats will be able to obstruct virtually anything McCain proposes by asserting that McCain lacks the legitimacy of previous Presidents; after all, why should we implement the agenda of someone who won because of racist reactionaries? Tom Daschle’s obstruction of President Bush’s agenda during Bush’s first term will be nothing compared to what the Democrats do to McCain.

It will be sad to watch the Democrats spin a McCain win as evidence of racism. It will be sad to watch the Democrats deny the truth: that average Americans don’t like the idea of an inexperienced politician who hangs around with left-wing extremists as Commander-in-Chief.

Obama has been almost thoroughly discredited within the span of just a few weeks. After a series of blunders, he is now generally seen as just another Democrat, another factory-issued hack, another McGovern/ Mondale/Dukakis/Gore/Kerry. Many political observers have noted the similarities between Obama’s campaign and that of his friend Deval Patrick, who used similar “hope and change” rhetoric in his successful 2006 bid to become Governor of Massachusetts. However, there’s one big difference: Patrick never embarrassed himself as badly as Obama has. Patrick never talked about bitter voters clinging to guns and God, and never had to make excuses for the deranged rhetoric of spiritual advisors. Patrick made mistakes on the campaign trail, but they were all minor.

If Obama loses, his defeat will not be due to the color of his skin, but due to the content of his character. Obama was supposed to be something different, a politician who broke the political rules, not a standard-issue Democrat who obeyed all of those rules.  Like previous Democrat contenders, Obama has been exposed as a person who has nothing but scorn for middle- and working-class Americans, a person who believes that America’s greatness is due to its government and not its people, a man who believes that left-wing extremism can be rationalized and explained away.

America wanted to vote for Obama—until America realized that what they wanted to buy was an old product in a new package. Americans who decide not to vote for Obama aren’t racist bigots—but that won’t stop the Democrats from falsely trying to say that they are.

Eventually, the racial tensions aroused by Simpson’s acquittal and the Million Man March subsided, at least somewhat. The racial tensions that will be stirred up by the left if Obama loses will also decline with time. What will not decline, however, will be the contempt that decent Americans hold for those who tried to damage McCain with a race-based stain.