Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The Obama Victory and the Near Hysteria of the American Far-Right

To the surprise of many, US President Barack Obama was elected to a second term of office. For example: the wealthy and flamboyant developer Donald Trump called for a march on Washington and mentioned the possibility of revolution as a means of overturning the result. The treasurer of the Republican Party Peter Morrison, in Hardin County, Tex., called for secession following the Obama victory. Morrison wrote in his Newsletter, "We must contest every single inch of ground and delay every baby-murdering, tax raising socialists (sic) at every opportunity. But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotten corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity." Some on the far right were farsighted. Before the balloting, a county judge in Lubbock Tex., Hon. Thomas Head, reported fearing a popular insurrection in the aftermath of an Obama victory.

Some of this was more than just talk. By November 15, a week after the electoral results became clear, the White House website had received petitions from all 50 states from citizens seeking to have their states withdraw from the Union. Led by the Lone Star State, with some 95,000 signatures, hundreds of thousands of voters were sufficiently distressed by the balloting that they raised an issue that presumably had been settled by the Civil War (1861-1865) a century and a half beforehand.

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