I am still shaking.
From shock, from rage, from profound sadness.
At a meeting tonight there was the usual pre-meeting banter. Across the table I overheard, "Obama won't make it through four years." Then the chairperson said, "Four years? I hope somebody shoots him. He's the Antichrist."
I stood up and said, "I refuse to remain any longer." I did not engage anyone. I did not debate. What is the purpose of debating such people?
So the fruits of Lisa Miller's hideous Newsweek article have come to my hometown. Not that they needed much fertilizing or pruning. They were already hanging low on the branch before Miller added her brand of gasoline to the fire - giving the Obama/Antichrist obscenity mainstream cover. I shouldn't be surprised.
But I am still shaking an hour later. I would love to believe Obama's line that there are no red states or blue states - just the United States of America. But such is wishful thinking. I live in Wyoming. Here, anyone who criticized George W. Bush was assailed as a traitor; yet, Obama's election is openly talked about as illegitimate. And someone can openly hope for the murder of President-elect Obama with a reaction from the group no different than were he to discuss next week's weather.
And, I surmise, that this view is not limited only to Wyoming. One factor often overlooked in discussions of whether or not this was a watershed election is the wide disparity in voting margins between many red states and blue states. While Obama won by 25% margins in Massachusetts, Illinois, and California, he lost by more than that in Alabama, Oklahoma, and Utah.
The truth is that there is a significant portion of the American population who not only refuse to accept the verdict of the election, but who openly wish for the assassination of Barack Obama. We live in perilous times. We must remain vigilant.
UPDATE - I would like to stress that this meeting was unaffiliated with the church where it was held. It is a community service group with no role in the political process. The conversation above took place before the start of the meeting. And the chairperson's views were his alone not the organization's or the church's.