This phrase has been spoken with terrifying regularity since January of this year, almost exclusively by those from the right wing. Lately, it has been expressed repeatedly at "town hall" meetings that Congressmen have been holding about healthcare across the country. The literal insinuation of the phrase is scary: it conveys their belief that the country has been taken from them and they want it back. I cannot help but wonder what has changed so quickly that anyone could possibly be driven to that belief.
It cannot be about war; we are still involved in two in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, not only will the US be keeping tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for the next several years, but President Obama is increasing the number of soldiers operating in Afghanistan. Is it the economy? The recession started under President Bush and both his administration and Obama’s have passed stimulus initiatives, bailouts, etc. Perhaps it is the spending that Obama is proposing that is scaring people–then again, Bush ran up record deficits and I do not recall hearing anyone from the right wing calling for their country back under Bush.
As a result of what seems like passive continuation of these and other Bush policies, Obama has been catching a lot of grief from the left . I can only imagine the pandemonium that would have occured on the right (and left) if Obama had been the one to pass something as unconstitutional as the Patriot Act. We could continue the charade of searching for an example of a legitimate major change that has occurred in the last 8 months that would explain this kind of charge from the conservatives, but that would be futile–there are none.
Excluding genuine monumental change as a cause leaves only a few possibilities. Some people are frightened because of the massive amount of misinformation about healthcare; but, even there, nothing concrete has made it through Congress yet. Therefore, nothing has happened that could be construed as taking someone’s country away.
Some have made the laughable argument that policies like bailing out the banks, car companies, and even the "cash for clunkers" program represent the early stages of socialism. It should be noted that the banks and car companies came to Congress begging for money and threatening the collapse of the economy if their demands were not met; it is not as though one day, the government marched in and took them over. Even with the vast sums of money the government has poured into these institutions, the investment does not come close to the kind of national ownership considered socialism.
Once you peel away the layers, only fear remains as a real cause for this lunacy. What do they want their country back from? It cannot be change, because there has been little. So what is it? Part of it is certainly political. Republican supporters fear having Democrats dominate Washington and they fear what might happen in the future. In many cases, however, the hostility and fear toward the new administration appears to be racially motivated.
Obama is the first president in history not to look like the majority of Americans. Take a look at the vast majority of the people screaming at these town hall meetings; nearly every one is white and over the age of 50.
Even in the 21st century, with the majority voting for a black president, racism and xenophobia still fluorish. One of the "outrages" conservatives have expressed about healthcare reform is their false belief that it will provide healthcare for "illegal aliens." When you add media institutions like Fox News into the mix, whose hosts tell viewers that Obama is a racist, possibly a socialist, and maybe even a Nazi, and suggesting that he may not even be an American citizen, it is a little more comprehensible why these people are carrying signs that depict Obama as Hitler or spraying swastikas on Congressmen’s offices.
We are living in troubling times, where hate, fear, anger, xenophobia, racism, religion, ignorance and ultra-nationalism are all coming together to create something that is far from American. Perhaps we are the ones who should demand our country back from them and their unpatriotic behavior.
(crossposted at http://debunkerhill.com/ )