Reactions to "Right America: Feeling Wronged" documentary

[bluestateguy]

Alessandra Pelosi made this 45 minute documentary, though there really is not much narrative to it. It's just a compilation of interviews with embittered, angry, racist, ignorant white people at McCain/Palin rallies. To be fair, I'm sure a filmmaker could just as easily go to an Obama rally, and pluck out some really angry people saying vitriolic things about McCain, Bush, Cheney, Palin, etc.

One thing that stuck out, though, for me was this: many early Obama supporters at the very start of this campaign (like early 2007) naively suggested that Obama was preferable to Hillary Clinton because he was somehow less polarizing, unlike Hillary Clinton. It is now well known that Hillary Clinton was a polarizing figure for many years, who was, according to this argument, unelectable because she made her opponents so batshit insane with rage. Obama, they told us, was a more conciliatory candidate, who would not inspire the kind of sheer rage that the Clintons inspired for so many years.

Wrong.

This documentary made it clear that for entirely different reasons, Obama will have to contend with a certain percentage of Americans who will never accept him as their president; people whose Obama Derangement Syndrome borders on sexual dysfunction.

[Skittles]

1. well now they know how it feels

I never accepted that lying, theiving murdering bastard bush as president for one fucking minute

[Art_from_Ark]

9. What these guys can't accept

is that Obama won his election legitimately, while their standard bearer had to rely on one of the most cockamamie decisions ever made by the US Supreme Court to sneak into the White House.

[Skittles]

10. that part makes me feel especially good

yes INDEED :rofl:

[kitfalbo]

2. It's time to be Polarized (formerly Polarize This!)

I disagree, I still feel candidate Clinton would be a more polarizing figure for the republican party. Obama was a more polarize figure to the racist nutzo's. I still feel Obama brought more cross over votes than Clinton would have, and inspired more people to vote who might not have if Clinton was the candidate.

I don't think any Obama supporter stated that he would not have the racists polarized against him, I don't think you can fairly call is "Wrong" in a what if situation. We just don't know what would have happened, it would have changed the entire election course from Nalin Palin to Tina Fey's and SNL's status if the what if had caused her not to be McCain's running mate to be her.


What we were afraid of a more general anti-clinton polarization that caused republican turn up and donations to be up. Not a nutzo Polarization that I know has caused some republicans to be embarrassed.

[submerged99]

3. I wish

I wish she had filmed more from the time it Obama was declared the president. As it was, the film just seemed to end abruptly.

The earlier interviews were okay but they weren't that surprising as I already knew what those kind of people are like.

It would have been better if she had included post election night interviews. If nothing else so I could have a good laugh at these people.

[trayfoot]

20. I haven't seen this yet, but......................

I believe, based on personal experiences and the experiences of several friends, that the hate really ratcheted up AFTER Obama was elected. Up till then, anti-Obama people just could not believe that a black man could get elected. When he did, the "haters" really began to show themselves. I was personally almost run off the road the day after the election - my car had numerous Obama stickers on it. The same thing happened to a friend in another small town. The "reality" of what had happened was just too much for these bigots to take.

[Bicoastal]

4. They're more SCARED of him than they ever were of the Clintons.

True, they hated the Clintons, perhaps more, perhaps less, but they always knew they could attack Bill mercilessly on his moral failings and Hillary on her ambition. But they don't know WHAT to make of Barack Obama.

I mean, did you ever head a talk radio call-in listener ever say, with dead certainty, that Bill Clinton was an Al Qaeda Manchurian Candidate? Did anyone EVER maintain a bizarre theory that Bill Clinton was secretly born in a foreign country and bribed and/or threatened thousands of government employees to cover it up? Did they call him a Marxist-quoting Socialist one moment, and then call him the second coming of Adolf Hitler in the next breath? Republicans were spreading internet rumors that Obama was the ANTICHRIST, fergodsakes! Not just a bad guy, but the baddest figure in the history of civilization!

They're scared of him. They keep saying, "I don't know who this guy is." And I feel like, for better or worse, they understood how to "get" Bill and Hillary; Obama, they have no idea. All of these wild speculations come from a very primal part of the human psyche: fear. And it all stems from the Conservative base's inability to understand the fact that a dark-skinned, city-dwelling man with a foreign-born parent BEAT THE PANTS OFF of a pampered white country club war hero! (Or indeed, the inability to comprehend the idea that such an "exotic" man could be smarter and more talented than they themselves are.)

[Top Cat]

5. I agree...

They have thrown everything includng the ktchen snk and nothing has really worked. Our President has kept his cool through all that has been trown at him. They cannot peg him with the old sterotype of the angry black man because they will never get that from President Obama. They are at a total loss on how best to break him down.

[dsc]

6. as someone who was alive and aware in 92

I can say Clinton was called many of those things. Remember passport gate that was an attempt to prove that Clinton went to the Soviet Union and renounced his citizenship. They also said Clinton murdered people in Arkansas and covered it up.

[bluestateguy]

8. Ah yes, who could forget the "Clinton Body Count" list?

That and the people who said that the OKC bombing in '95 was an inside job, and Clinton bombed Iraq in '98 to derail impeachment (and never provided evidence for either of those claims).

[Blue_Tires]

15. back then i really wished DU was around for e-mail debunking

i got a lot of anti-clinton stuff during his second term...

[rvablue]

23. The good news for Dems in general and Obama specifically is NOW we do have DU and

Keith and Rachel and DKos and the Daily Show and Colbert.

It's a different day and I don't think their smear campaigns will be able to get as much traction now.



ed:missp.

[Zomby Woof]

13. There are DUers who believe that shit

BCCI! Closed books! Clinton covered up Iran-Contra! Clinton killed people on an airstrip in East Jesus, Arkansas, and colluded with Poppy Bush! Clinton invented puppy mills and killed the electric car! :tinfoilhat:

[blm]

24. You've got that wrong - Clinton did side with Bush's secrecy and privilege instead of with

accountability when Bush's roles in IranContra, BCCI and CIA drugrunning were surfacing throughout the 90s. Why anyone at DU would attach the hyped RW tripe with real matters of historic and tragic consequence is a mystery.

Reagan and Bush1 should not be in the position today of having their legacies repaired and polished. There should never have been a Bush2 administration possible.

BTW - you used to recognize Jackson Stephens' involvement in both GHWBush and Clinton's careers. I used to repost some of your Kos diaries about this strange association or linked them here at DU. Did you change your mind? If you came upon evidence that would show BCCI matters were dealt with conclusively can you please share it so we can all benefit from knowing its positive resolution? I couldn't find it in Clinton's book.

[Child_Of_Isis]

7. Good post. eom

[Veruca Salt]

21. I think there's also one more thing to add to that wonderful list you've compiled

In that they know he's our Teflon POTUS, our Reagan (even though I don't like Reagan I still make the comparison). And they know it.

And if he succeeds in getting the economy turned around, the GOP is toast, or at the least will be in the wilderness for the next twenty years. And they know it.

[Cali_Democrat]

11. Just saw it

That was scary.

[Touchdown]

12. Just finished it.

I don't know how to express what I feel about this. I know it's just a sampling and not every McCain suppoerter is as unhinged, but it's also a sampling. How many more feel the way these people do that didn't make the final cut, or were never interviewed?

How do you reason with such hate?

[Voltaire]

14. That's it, you can't reason with it

Folks are going to believe what they are going to believe. I can't stand it and I can't understand it, but there it is.

[Jennicut]

16. I love Alexandra Pelosi. More then her Mom for sure.

She makes some good documentaries that really show people how they really are. These idiots are full of hate for no reason. Those of us dead set against Bush from the beginning were not full of hate but fear for our country becoming even more hate-filled. These idiots will cling to anything to make them feel better about themselves. Sad we have such ignorant people living here still but not entirely surprising. Pelosi said she was spat on by some Mclame/Phalin supporters. How very "Christian" of them.

[old mark]

17. Rec. I am pretty amused by their attitude, but I don't know how many

times I can tell the Publicans to go fuck themselves.

They are not a legitimate political party any more - they are a gang of mentally incompetant malcontent anti Americans whose leaders ought to be in prison.

mark

[Howler]

18. Haven't seen it yet!

But I'm looking forward to it.

[ShortnFiery]

19. I think Junior Pelosi would have served us better having nepotistically gone into the legislature

She's not, IMO, a good film maker, documentary or otherwise. :shrug:

[high density]

22. Whoever we nominate or elect will always be polarizing with the Republicans

The Republicans are the us v. them party. They will always call us socialists to get their Limbaugh listeners foaming at the mouth. Clinton and Obama were starting from separate places and I'm going to leave it at that. Everything else is rehashing the primaries, which I've got absolutely no desire to do at this point.