The Heretic President
You might not read such a comparison ever again, yet bear with me: after 17 years on the throne of Egypt, the pharaoh Akhenaten was dead and the priests of Amon Re made their move. Having been stripped of their political and religious power and wealth in favor of the pharaoh's singular deity, Aten, they quickly re-established themselves and brought the old gods back. The pharaoh's successor, his son known to history as King Tut, became their charge and the formerly abolished cults were back in business. The natural order was reestablished.
Then the priests and the other power brokers started their campaign of erasing the dead Akhenaten from memory: his monuments were defaced, any and all references to him were blotted out from under the Egyptian sun. It was to be as if he never existed.
And now, thousands of centuries later, we witness the same thing occurring all over again, but this time in a different, powerful country. The priests of Amon Re would have their revenge against the heretic pharaoh, and now the priests of white supremacy will have theirs against President Barack Obama.
It is in the nature of white men with power to desire to retard the progress of black people, and to erase their accomplishments. Even before his term ends, the old white guard of the Republican Party is seeking to undo all of Obama's achievements, specifically with healthcare. Like those dour priests of Amon Re so long ago, they have whetted their anger on the stone of resentment, sharpening it for the chance to overturn what they consider an aberration, no, an **abomination** in the natural order of things: only white men are fit to be president.
To deny the undertow of racism during the Obama Administration is a falsehood; to downplay it, an excuse for the worst, most deadly poison that has seeped into the political mainstream and become an uncontrollable force for destruction. The only fitting way to deal with the historicity of the first black president of the United States is to erase any and all accomplishments. Nothing less can be done. Delegitimizing the president (as not a real American, as a Marxist/socialist/Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer) alone will not do: his entire tenure in the Oval Office must be removed.
For the white supremacists who have blossomed into full mainstream acceptance, it is a joyous occasion, one in which to exult with the prospect of exorcising the horror of a black president. For there was never an issue of "voter anger" during the last, fatal presidential election, but one of "white rage." Egged on by a party establishment that is still unaware of the destructive forces they have unleashed, the white rage voter has been feed an endless stream of propaganda that makes the black president anathema, an error that needs to be fixed. Anything that is an observable, verifiable fact is to be denied as lies from a "liberal media," so the job growth over the past 8 years isn't really job growth at all. Lower unemployment numbers aren't real because of "hidden" unemployment numbers that no one can find (along with "voter fraud"). A record level of deportations is to be ignored as never having happened. History needs to be rewritten. History needs to be fixed.
Like those jealous, vicious priests of Amon Re, the white rage voter needs to block out the heretic president, chisel out anything with his name on it and make sure the old white supremacist gods are restored to their rightful place of adoration. This need is so powerful as to overshadow completely the alarming reports from the nation's intelligence agencies of Russian interference with the election. What a weird spectacle: to see the party best known for its opposition to Russian shenanigans and duplicity seemingly not caring about this. Not even warranting a pretense of outrage or concern. These are the same people who conducted eight investigations into Benghazi—longer than the investigation into 9/11, which remains the worst intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor, the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq notwithstanding—and whipped up great hysteria about a personal email server but now seem reluctant to hold any investigations into how a foreign power has interfered with a presidential election. How curious that is.
Perhaps not so curious after all. When the drive to banish the heretic president from memory is one's animating spirit, nothing else matters. When it comes to *this* particular president, this free, highly educated black man, it's even more imperative. The old GOP echelon hated Bill Clinton so much because he represented the New South. They loathe Barack Obama with much more deep malice because it was the nail in the coffin of the Lost Cause.
So, like the priests of Amon Re, the return to power is the chance to destroy and erase the heretic from history. Even having direct Russian interference is a small price to pay for the overwhelming desire to blot out the Obama Administration, which to their minds is an even greater affront, a nastier sin. For the priests of white supremacy, erasing black people's progress is a time honored vocation: whether it's undoing Reconstruction with Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, or revolting against desegregation with the advent of charter schools, to holding an individual black person's accomplishments in higher education as unreal because of Affirmative Action, the heretic Obama will not escape this.
And this, dear reader, is the meaning of the phrase "take our country back."