November 12, 2012 by David K. Sutton
Conservatives, It’s Not Your Country To Take Back
If there was one phrase heard most often during the health care debate in 2009 and 2010 it was “I want my country back.” This phrase, used exclusively by white conservatives, encapsulates the palpable fear felt by a shrinking white majority. This is not a phrase that would be uttered by African-Americans or Latinos, for good reason, and let’s not mince words. — White conservatives are talking about an increasingly diverse country with many more brown and black people, and it scares them to the core.
In a Washington Post story (“GOP’s Red America forced to rethink what it knows about the country“), we are told the story of Beth Cox, who ran a GOP campaign headquarters in Sumner County, Tennessee.
Here in the heart of Red America, Cox and many others spent last week grieving not only for themselves and their candidate but also for a country they now believe has gone wildly off track. The days after Barack Obama’s reelection gave birth to a saying in Central Tennessee: Once was a slip, but twice is a sign.
If, as Obama likes to say, the country has decided to “move forward,” it has also decided to move further away from the values and beliefs of a state where Romney won 60 percent of the vote, a county where he won 70 percent, and a town where he won nearly 80. – GOP’s Red America forced to rethink what it knows about the country
Now that President Barack Obama has won re-election, many conservatives are using dire language to describe the state of the country.
Now, in a single election night, parts of her country had legalized marijuana, approved gay marriage and resoundingly reelected a president who she worried would “accelerate our decline.”
While she took apart the office, a dozen friends and neighbors stopped by to share the same concerns.
“I just don’t get it,” the county sheriff said.
“I’m worried we won’t see another Republican president in our lifetime the way it’s going,” a GOP volunteer said.
“What country would want more years of this?” asked the newly elected alderman.
Cox shrugged back at them. “I don’t know anymore,” she said. “What the heck happened to the country? Who are we becoming?”
Who are we becoming? Less bigoted. Less judgmental. Less religious. Oh, and less white. In other words, we are becoming a country that is more accepting of change, a country that in each passing year further embraces its diversity, and a citizenry that views this great experiment known as America for the melting pot that it is, and without fear. I’m afraid these good citizens of Tennessee have some adapting to do if they are to accept that they will never get their country back, because the country does not belong to any one demographic. It was not their country to take back in the first place.
