alright. this is my approach: no matter who you are, if you're out there saying that obama is expanding the power and scope of state power - continuously, enthusiastically, and with regard to every possible subject-matter - then i am going to nod along enthusiastically. if you start spouting racism etc, then i am going to condemn you. but i am not going to condemn you for criticizing obama's programs, or his truthfulness, etc, on the grounds that only a racist could condemn obama, or on the notion that if we peeled back the subconscious layers we would find racism, or on the grounds that you come from south carolina. i'm not reading minds; i'm reading signs.

know what? i agree with glenn beck just so far and on just those matters where i agree with him. if he thinks that the national debt will swallow the economy or something, then i say: good point. if it's some conspiracy crap or whatever, then i'm not there. i don't have to love the whole idea of the obama admin to distance myself from glenn beck, and all things considered i so far am basically liking the form of the right-wing backlash: the libertarian tone is precisely right. many conservatives have been improved and sharpened by the obama administration. this is the only moment in american politics that i can recal - with the exception of ronnie's 1980 campaign - where anti-statism actually seems to be a viable stance (and it's quite a bit more radical at the moment than it was in ronnie's time). this is the best development in american politics in a long while, in my view.

i do think that for a certain segment of the pop, obama arrived as an avatar of the future, an embodiment of the dream etc etc, and any criticism is intolerable or evil. this entails a complete loss of critical leverage on the american state. i still endorse the american traditions of protest and suspicion of government power. and the racism charge is getting way too easy and indiscriminate: not that americans aren't racists, but that it's an attempt not even to deal with criticism.