Charles M. Blow: 'Make No Mistake: This Debate Is NOT About THIS President Or THIS Excecutive Order' [View all]

[kpete]

Bigger Than Immigration
NOV. 23, 2014
Charles M. Blow

Don’t let yourself get lost in the weeds. Don’t allow yourself to believe that opposition to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration is only about that issue, the president’s tactics, or his lack of obsequiousness to his detractors.

This hostility and animosity toward this president is, in fact, larger than this president. This is about systems of power and the power of symbols. Particularly, it is about preserving traditional power and destroying emerging symbols that threaten that power. This president is simply the embodiment of the threat, as far as his detractors are concerned, whether they are willing or able to articulate it as such.

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Pay attention to the overall response from all sources, particularly the rhetoric in which it is wrapped

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Make no mistake: This debate is not just about this president, this executive order or immigration. This is about the fear that makes the face flush when people stare into a future in which traditional power — their power — is eroded, and about their desperate, by-any-means determination to deny that future.

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MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/opinion/charles-blow-bigger-than-immigration.html?_r=1