How the Political Winds Shift in An Ugly Direction:

Scapegoating*: Building Hate Starts with Dehumanizing and Distortion

—An Example  (*see Project Worldview theme #39B) by Stephen P. Cook

As I write in late March 2016, I’d say tens of millions of Americans dislike President Obama—many even hate him. Why? The short answer is the campaign against our country’s president waged by his political opponents.  Here’s an example of what that campaign has involved. 

Analysis:  Note use of Obama’s middle name. Note its proximity with the word “muslims”.

Someone wants you to link Obama with that bad guy in Iraq we went to war against: Saddam Hussein. And they want to dehumanize him. They don’t show an image of him as a family man, say pictured as a loving father with wife and two beautiful daughters—this would humanize him. Instead they want you—and all those millions of other white Americans their campaign targets—to link him with all those people who are different from you: “muslims”. Related campaigns have sought to link those people—worldwide, there are roughly 1.6 billion adherents of Islam—with “terrorists”.  A “President Trump” (the man behind the “birther” campaign, based on the lie that Obama was not born in the USA and that his presidency is therefore illegitimate) would ban them from entering the USA. Both he and a “President Cruz” would selectively police Muslim neighborhoods in fascist police state style…As to the question this propaganda ends with—

My reply: “Yes, I have doubts! Let’s set the record straight!”

Here’s a scan of the relevant part of Obama’s book on page 261:

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