Playing the Race Card -- IOKIYAR

Jonah Goldberg fears that if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, and doesn't win the election, blacks will riot en masse.

He doesn't say this in such a direct fashion, of course. Instead, he uses coded language to suggest that and then projects the white fear of black violence onto Democrats [emphasis mine]:

This is just a late Friday night prediction. But after reading this regrettable excess from Ezra Klein as well as all of the more reasonable but nonetheless hopeful, proud, idealistic and sincere sentiments of pride and well-wishing for Obama as the first serious mainstream black contender for the White House (some, but by no means all, of these sentiments shared by yours truly) , I think it's worth imagining a certain scenario. Imagine the Democrats do rally around Obama. Imagine the media invests as heavily in him as I think we all know they will if he's the nominee — and then imagine he loses. I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. Forget Hillary's inevitability. Obama has a rendezvous with destiny, or so we will be told. And if he's denied it, teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid.

Glenn Greenwald reminds us of the "social unraveling" that followed the results of the 2000 presidential election:

The last time I can recall a "certain segment of American political life" becoming "completely unhinged" and causing "social unraveling" in connection with a national election was this episode in Miami, during the 2000 recount:

The "bourgeois riot" celebrated by Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot helped stop the announced manual recount of the 10,750 undervote in Miami-Dade County. Instigated by an order from New York congressman John Sweeney to "shut it down," dozens of screaming GOP demonstrators pounded on doors and a picture window at elections headquarters. The canvassing board, which had already found a net Al Gore gain of 168 votes, reversed a decision it had made a couple of hours earlier to begin a tally of the undervote.

The mob gang-rushed a local Democrat carrying a blank sample ballot. They threatened that a thousand Cubans were on their way to the headquarters to stop the count. Several people were "trampled, punched or kicked," according to The New York Times. The canvassing board chair at first conceded that mob pressures played a role in the shutdown -- which cost Gore the 168 votes as well -- but later reversed his position. . . . .

Instead of condemning the Dade tactics, W. himself called the victory party that night to praise them, and Republicans invoked the specter of Jesse Jackson, who'd merely led peaceful protests outside election offices.

The "certain segment" creating "social unraveling" and blocking vote-counting in 2000 with their thug tactics wasn't quite the same as the "certain segment" which Goldberg and Reynolds are ominously warning will riot in the event of an Obama loss[.] ...

The photograph is priceless.

Here's what an Obama nomination would actually mean:

There's a prevailing sense that Obama is not as offensive to the right-wing GOP faction as other Democratic and liberal candidates in the past have been, or that he's less "divisive" among them than Hillary. And that's true: for now, while he tries to take down the individual who has long provoked the most intense hatred -- literally -- among the Right. But anyone who doesn't think that that's all going to change instantaneously if Obama is the nominee hasn't been watching how this faction operates over the last 20 years. ...

Clinton Derangement Syndrome-afflicted righties will need someplace to direct all that hatred:

If Obama wins the nomination for the Democrats, all of that will change, and it will change overnight. We will be regaled with long tales of madrassas, Obama’s first name will become Hussein, and everyone’s pets will be running around frothing from all the dog whistles. Obama is getting a free ride at the moment because of the intense, nutty, and 15 year old hate for the Clagina (in all honesty, I was a hater up until a few years ago when I realized cold and calculating competence is better than willful dishonesty and feckless incompetence). But if and when the queen is vanquished, all that venom will need a target, and that target will be Obama.

Racism aside, "... the real issue is that the breakdown of civil society is the perpetual wet dream of gun nut glibertarians like Reynolds. They imagine themselves guarding their horde of HDTVs and digital cameras with their penis extenders gun stash, heroically shooting the 'bad guys.' "