Frank Rich wrote a great column today.
The Rage Is Not About Health Care
The current surge of anger and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of traitor and off with his head at Palin rallies as Obamas election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since from Gov. Rick Perrys kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to You lie! piercing the presidents address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.
If Obamas first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. Its not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver none of them major Democratic players in the health care push received a major share of last weekends abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan Take our country back!, these are the people they want to take the country back from.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Rage Is Not About Health Care - NYTimes.com
I think Frank Rich really nailed it. This is what the Tea Parties, Palin, Fox News, Limbaugh, and Beck are all pissed about. I never believed it was Healthcare.