Obama With a Hitler Moustache

Conservative critics of healthcare reform have called for demonstrations in Washington. They warned of socialism and ridiculed Obama. And Obama fired right back.

Yellow “Don’t tread on me” flags were visible everywhere, carried last Saturday in front of the Capitol in Washington. In high spirits, tens of thousands of conservatives protested loudly against Obama’s healthcare reform plans. “The Capitol belongs to us,” the protesters chanted repeatedly, pointing to congressional buildings. They were protesting against a number of Obama’s reform initiatives that they repeatedly shouted would lead to “socialism in America” and would be unconstitutional as well.

The protest march converging on the capital was by far the largest conservative anti-Obama demonstration since his inauguration. Those who attended, predominantly families with children, also warned of ballooning deficits and the country’s slide toward state capitalism. Also apparent were the ubiquitous posters of Obama as the evil “Joker” from Batman comic strips bearing the caption “Socialism.”

Those who attended are part of a loose confederation aiming to establish themselves as the voice of a strengthening anti-Obama movement. In conservative rural areas, the protest has already taken on racist undertones. Dissatisfied with a Republican Party that has been unable to find a new direction since its electoral defeat in 2008, many Americans now feel forced to be proactive.

Conservative organizations had already organized numerous so-called “tea parties” to protest alleged tax increases, increases that Obama never proposed in the first place. During the summer, choreographed protests repeatedly took place in so-called town hall meetings in which conservative organizers used a series of falsehoods presented as facts, such as fictional “euthanasia panels,” in order to whip up fears among the insecure and turn them against healthcare reform.

The organizations include FreedomWorks, a Washington-based group headed by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, as well as ResistNet. They are small, tightly run groups working in concert with commercial advertising agencies that specialize in similar protest campaigns. These ad agencies are considered to be extreme even by conservatives, but they are nonetheless popular at the moment.

Official estimates of crowd size were not released by security agencies and the White House chose not to comment on the march at all. Observers said on talk shows that the huge turnout of protesters showed that Obama’s impassioned speech defending his reform plans given last Wednesday had been ineffective and had now been completely blown away.

Obama, meanwhile, spoke to 15,000 enthusiastic supporters in Minneapolis. He promised that no one would ever again be bankrupted by illness, a danger that now threatens even middle class Americans – including those people who were protesting against his proposed reforms just a few hundred miles away.