Modern Day Salem: The McCain Mob

In modern day society, the term "witch hunt" is almost a dirty word. To most, the term brings to mind the atrocities committed in Salem when our country was but a fledgling colony, but in reality the term goes much, much deeper than that. For out of all of the skeletons America has stashed in the closet, witch hunts are by far one of the most sinister. Perhaps this would not be so if the witch hunting had stopped at Salem in the seventeenth century, but in truth they persevered through the centuries, sometimes just in the background of things, and are unfortunately still with us today.

With-hunting has manifested itself in the form of McCarthyism during the Second Red Scare of the 1950's, and again much more recently during the Terrorism scare after 9/11. Instead of learning from our mistakes, we keep it going, and by all historic evidence it will continue to appear.

The fact is that throughout history, society has found some sort of minority or group to label as "The Other", and use this minority to hate, scapegoat, and discriminate against. And as much as I and every other rational American would like to think that this horrible practice all in the past, I see something like this:

The McCain-Palin Mob

Horrible, right? The fact is, even if John McCain and Sarah Palin didn't go right out and call Obama a terrorist commie in public, they effectively did so by egging on their crowds. Through their suggestions, McCain and Palin created a monster, and it's going to take a lot to cover up shouts of "Treason!", "Terrorist!", and of course the obligatory racial slurs.

The fact is that McCain is losing, and losing badly, and as he struggles we begin to see what kind of campaign he is really running.

As covered by this New York Times article, McCain has resorted to using tried-and-true scare tactics and outright lies. Instead of his promised "straight-talk", we get a witch hunt for communists and terrorists. Great progress, America.