The Root) -- The 2012 presidential election was historic, not just because of the re-election of the nation's first black president but also because it became the first "meme" election. Over the course of the excruciatingly long campaign, the Internet responded to every noteworthy gaffe and unintentional revelation the candidates made by creating viral memes that poked fun of and spoke back to the candidates. We had Big Bird, binders full of women, horses and bayonets, "Paul Ryan Gosling" and much more. Even with the election over, the fun with memes hasn't stopped.The latest is a Tumblr site dedicated to collecting photos and screenshots of white people reacting to the news of President Barack Obama's re-election and Gov. Mitt Romney's loss, aptly titled "White People Mourning Romney." There are dozens of pictures of profoundly distraught white Romney supporters sobbing and otherwise looking forlorn. There is one picture of a storefront window with a handmade sign that says: "Closed to Mourn the Loss of the America That Our Forefathers Endowed to Us." Another is of a yard where a flag bearing the GOP's elephant mascot is flying at half-mast.It's funny, but it also serves as a sad snapshot of just how far we haven't come. Granted, had Obama lost, there would also have been legions of people crying across the country. But the people featured here aren't crying about a lost election. They truly appear to be mourning the death of a country, or at least the idea of the country they've long held to be true.Obviously, America isn't dead. But the right-wing echo chamber has so deluded its members into believing that the man currently occupying the White House has a secret socialist agenda -- one that he inherited from his Kenyan anti-colonialist father and has been waiting to unleash -- that they have concluded that his re-election spells the end of America.
sad that Americans? would mourn the ending of a racial induced way of life depriving other Americans of the dream of which the majority of them have not achieved, hate last couple of generations it ain't that kinda party, meme ends with e eradication of age old racist ways to a new acceptance of we are all God's children second to none of us.
yet some would mourn the inclusion of 30 mil plus into good health, taxing the middle class, no say in the work place, your boss in your bedroom, deny Gay Americans happiness just to name a few. i take it back this is the death of the Crow family remnants and all it stood for. God Bless America to be.
That has been the GOP game for years, but in the last two presidential elections it has cost them big. Obama has walked away with historic levels of support among African Americans, Latinos, women and young people, and he posted clear Electoral College and popular-vote wins.
But no, Obama's re-election is not the death of America -- it's a signal that a new America is emerging. For the mourning white people in those photos, however, the two are one and the same. This new America, in which a majority-white vote doesn't rule the day, is foreign and unappealing to those whose privilege comes under greater scrutiny with each passing moment.
love it or leave it
