As in many previous presidential campaigns, partisans have insisted that the 2008 presidential election will be the most important in our lifetimes, or even in American history. Historians will caution that the implications of this November’s election can be measured against those of, say, 1860, 1896 or 1932 only decades from now.

But even though, as a historian myself, I’m inclined to take the wait-and-see approach, I am, as an engaged citizen, becoming more anxious that this election will damage the future of American politics. No matter which candidate wins, I fear we will soon see the aftereffects of the sickness that the 2008 campaign has cultivated.

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First, we must speculate what will happen if the weeks-long trends in polling are proved wrong and John McCain wins.  If such an unlikely turn happens, it will be attributed to the McCain-Palin campaign’s efforts to raise doubts about Barack Obama’s character and fitness for the presidency. This strategy has hinged almost entirely on negative jabs, with the campaign and its media supporters branding Obama’s tax plans as a socialist “redistribution of wealth” or trying to steer voter’s attention from the economic crisis to Obama’s links with Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers, convicted real estate developer Tony Rezko, and Palestinian academic Rashid Khalidi.

If this strategy does undo the poll numbers and brings McCain a victory, the result for managers of future campaigns will be clear: an all-out assault of smears and recriminations wins elections. But for a significant segment of the electorate, those who have supported Obama for months, the result will be crushing. From its start in 2007, the Obama campaign has been built on the work of energized volunteers, most of whom are young people. What will become of this enthusiasm, this engagement with politics, this willingness to volunteer on behalf of a candidate, if their work is negated by the McCain camp’s negative approach?

If, despite their neighborhood canvassing and voter-registration work and small-dollar donations, the opposing candidate wins through stoking fear of so-called socialism and smearing his opponent’s character, what will move these young people, as well as Obama’s African-American supporters, to engage in politics again? My fear is that these voters will withdraw in frustration over a political system that appears broken beyond repair. A McCain win would leave these voters disillusioned and estranged from politics for a long time.

More troubling, though, is what I envision for the American political landscape if Obama is elected. Certainly, the election of the first African-American president will be historic, and Obama’s supporters expect a dramatic change in political climate and policies. But an Obama win might also open a grim chapter in our politics. During the last weeks of the campaign, there has been a consistent stream of ugly and, indeed, fierce hostility toward Obama. Individuals at McCain campaign rallies shouted  “liar,” “socialist,” “terrorist,” and “traitor” in reply to their candidate’s question, “Who is Barack Obama?” Talk radio hosts and FOX News anchors decried Obama’s economic policies as Marxist.

Clips posted to the Internet show men and women lined up at McCain-Palin rallies declaring that Obama is a terrorist.¹  One letter writer to my local paper stated than an Obama presidency would be no different from the leadership of Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, or Russia. At a rally in Pennsylvania, a local Republican chairman roused the crowd with the line: “Think about how you’ll feel on November 5 if you wake up in the morning and see the news, that Barack Obama—that Barack Hussein Obama—is the president-elect of the United States.”²

The statement deserves serious attention—and not only among the Republican faithful.  How will these angry conservatives feel if, as expected, Obama wins the presidency?  Can I expect that, on the morning after the election, the man down my street will discretely remove the sign in his yard that declares, in hand-drawn letters:  “NO COMMUNISM, NO SOCIALISM, NOBAMA.” What will be the sentiment on January 20 of the older man in Wisconsin who stirred the crowd at a McCain rally with his anger at “the socialists taking over our country”? In the four years that follow, will the young woman who insisted outside an Ohio rally that Obama “has the bloodlines” to be a terrorist accept him as president? I doubt these voters and others who share their fear of Obama will ever be reconciled to his election or view his administration as legitimate.

In early October, as reports emerged of the angry outbursts at McCain-Palin rallies, former Republican strategist David Gergen said on CNN that this kind of political behavior “could really lead to some violence.”  Video clips showed McCain reacting to the crowd’s shouts with a startled, confused look. His attempt at a suburban Minneapolis rally to refute slanders against Obama and insist upon respect in the campaign was met with boos.  I tend to think that once the heat of the election season cools, the threat that Gergen warned of will subside.

Nevertheless, an Obama administration will have to contend with a substantial bloc of citizens angry over his election and convinced that he cannot be trusted. Believing that mainstream media serves to propagate, rather than pierce, Obama’s lies, these voters will turn to Fox News and talk radio to nourish their fears and suspicions.  Rather than acknowledging their party’s loss of power and the legitimate election of their opponent, they will harden themselves into a bitter animosity—and perhaps an implacable obstinacy—toward the government he leads.

A large part of this group of angry, estranged voters may well be evangelical Christians. The rhetoric expressed by conservative Christian organizations and at Christian news sites matches that of the most rabid slurs caught at McCain-Palin rallies. Reader posts at the Christian news site OneNewsNow, an arm of Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association, cast Obama not only as a liar, a socialist, and a terrorist, but also as an agent of supernatural evil:

Satan is very powerful right now and unfortunately far too many Christians are falling for the lies! Obama’s people will stop at nothing to get him in office. They lie, they cheat and they deceive.

Obama has also wiped clean some of the endorsements on his website by the commies, Hezbolla, etc. Every time someone comes out with the truth about Obama he tries to shut them up with lies or threats. This man is dangerous to Americans.

The thought of Barack Obama becoming our next president truly terrifies me because the more I learn about him and the more he says, the more I realize just how evil he truly is.

Only the spiritually and morally dead could be fooled by Obama. Then again, what does the Word say about the antiChrist? “He will deceive even the elect.”

As the Irish Times reported recently, some American evangelicals have seen an Obama presidency as a harbinger of the end times.³  “On the one hand, it is exciting for us as conservatives because we can actually see what God prophesied coming about,” said one visitor to the Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado Springs, “but on the other hand, it is frustrating to see somebody become president who is a blatant liar.”

Christians such as these will likely nurture a deep distrust, even fear, of an Obama-led government and the media that do not reveal his deceptions. But how will they view other Christians who voted for him, who argued that their beliefs and ethics led them to support Obama?  According to a pre-election survey by the Barna Group, Obama gained far higher support among Christians than previous Democratic candidates, ranging from one-quarter to one-half of self-identified Christian voters.⁴ Yet, for many Christian conservatives these Obama supporters forfeit the claim to be believers. In an article titled “You cannot be a Christian and vote for Obama,” Janet Porter of WorldNetDaily.com offered a train of scriptural references in support of her argument. “Obey Him in the voting booth and out of it,” she concluded. “If not, do us all a favor and quit calling yourself a Christian.”⁵  I’ve encountered enough statements in the same vein, from conservative Christian organizations, from reader posts to Christian websites, even from reader letters to my local newspapers and second-hand conversations, to recognize a real divide emerging in the church.

In the political arena, there is hope for reconciliation. John McCain’s efforts to calm his crowds indicate that he is aware of the menace of his supporters’ anger. McCain’s record of statesman-like, bipartisan legislative work suggests that his calls for respect of Obama come from an awareness that the work of government needs to proceed—and that radicalized anger will be a sharp obstacle.

However, I fear that opinion-shapers on the Christian right will not step back from their schismatic rhetoric. An October email from Donald Wildmon declared to supporters that, “If the liberals win, then our foundation will no longer be based on the traditional Judeo-Christian morality.”  And Focus on the Family‘s pre-election “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America,” offered in fifteen single-spaced pages a detailed vision of a ruthlessly secularized, socialized, and oversexed nation.⁶  The liberal-dominated Supreme Court will be forcing churches to allow gay weddings and physicians to perform abortions, major cities will be ravaged by terrorist attacks, and “many brave Christian men and women” who attempt to resist the Obama government will find themselves in jail or bankruptcy.

What will we hear from them after the votes have been cast? Will they, like McCain, seek to assure their audiences that Obama is a good, respectable man? Or will they continue to stoke fear, insisting that a President Obama’s statements are deceptions, and that he is an agent of evil?

Historians of American politics point out that the demonizing of partisan opponents is nothing new.  Nineteenth-century campaigns were vicious sport. That might be true, but it is in no way assuring. The clips of middle-class men and women, people who look like my neighbors, enraged at the prospect of so-called socialists taking over the country, denouncing Obama as an Arab and a terrorist, and hollering “commie faggots” at his supporters, are deeply troubling.

More disturbing is the desperate rhetoric of conservative Christian groups, which has mixed the insulting, indignant tone of Hannity and Rush with claims to biblical authority, to uncontestable Christian principles, and to eschatological signposts.  Lost is any kindness, any charity, any humility. Just as a civil society cannot function properly without such virtues, neither can the kingdom.

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¹”McCain-Palin Rally Attendees,” youtube.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVuBcJ7ijP8. <11.01.2008>; “The McCain-Palin Mob,” youtube.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E. <11.01.2008>
²Dana Milbank, “Rage in the Town of Bethlehem,” Washington Post, October 9, 2008, washingtonpost.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/08/AR2008100803601.html. <11.01.2008>
³Mark Hennessy, “For many evangelicals, it will be the end of the world if Obama wins,” Irish Times, October, 22 2008, irishtimes.com, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/1028/1225061111621.html. <11.01.2008>
⁴”Obama Poised to Win and Make Significant Inroads with Christian Voters,” The Barna Group, October 22, 2008, barna.org, http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=319. <11.01.2008>
⁵Janet Porter, “You cannot be a Christian and vote for Obama,” WorldNetDaily, October 28, 2008, worldnetdaily.com, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=79276. <11.01.2008>
⁶”What Would an Obama Presidency Look Like? 2012,” October 22, 2008, citizenlink.org, http://www.citizenlink.org/turnsignal/A000008512.cfm. Download: “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America,” 10-22-08_2012letter.pdf. <11.01.2008>

Bruce Berglund is Associate Professor of History at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.