The People Who Booed McCain's Concession Speech Are Like School In July: No Class

McCain started his concession speech on election night by saying that he called up Obama to congratulate him on winning the election—this was met with a vicious response from the crowd, a crowd that booed him on several more occasions for pointing out the historical significance of electing a black man to be President of the United States. Uh, really? They're actually booing his concession speech? What the fuck? But then I thought, I should give these people some credit: there must be a logical explanation as to why they would do something so absurdly disrespectful to everyone involved (it's disrespectful to John McCain, Barack Obama, their respective campaigns, the people watching his speech, the concept of American Democracy where the distinction between enemy and political enemy separates us from the turbulence of chaotic third world countries run by violent warring factions). So maybe there is a plausible reason why those people would choose to respond to his speech in that way.

Maybe they were on their way to a homecoming football game, got lost, and mistakenly wandered into McCain's election night party. They were a little confused and kept waiting for the video where John McCain's campaign mascot chases Barack Obama's campaign mascot around campus before the players run out of the tunnel. Due to FCC rules, the networks covering the speech edited out the inevitable chants from the crowd of “BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT!” or “FUCK O-BA-MA clap, clap, clap clap clap FUCK O-BA-MA clap, clap, clap clap clap.” Yeah, that's it, these people aren't morons who hate American democracy, they're morons who thought they were at a college football game. Just a bunch of screaming yahoos who were drunk from sipping on their hidden Camelbacks full of cheap hard alcohol mixed with Shasta soda.

But to get serious and preachy for a moment, those are the people who legitimately scare me: the ones who booed John McCain for telling them not to be afraid of Barack Obama as president and screamed so hard they wet their pants when Palin implicitly accused Obama of terrorism. I am scared by people who lack the American sentiment that your political enemy is not your actual enemy, just somebody who has a different idea of how to make a great country better. Booing your own candidate for refusing to demonize his opponent is so contrary to the principles of this country that I'm having trouble wrapping my head around what I saw on election night last week.