In the run up to the US Democratic presidential nomination convention when it was abundantly clear that Hillary Clinton had lost the race to Illinois senator Barack Obama, she had rejected the call to concede her defeat saying, ‘what if something happens (to Obama) before the convention or the election?’
Even though Hillary’s remarks were typically opportunistic and insensitive, they revealed a dark side of the US history. Prominent and promising politicians have always faced a clear and present danger to their lives. In fact, the more popular the politician the more vulnerable he or she is. The arrest of two white supremacists this week for planning to kill Obama at one of his electoral rallies goes to underscore this reality of the US politics.
From Abraham Lincoln to John F Kennedy and from Ronald Reagan to George W Bush, many US presidents have either fallen victim to an assassin’s bullet or came dangerously close to becoming a victim. Of course, all politicians, especially those in power, take a certain degree of risk thanks to the risky nature of their profession. In the US, however, this threat has acquired alarming proportions. Several social and political factors are understood to be behind the phenomenon.
However, the most prominent of them of course is the dangerous gun culture in the country. The world’s most powerful democracy is also one of the most insecure, thanks to the abundance of easily available guns. There are simply too many guns in the US, highest per capita anywhere in the world.
But the threat to Barack Obama, the first African American candidate with a name that sounds like Osama to too many Americans, is rather unique. He is not only the first black man - even if his mother was all-white, all-American - to run for the White House but he is also seen as a Muslim by many ill-informed and semi-literate Americans.
So Obama, who has captured the imagination of a vast majority of Americans and the world with his unique background and uplifting message, faces threat to his life from an extremist fringe because of the same factors. In other words, Obama’s popularity has become his flaw.
This is what happened in the case of another Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy and another more charismatic member of the clan, John F Kennedy. Martin Luther King Jr, the irrepressible civil rights activist and leader of African American community who played a crucial role in the intellectual evolution of Obama, also fell to an assassin’s bullet. Which is why the threat to the Democratic candidate cannot and should not be taken lightly. Obama is leading in all opinion polls and his White House victory appears imminent. This makes him all the more vulnerable to threat from extremists like Ku Klux Klan. The US authorities will need to do everything to protect the first African American candidate. The US must ensure history does not repeat itself.