"belief that Obama is illegitimate ... undergirds the entire conservative movement"

[phantom power]

...this isn’t actually about legitimate concerns about the nature of his death, but a way for conservatives to perpetuate the notion that any Obama-appointed justice to replace Scalia is inherently illegitimate.

This belief, that Obama is illegitimate and everything he does shouldn’t count, undergirds the entire conservative movement. It’s the idea the Tea Party formed to perpetuate and it’s the notion that is fueling the Trump campaign, with its argument that America was once great but is now in decline and needs restoration. It’s the notion that immediately defined and solidified the Republican reaction to Scalia’s death, which was to immediately deny that Obama had any right to appoint his replacement and then to start casting around for some official-sounding reason to justify this belief.

...

The more official line of bullshit is highly reminiscent of the elaborate but incoherent faux-legalese that is spewed by the self-declared “Patriot” movement, the right wing fringe that most recently made the news by occupying a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. The Patriot movement loves spinning convoluted pseudo-legal arguments about how the federal government has no authority to own land, levy taxes, or enforce the law.

Now the nakedly self-serving arguments disguised as appeals to law or tradition have made the jump from militiamen declaring that income taxes are illegal to actual Republican Party leaders trying to spin pretzel stories about how a duly elected President somehow doesn’t have the rights and duties plainly given to him in the Constitution. The barriers between fringe conservatives and the mainstream are starting to fall apart.

...

From day one of Obama’s presidency, the opposition has been rooted in this belief that white Americans are more legitimate, as voters and citizens, making it impossible for them to accept that one can be a legitimate President without winning the majority of the white vote. That’s what this is about and all the handwaving about murder and lame duckness and whatever other nonsense argument they’re spinning today is about serving this ugly, but unspeakable belief about race and legitimacy.

Scalia was willing to advance any incoherent, self-contradictory argument as long as it shored up this belief that white conservatives are the proper rulers of this country and that no one else deserves to have power. Of course his death is going to have symbolic weight for the right, especially in light of the fact that Obama is going to nominate someone from that “other” America, one embraces racial diversity, feminism, and cosmopolitan values. To let this happen without a fight is to accept what is unacceptable to the right, which is admitting that they are not actually the majority in this country. And they will advance any idea, no matter how ridiculous or embarrassing, to justify their anger over a changing America.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/16/scalia_truthers_the_murder_conspiracy_theories_dont_surprise_us_at_all_its_typical_mainstream_republican_paranoia/

[Wounded Bear]

1. K & R ......for visibility..nt

[blm]

3. and again

GOP believes Obama only gets 3/5 of the term that Bush got.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. Yup

Since day one, Republicans have refused to respect President Obama and have repeatedly denigrated him and his claim to the office despite his overwhelming electoral victories in 2008 and 2012. The "birther issue" wasn't effectively put to rest until, what, 2012?

[pampango]

4. "... nominate someone from that “other” America, one embraces racial diversity, feminism, and

cosmopolitan values."

The ugly fact of the matter is that conservatives simply don’t believe Obama has a right to be the President. Yes, he won the general election by a landslide, but, in both 2008 and 2012, the majority of white voters voted against Obama.

From day one of Obama’s presidency, the opposition has been rooted in this belief that white Americans are more legitimate, as voters and citizens, making it impossible for them to accept that one can be a legitimate President without winning the majority of the white vote.

[truebluegreen]

5. True as far as it goes

but in my opinion the conservatives consider anyopposing views as illegitimate. Obama's blackness is just the icing on the cake.

[phantom power]

7. That is definitely true. They consider any non-conservative governance illegitimate.

The Kenyan Muslim "Socialist" caused them to lose their minds in a whole new, special way. But any Democrat will be met with the same stone-walling and total lack of cooperation.

[Wounded Bear]

6. It's further application of the Hastert Rule...

Hastert was the first to actually vocalize that anything that didn't have a majority of the Repub caucus supporting it would not come up for floor vote.

Same thing here, without majority Repub support, nothing gets done. Except that now it looks like we need unanimous Repub support. Minority rule.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Which is probably just reaction to the certain knowledge that W was TRULY illegitimate.

They can't handle the truth, so they "create their own reality", to paraphrase a famous quote.

[phantom power]

9. I've decided you can't overstate how much of their world view is pure projection.

[Odin2005]

10. These people consider only white Evangelical Christians to be "real Americans".

They are a malignant form of ethno-racial nationalist of the type common in Europe before WW2 and are becoming common over there again now because of anti-Muslim sentiment, a form that is very favorable to Fascism.