Why Hate Obama?

The other day I heard a social scientist giving a talk on the Tea Party, which she had studied in depth and with respect. One of her conclusions was that Tea Party people were not usually racist but that they hated President Obama with a terrible passion. 

I have not studied the Tea Party closely. What I know comes from TV, which probably tapes the most racist protest signs it can find at Tea Party gatherings. In an interview, one Teabagger claimed that the Tea Party was open to people of any race.  In that sense the party might not be racist.

So why do they hate Obama? My guess is that they hate his intelligence, his well-fitted suits, his grace, his kindness, his tolerance, all of which are foreign to teabaggers. They hate diversity. They hate his strange name. They hate Hawaii, Kenya, Indonesia and Chicago--and Europe. They hate Harvard Law School. They hate the fact that Obama has won a majority of the vote in two Presidential elections. They hate his Christianity, his Islamic and Buddhist coloring, his faith in prayer (which I do not share), his supposed Nazi beliefs and Stalinist leanings, his lack of macho posturing. They hate the idea that a white American woman married a black man from Africa and had a child. They hate the Other. But of course they aren't racist.