Max Fisher wrote another thoughtful article over the weekend, The Murder of Ahmed Al-Jumaili in Texas Should Be a Front-Page Story. It’s about the mysterious murder of a recent Iraqi immigrant. But I think Fisher was being a bit sarcastic when he wrote, “But it seems odd that Americans, who pride themselves on inclusiveness and tolerance, would be so blithe and so uninterested [in this story].” As Fisher’s article documents, Americans embrace their intolerance. While Americans may pride themselves on their tolerance, they don’t practice it. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. During World War I, we persecuted Germans, so we took a pass and moved onto the Japanese in World War II. Now it is the Muslim’s turn. In fifty years, we will be onto some new group having not learned any general principles.

No one knows if Al-Jumaili was killed because he was Muslim. He seems to have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time — but it could very well have been a premeditated act. The fact remains that Dallas — where he had immigrated to just three weeks earlier — is a hotbed of Islamophobia. Fisher described recent anti-Muslim protests over a program designed to foster tolerance, “Stand With the Prophet Against Terror and Hate.” This brought out people who said charming things like, “We don’t want them here” and, “We’re here to stand up for the American way of life from a faction of people who are trying to destroy us.” Just like them Japs, am I right?!

But let’s suppose that Al-Jumaili was just killed in a random act of violence committed by a small group of men. What does it say about our country that a man flees violence in Iraq and gets gunned down outside his home within three weeks of coming to America? It is ironic that Americans are so concerned about the Islamic State when it poses effectively no threat to them. At the same time, they are absolutely fine with people roaming the streets with guns. In 2013, over a thousand people were murdered in Texas. (Generally, about 75% of all homicides are committed with firearms.) But these people not only want to go to war with the Islamic State, they want to kick Muslims out of the country. Maybe that would be doing the Muslims a favor.

Fisher put this particular murder into modern American media context in a way that I find frightening:

In this particular case, I don’t mind that it hasn’t gotten much coverage because it is more bizarre than anything. But it does bother me that Fisher has nailed this. If a Muslim had killed some non-Muslim as he stood outside his house with his wife taking pictures of freak Texas snowfall, the media would be all over it. It wouldn’t matter that we didn’t know the motivation of the shooter. It wouldn’t matter if there was no indication of motivation at all. It would be big news. Obama would be expected to make a statement about it. The right wing would be going crazy.

And that’s my takeaway from all this. The problem is not that the media don’t care when Muslims get killed. The media in general don’t care when anyone gets killed — there are almost two per hour: dog bites man. The problem is the media freak-out whenever a Muslim kills someone. This is the very definition of prejudice: being skeptical of a particular group of people. Given the freak-out when a Muslim does kill someone, we know that it is actually rare. But it isn’t reported that way. Instead, it is reported as if it were the leading edge of an invasion. We’ve seen this before: again and again and again. And every time, Americans have had their reasons for why it was the right way to think. And we have our reasons now. And they are no better than they were in the past.

Jonathan Chait published an “exit interview” with Dan Pfeiffer, On Learning to Ignore Republicans and How the White House Gave Up. It contained some interesting quotes that I’ll get to in a moment. But despite Chait’s claim, the interview wasn’t that revealing because it only reinforces something I’ve known for some time: that the Obama administration got all the way to the Debt Ceiling crisis of 2011 before realizing that they couldn’t negotiate with the Republicans. I thought they were naive to ever think that. But certainly after all the Obamacare negotiations when not a single Republican voted for the law should have told Obama and his team everything they needed to know.

Instead, they had to wait until the Debt Ceiling crisis to learn this. And think about that. If we had (and I certainly don’t rule out our doing it in the future), it would have done untold damage to the world economy. Keep that in mind as you read the following quote from Pfeiffer about what he now thinks about the Republican leadership:

I think this is entirely correct. And these are the guys that the Obama administration allowed to almost crash the economy. And we are still living with this. It isn’t just Boehner who is worried about solving the immediate problem. I’m already thinking of the next time that Boehner and his hoards are going to hold the world hostage over the debt ceiling. Coming this Fall at a capitol near you!

Pfeiffer contrasts what people who have worked in the Obama administration have learned compared to what former Clinton staffers took from his presidency. The Clinton people came into the administration thinking that the Republicans could make deals. Well, that was doubtless true in the mid-1990s. But this also shows why it might have been a good idea if Obama hadn’t filled his administration with a bunch of Clinton New Democrats. After all, they are all people who — when they are alone with them — agree with Republican politicians on economic matters. They are all one big happy neoliberal family, even if the Republicans claim to be something else to their voting base.

And this relates to the ultimate lesson that Obama has learned: that it is a fool’s game to try to appeal to the supposed middle between Obama’s moderation and the Republicans’ proto-fascism; going progressive is what works best. Here’s another great quote from Pfeiffer:

But then one has to wonder why the administration was ever listening to the Villagers? I’m not brilliant and I haven’t followed politics closely for very long. But regardless of what side, it has been clear to me that these Very Serious Fools don’t know anything. I was saying the same thing after the 2012 election when they were all claiming that the Republicans needed to change. I wrote again and again that there was no reason for the Republicans to change and in the end, the Republicans did not change — at least not in the way that the Villagers wanted them to.

The Villagers are involved in a kind of dream magic. They think that if they talk about their dreams of Tip and Ron having drinks together, their collective “centrist” — actually socially liberal, economically conservative — wet dream will come to pass. What kind of naivete does someone have to have to think that the world actually works like this?

Well, there was one telling quote:, “[Obama] had hopes of being able to change the polarization, not just in the country, but in Washington.” So changing polarization in Washington is harder than in the country? Washington isn’t part of the country? I think it is that kind of thinking that is the root of the problem with the Obama administration. They are involved in their own kind of dream magic. But I’m glad they’ve grown up a bit.