Slate:

[S]o strong is the moral stature of the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement that even the white right prefers to pretend to emulate it. (This smarmy tactic long predates Glenn Beck, by the way: I remember Ralph Reed trying it when he ran the Christian Coalition more than 10 years ago and announced that he wanted to remodel the organization along the lines of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.) Thus, it is really quite rare to hear slurs against President Barack Obama that are based purely on the color of his skin. Even Beck himself has tried to back away from the smears of that kind that he has spread in the past. But it is increasingly common to hear allegations that Obama is either foreign-born or a Muslim. And these insinuations are perfectly emblematic of the two main fears of the old majority: that it will be submerged by an influx from beyond the borders and that it will be challenged in its traditional ways and faiths by an alien and largely Third World religion.
What I love most? The expression: "the old majority." That's what they are, that's what America is dealing with, and they are the reason why all of my pre-Obama predictions about the future of GOP need little to no adjustment. Posted on Oct 15, 2008:
The real rupture in American politics is in the area of the Republican party. The exact location of this break is between its working-class base and the top layer of its professional/business elites. The break is not an isolated event but a part of the larger transformation of American politics—its current Europeanization. Obama’s rise to power is also a consequence of this process. The result of Obama’s presidency will be an increase of the government’s role in the management of civil society; as for the break in the GOP, the result will be an American political system that has three parts: the Dems, the Republicans, and the far right. Or put another way: Obama, McCain, and Palin.