Hitchens hit the nail in my opinion with this,
"In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be. The clue, surely, is furnished by the remainder of the speeches, which deny racial feeling so monotonously and vehemently as to draw attention."
"Concerns of this kind are not confined to the Tea Party belt. Late professors Arthur Schlesinger and Samuel Huntington both published books expressing misgivings about, respectively, multiculturalism and rapid demographic change. But these were phrased so carefully as almost to avoid starting the argument they flirted with. More recently, almost every European country has seen the emergence of populist parties that call upon nativism and give vent to the idea that the majority population now feels itself unwelcome in its own country."
Certain conservatives in this country are practicing their own coded political correctness with their speeches. They're poking certain extremist elements in this country, almost as if they're cooking them slowly. As Hitchins stated, they're careful to avoid what they're actually flirting with, but at the same time they keep raising the temperature with this kind of talk. Several years ago I worked with a white dude on a night shift. We got kind of close, to the point we discussed certain things that most blacks and whites never talk about it. I remember he saying he felt this country was going to be in a race war someday. At the time I thought he was ludicrous. I jokingly said, "dude, you need to turn off the radio and quit listening to Traffic Drive Time Militia." Now as of lately, I'm starting to wonder if he was onto something. I hate to say it, but this country is headed toward something. It isn't going to be pretty either. People like Beck and Palin remind me of cowards who start fights in bars or schools. They talk the most s#$#, and are the first ones out the door when it gets hot. Thats why I really don't respect them as people.