(The Root) — We were warned by Rep. John Lewis two years ago. He took John McCain and Sarah Palin to task during the 2008 presidential campaign for “sowing the seeds of hatred and division.” Lewis knew well the consequences of political violence; he was badly beaten during civil rights protests in the South a half century ago. Throughout last year, alerts continued, delivered by black politicians and pundits who expressed alarm about weapons at Tea Party rallies and brutal,sometimes racist rhetoric that cast President Barack Obama as a Nazi, a communist, a Middle East terrorist or, worse, an illegal alien who had somehow fooled the American people into putting him in the White House.
