The more things change the more they stay the same. Some people just prefer to let their inner bigot rule their lives. And despite the millions of white people who voted for Obama, there is still a significant group of haters out there. Far too many, in fact:

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Barack Obama's election as U.S. president has provoked a rise in hate crimes against ethnic minorities, civil rights groups said on Monday. [...]

In the highest-profile case, a federal grand jury indicted Jeffrey Conroy, 17, for second-degree murder and classed it as a hate crime last week after Marcelo Lucero of Ecuadorian descent was stabbed to death on New York's Long Island.

Six other teenagers face lesser charges in the case. All pleaded not guilty. Police said last week the seven youths set out to find and attack Latinos.

In other examples, a family in New Jersey that supported Obama found a charred wooden cross on its lawn a few days after the election. Burning crosses were used by the KKK as a means of terrorizing African Americans.

On election night, two teenagers beat up a black man on Staten Island, New York, and cursed him with racial epithets and "Obama."

Of course, it would be a futile exercise to list all the instances of racial slurs, grafitti, nooses, etc. which have occurred since Obama won the election, much less since he began his candidacy. But I think we can lay a great deal of the blame on those right wing politicians and their allies on radio and television who have done so much to stoke racial fears and anger against anyone who isn't a "Real American."

"The hysterical tone of many of the media pundits and the harsh qualities of rhetoric pushed by some policy makers at a local level have created a toxic environment which is promoting violence against immigrants and immigrant communities," said Karen Narasaki of the Asian American Justice Center.

Gee, I wonder who she could be talking about, don't you Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo, Michelle Bachman, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin. Not to mention all the idiots who spent countless hours and wasted innumerable words trying to prove Barack Obama was really an illegal alien in addition to being a Muslim Marxist Second Coming of Hitler.

The last time a Democrat held the Presidency, we saw the rise of the Militia movement and acts of mass murder and mayhem by right wing terrorists. And that was during a time of relative peace and prosperity with a moderate centrist President from Arkansas. Who was as white and down home as they come. Over the next four years I think we can expect increasing acts of racially motivated and/or anti-government violence from white, right wing extremists. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm a lousy prophet. But I also hope the Secret Service and the FBI are putting resources into preparing for the worst case scenario.