Watching Biden tonight, my mind flashed back to this moment in 2008 when my WWII veteran grandpa, a Republican most of his life, left the party to proudly vote for Obama. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/929383670447611905">https://twitter.com/SethCotla...

After we watched that episode of MTP, my grandpa showed me letters he& #39;d gotten from former college classmates of his, also folks in their 90s, who closed their letters with fervent wishes for an Obama victory in November.

I sensed that in the minds of these folks who& #39;d lived through WWII and the Civil Rights Movement as adults, Obama felt like a historical deliverance they could have never imagined would happen so soon. None of these folks were particularly progressive, but they were patriotic.

A good chunk of white Americans responded to a black family in the White House with horror and revulsion, or at least with a sense that somehow there was something wrong with that picture. Hence birtherism.