I keep seeing this question asked: on twitter, in columns, I assume if I watched tv news I’d see it asked there, but who knows.

At first, it seems hard to understand. Here is the most fiscally conservative president in a generation. An intelligent family man that passed a Republican health insurance reform plan. He’s been stronger on terrorism and stricter on illegal immigration than past presidents. I knew he was more conservative than me when I voted for him, but his opponents seem to think he’s the second coming of Joseph Stalin (or at least claim as much).

He’s constantly called names that have no basis in anyone’s objective reality, names that continue to be shouted louder, that continue to get more extreme. Few on the right can even find it physically possible to spit out the word “President” before his last name. Is this just “Obama Derangement Syndrome?” If it is, what makes it so severe? Why can’t conservatives see how far this man is to the right of many of his strongest supporters? (including yours truly)

The reason for this bears some resemblance to the right’s condescension toward President Clinton. Although it’s obviously much more intense, the general derision and lack of respect comes from a similar place. It isn’t because he’s a Democrat, although I admit I thought that at first. It is because he’s seen as originally being from a different class.

If you think poor conservatives want to elect a President who is “one of them,” or that President Bush’s popularity stemmed from that perception, then you obviously haven’t talked to many poor right-wing conservatives. A short conversation about Bill Clinton will set you straight on that.

What most of them want is a wealthy aristocrat, but one that understands what they’re like and can seem to speak directly to them. The appeal of George W. Bush was based more on his blue blood than on his charm, but his charm made that blue blooded appeal powerful. His father came across much differently, and seemed clueless, which didn’t raise the same sort of enthusiasm.

President Clinton, on the other hand, had literally been one of them—at least at one time, and that was seen as a horrible thing. It was fascinating and educational for me during his presidency to listen to Alabamans and Mississippians decry the “white trash” redneck Rhodes Scholar from Arkansas demeaning the office. Many permanent fixtures in DC perpetuated the same condescending class story, with columnists like David Broder saying he came to “our town” and trashed the place. Their implication was, again, that unless one came from family money, he wasn’t fit to serve in that office.

It’s important to understand this history before considering Obama hatred. Without this background, the first natural thought is that the intense hatred is simply a product of racism. Well, it is a product of that, but not in the way that many people first assume. In general, the Obama hatred isn’t a hatred of black people, it’s a fear and hatred of black people in positions of power.

This sounds like splitting hairs, but it’s not. The result may be similar, but the cause is very different: the same people terrified and enraged by the Obama White House were reacting similarly to Clinton. Their fear is of class fluidity and a change in the status quo. The intense opposition and over-the-top reaction to President Obama is purely based on the emotional impact of overwhelming fear and has nothing whatsoever to do with his policies or even the economy.

President Obama, in his uniquely American story, is the very embodiment of the changing face of society and power in America. A college professor, legal expert, thoughtful, city dweller, working for his community, challenged by his circumstances, and BLACK— he’s the type of person many people, like myself, look to for inspiration, even while relating to him, knowing people from our own college, graduate school, or career experiences with similarly “exotic” stories: Our close friends, some of the best we will ever know.

As a counterpoint in my own life, I have difficulty back home on the farm—I feel like I’m viewed suspiciously when nearby. I left and got an Ivy degree. I can be one of them back at home, but I can rarely convince any of them of that. As far as they can see, I’m Obama’s people now.

I get those feelings from past friends or older people I once knew, that have a need to hold on to the existing status quo. The system may not be working well for them now, but having a black president raised by a single mom in some foreign country or exotic state demonstrates just how badly they are faring or how badly they have failed. His life story is seen as completely outside their range of experience, even while his early life struggles were much the same as their own.

These are most often the same people impressed by candidates like Mitt Romney. Born wealthy & powerful and made more so, his obscene wealth is his primary job qualification. A president is seen by most conservatives as one who rules, not governs, and many honestly crave that aristocratic touch of their “betters,” people who seem destined to lead, whose intelligence and hard work (never cunning or abuse) is responsible for their massive inheritances and subsequent control of the system.

This is why we have ludicrous stories about the President and First Lady “insulting” the Queen of England. It’s not because conservatives love the queen and constantly fret over her delicate sensibilities, although it appears that way. It is rather because they want our president to have the same background as a king, to not be a commoner like them but to be born into the job. His family heritage is more important to them than his intelligence or policies.

President Obama’s story is not inspirational for non-wealthy conservatives. It is, like Clinton’s, a cautionary tale that they are being passed by. They are struggling while being told they are playing the game on its easiest setting. Those with some monetary success are even more rigid in this regard, insisting that their struggle was through their hard work alone, but to rise so high as our most recent Democratic presidents must have required special treatment. Therefore they gravitate to leaders from powerful families. It is much less unsettling and is more traditional, and those early advantages must—in their view—have given an educational and cultural jump start.

This is where words like “uppity” begin seeing use. It refers to those who won’t accept a low place in society, which would be the “natural” order of things, and the traditional thing to do. Leaders like Presidents Obama and Clinton have refused to accept the status quo, the Republican’s most sacred calling.

In fact, every Republican issue, every “War on ___” can be seen as a part of the desire to strengthen the status quo, to cement the winners and losers into fixed camps. The fluid nature of those camps, as demonstrated so starkly by President Obama (and even his recent “evolution” on marriage equality), has left conservatives both outraged and terrified that he will simply turn our current class structure upside down.