Anglachel checks in:
In Salon yesterday, elite UC Berkeley professor Brad Delong engaged in egregious Hillary bashing and casually dismissed people who would not vote for Obama as racists. He does this without acknowledging the full cultural and class assumptions built into the assertion about white reluctance to vote for a black candidate, the kind that come welling up in all their ugliness in political cartoons where “white racists” are portrayed. They aren’t shown as nice Upper West Side yuppies. They are Bubbas and Bunkers. They are the people Obama identifies in his quote above and that his campaign sneered at after the loss in Ohio. What Obama shows with his gaffe (As Michael Kinsley famously said, a gaffe is when someone inadvertently tells an important truth) is his true perception of working class Americans - something utterly alien to himself.
The truth being told here is the way in which the “wine track” cadre of the Democratic party has no clue about working class America except for their own strange blend of bitter, bible-thumping rubes who just can’t grasp the big picture, the poor things, and keep voting against their own interests. Hey, I can tick off five people I personally know who more or less match that description, except that they aren’t thumping bibles and they aren’t bitter and they are leading pretty darn normal lives, but they keep voting Republican.
Obama’s statements today are paradigmatic of the wine-track attitude and are particularly shocking coming on the heels of his own plea that the nation not judge him harshly for his associations and pastimes, that he be allowed a complex identity that could encompass both his grandmother and his pastor. Fair enough, and an argument that elicits a certain sympathy from me on his personal behalf, though it fell far short of explaining why we should not question his political judgment based on the company he keeps. What he requires we do for him he refuses to do for others, preferring to dismiss an entire class of people in a high-handed manner. Graciously excusing them from racism and then turning around and denigrating their lives in an even more fundamental way is not going to win over a lot of hearts and minds, Barry.
From a political theory perspective, Obama offered a singularly sophomoric Marxist argument about the voters of Pennsylvania (and by extension the entire working class) as suffering from false consciousness.They are simply bitter about not having jobs and thus they are clinging to the markers of Bubba/Bunker-hood - God, guns, racism (oops, guess that slipped back in), xenophobia, and anti-economic growth (free trade). Gee, what would that look like if we drew a picture? Of course, they had a lot more jobs under Clinton than under any of the Republicans bracketing his administration, but let’s not let facts get in the way of a good myth. How does he know they suffer from false consciousness? They fail to vote for him. If they could just rise above their bitter and narrow particularity, then they would see the light and vote for The Precious.
No.
They have guns because they like shooting stuff. They hold to their religion because it provides them with something they value. I may be a secular humanist myself, but as the child of a very devout father, this dismissal of faith went down sideways with me. (It also makes me want to ask, so what the fuck keeps your skinny ass in the pew of your church, given how you characterize the faith of those who do not support you?) Their identities are every bit as complex as Obama’s, and as grounded in the dense fabric of their lives as what he claims for himself. It is not epiphenomena, something to be shed when the scales fall from their eyes and they understand their role in his march to greatness.
It feels weird to have to state that there is dignity and worth in a life of labor. These allegedly bitter, backwards people have no interest in leaving their way of life so they can join Obamacans at the Starbucks in some hip urban enclave. They need not apologize for the choices they’ve made in their lives, no matter how much people like Obama and Delong try to shame them into voting against their interests. The poor bitter rubes of Pennsylvania actually want universal health care, which you aren’t delivering. They want Social Security, which your adviser Goolsby wants to privatize. They want an orderly and honorable end to the Iraq occupation, which you are now waffling on. They want decent education for their kids, a relief from predatory lenders, some privacy, and an end to the assumption that they should be ashamed of themselves because they don’t aspire to be upper class.
In the end, what Obama’s blather today has done is expose the elite myth that working class America is deficient in some way. The elite of the right proclaims the deficiency is natural inferiority. The elite of the left proclaims the deficiency to be intellectual inferiority. Both scorn these people as Bunkers and Bubbas. What the left misses and what the right fears is that the Clinton appeal is based on respect for being from this class and of honoring those things in that way of life that deserve respect: dedication to family, unswerving loyalty to the nation, a work ethic, faith and a desire to do right by the people they love.
“These allegedly bitter, backwards people have no interest in leaving their way of life so they can join Obamacans at the Starbucks in some hip urban enclave. ”
Lordy, talk about stereotyping. And I notice the author of this piece still doesn’t get it about Rev Wright either, by the by.
I work with and hang out with working class people … bowlers, Elks club members, Amrican Legion members, yes, even NASCAR fans … heck I basically am a working class person jobwise, except that it’s not the background I come from, so like most Americans I’m a mixed bag. I’m not offended by Obama’s statements, and I think what he said is both true AND a very incomplete picture, and in that sense not true. But as with Rev Wright, I guess there are certain things which aren’t acceptable to say, true or not.
What Macjazz said.
This (and the hypocritical responses from Clinton and McCain) will be the reason I vote for Obama.
Obama sunk himself with his own words to an elite group where he dumbly thought he was out of the internet’s earshot. But to claim Hillary Clinton views herself as one of us (the ordinary, gun and God loving white middle class) is too too funny. She went to Wellesley and Yale for Christ sakes and has never once looked back in fondness! Until now when she needs us to beat The Golden Boy, Obama.
Who IS listening to Rush Limbaugh, anyways?
Lmao, rich Hillary supporters willfully misinterpreting Obama’s remarks aren’t going to mean squat to most Americans.
We are angry, we are bitter, and we sure as hell don’t trust the promises of the Clinton’s or the Bush’s when it comes to trade or economics. You can pretend it isn’t true, but then you’re stunned that Hillary hasn’t won this thing. What do you really know about politics? These people have lied through their teeth to us for years, and Obama at least understands why we don’t just automatically back Democrats. It’s because they aren’t REALLY the party of the lower class, they just pretend to be during election time.
oh please, such blather, and all in support of the rich white former first lady senator?
everything obama said was true, and concise analysis.
I especially loved the portion about the bankruptcy bill–that clinton voted for!
people are truly getting desperate when they are ready to claim that people aren’t bitter and pissed off.
there was no pandering and no condescension, just a clear statement of facts, the likes of which haven’t come from a politician ready to take the white house in my lifetime.
I haven’t seen Senator Clinton declare herself “one of us.” Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Doesn’t matter to me.
What she does do is see “us.”
Steveeboy ; The comment was directed at rich folks, describing us poor gun-toting back-country types. Nobody said people aren’t bitter and angry. But us dumb back-country folks are able to see the big picture, and some of us don’t agree with you.
not too many poor dumb gun toting back country types in PA or Ohio friend.
that’s a straw man of your own invention.
nothing of the sort was said or implied, that’s a figment of your own desperation.
Yes but wasn’t the question put to Obama, to which he answered with his anthropoligical description of an exotic breed of zoo animal, why are Democratic voters in a Democratic primary voting for Hillary Clinton and not you? (although the question had far fewer words). Obama wasn’t answering why are the rubes so stupid to vote against their interests by voting Republican, Obama was saying that people are voting Hillary because they are stupid gun toting bible beating bigots. Similar to what Samantha Powers said (in explaining why Hillary was a “monster”–explaining that she was fooling stupid people into voting for her). As a Hillary supporter I find that remarkably offensive.
Not to mention that working class white people are like people in general - a little more complicated than all that. I’m also offended on behalf of the working class people I’ve known, of all colors.
Huh, further down Susie said this was a “manufactured controversy” (which is true), yet now she appears to be supporting the McCain-Clinton line that Obama’s statement shows that he is an “out of touch, elitist librul,” as per all of the Republican propaganda we have been subjected to lo these last seven years.
Susie, I like your site, but Hillary is a conscienceless hack. She will never get the nomination, and Democrats across the country, including me, are totally disgusted with her and Bill for the sleazy campaign they have run. I wouldn’t vote for her for dogcatcher.
What utter bullshit.
What Obama said was perfectly true, and not in the least elitist or condescending, no matter how desperately Obama-bashers, Hillary-supporters, and FOX News acolytes want to twist his words (shades of the bullshit “gotcha politics” that lead to the “Al Gore Claimed He Invented the Internet” lie as well).
What he said was nothing new. Nothing different than what Howard Dean said in 2004, or what was published in the book “The Trouble with Kansas”.
Obama has proven himself to be far more in touch with the actual voters and people and working class than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain… and both of those two have proven themsevles to be shameless spinning opportunists. Just pathetic. And loathesome.
This is why I support Obama. I prefer truth over bullshit politics as usual, and cannot stand the disgusting and desperate and arrogant and incompetent campaign Hillary has been running.
Obama’s response is great. Hillary’s attack is nothing short of shameful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6_mQ3h8lx0
What I find hilarious about this entire teapot tempest is hearing Washington insiders on TV analyzing the thoughts and beliefs of small-town and rural Americans, as if they knew ANYTHING about the topic. Obama tells it like it is. He may on rare occasions phrase it inelegantly, and when he does, the attack dogs are there to pounce. For Hillary to label him elitist is absurd, she of the $109 million income and leafy NY suburban home.