Post-Racial Politics
Apr 13th, 2008 at 3:41 pm by Susie
I’ll say what Brad Delong, Markos, Ezra Klein, Big Media Matt and the Guy who Kidnapped Josh Marshall (GKJM) will not: The people currently arguing about the alleged racism of Hillary voters are exactly the people who most materially benefit from the existence of white privilege in this nation. That means YOU, boyz. People who are in my socio-economic class (so I’m talking about ME here - I am not excluding myself from the ill-gotten gains) are those who are reaping the long term benefits of the wealth and power generated by centuries of white supremacy.
To my mind, the Obama campaign is unselfconciously, though quite deliberately, pushing an argument about a group of citizens that was never entirely true back in the 60s and 70s and long ago ceased to be true among the vast majority of Democrats. They really think of Democratic voters as two groups - an enlightened creative class and a retrograde working class - and place upon the head of the latter all the failures of the party since LBJ. It is not factually true, but it is the story they tell themselves about themselves and what allows them to so vigorously advance a claim about Democratic primary voters that is not supported by an examination of the voters themselves.
The economic success of the Clinton administration went a good way to removing the grounds for racial resentment by focusing on the economic conditions that creates unreasonable competition for social goods. To argue more could have been done is to ignore that advances did happen, and now the party has an opportunity to restructure economic conditions, cementing gains and advancing goals. We won’t get there by demonizing an opponent’s supporters as bitter, vengeful and stupid. Voters do vote their interests, but those interests arise from complex identities and contradictory lives. Interests are not monolithic. They can be nudged in better directions and cemented with legislation that obviously improves their lives.
The Democratic Party elite needs to get over their obsession with HillBillies and start concretely addressing the bread and butter concerns of all working class Americans.
So if middle and upper-middle class white males don’t support the wealthy, privileged white candidate over the black candidate who grew up with a fraction of the white candidate’s advantages, it means we’re bad-wrong hypocrites for benefiting from the white power structure (through no conscious fault of our own but solely through the nature of that pre-existing power structure) even as we support the non-white candidate.
Wow. Just … wow.
I am rapidly becoming convinced that there is such a thing as Clinton Derangement Syndrome. But I do not think it means what those who complain about it think it does.
the black candidate who grew up with a fraction of the white candidate’s advantages
Like going to an exclusive prep school and being the son of Ivy-educated parents and the grandson of white business owners and the stepson of an oil company executive? And being male?
Gosh, you’d think that Clinton had always had millions of dollars and had never been kept back because she was female. And you wouldn’t think that Obama lives in a mansion and has a wife who makes mid-six-figures.
Neither candidate can claim to be completely without privilege, and neither can claim to be the more disadvantaged as children. In fact, both have upbringings more privileged than their respective spouse’s.
so… apparently white wealthy people aren’t allowed to speak out against racism? Isn’t this the same trick the right pulled on John Edwards and class? This is really shameful, and at some point the author of this site really needs to spend some time in the black blogosphere and make these arguments there. It aint just folks like Ezra making these arguments, no matter how convenient it is to pretend that it is.
I am a 57 year old white woman with biracial children (now adults). Though I now earn an excellent living, I have known severe poverty in my life - I spent the 70’s and 80’s as a single working mother and learned to cook some wicked good stuff with surplus food. All of our clothes came from the Salvation Army for many years and a couple of times the ladies there insisted I take winter clothes for my boys without paying because I did not have bus fare to get home and planned to walk the 5 miles in the Maine late fall with a 5 year old and a 2 year old.
I am incredibly offended by the false hysteria being ginned up by Hillary. Obama was awkward in his language but he is absolutely correct in his thesis. The word cynical would have been better than bitter and the reference to churches and guns was too nuanced for the average person to understand. But I do not believe for a second that Hillary isn’t 100% aware and intentional in her nasty twisting of the meaning of his words.
Bill, Hillary and their surrogates have used dog-whistle politics to a degree and in a fashion that had made me both angry and ashamed because they allegedly represent MY political party.
Though I will still vote against John McCain in the fall no matter what, Hillary has crossed the line so horribly that I will work for and contribute to any reasonable primary challenger for her senate seat.
She has become the new Huckabee.
Memyself - you sound a bit like Obama’s mother (single mother with two kids).
I found it interesting Senator Obama’s mother was able to get a PHD even when she was a single mother with two kids and lacked steady work. I guess this country actually offers great opportunities to even average Americans but Senator Obama fails to see that even in his own family. That is what Hillary should be pointing out.
Clinton had every right to go after Obama and his statements are worse than anything she and Bill have said on the campaign trail which Obama surrogates have deemed to be “racist”. Someone should tell Obama and his supporters that stereotyping the vast majority of white Americans who are middle class, religious, and enjoy hunting with their family and friends is not the way you win elections and it is extremely offensive to the millions of Americans who do these things and are NOT racists. Just because someone votes for Clinton or McCain does not make them bigots. Get a clue. Just imagine if Clinton had said something similar about black people. What if she had said the reason why blacks vote for Obama is because they are bitter “typical” black people. Yea, that’s right, she would be forced to step down today.
Obama is an elitist and to me he is the next John Kerry but worse. He has given the GOP all the ammunition they need to swiftboat him in the general election. To me he is arrogant, aloof, and clueless about how to connect with the average white American voter. Anyone who can’t connect with middle America will never win an election.
Anyone who thinks that Hillary Clinton connects with middle America is out of their damn mind. I don’t object to Hillary’s comments about “bitter-gate” because they are racist, I object because they are asinine. Obama’s point isn’t that hunting is bad, as any literate person could attest. His point was that people who have been economically abandoned by both parties are much more likely to become single-issue voters who base their votes exclusively on fringe causes like the NRA and the Right to Life groups. And in response to that perfectly sensible observation, Hillary’s response is to stand up and tell some ludicrous story about her grandfather teaching her to shoot a shotgun out behind the family cottage.
Even if that story is completely true, most of the country won’t believe it because absolutely nothing Hillary Clinton has ever said or done prior to this point suggests that she has even the slightest bit of sympathy to the gun-owner’s rights movement.
I know Hillary supporters seem terribly invested in the idea that any criticism of her is rooted either in sexism or reverse-racism, but please try to at least consider the possibility of some other basis for rejecting her — like the fact that her entire campaign has been a disaster almost since Iowa. For months, she based her entire electoral strategy on a misguided belief in her own inevitability. She still relies on the counsel and advice of Mark Penn, a notorious union-buster and free-trader who has been uniformly wrong in every suggestion he has given during the campaign.
I will still vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination, and I hope everyone else here feels likewise. However, while John McCain winning in November is the nightmare scenario, the second worst thing I can imagine is Hillary Clinton winning in a squeeker, having won the nomination through superdelegates in a manner that enrages the African-American community and seriously damages that community’s historic alliance with the Democratic Party … and then she sticks Mark Penn in charge of the DNC, or worse, makes him WH Chief of Staff or something comparable, followed immediately with some sort of stupid NAFTA-like trade deal with Colombia and an announcement that she is delaying troop withdrawals from Iraq until “the commanders on the ground say its okay” or something equally Bushian.
My greatest fear about Obama is that he will be different that I expect him to be. My greatest fear about Hillary Clinton is that she will be exactly what I expect her to be.
This Anglachel person has already discredited herself (see responses to her previous writing recently posted here), and she does much the same in this entry, engaging in ridiculous stereotyping of people who support Obama, and misrepresenting what Obama said - ” demonizing an opponent’s supporters as bitter, vengeful and stupid” - say what??? Obama was doing nothing of the kind, and was attempting, clumslly no doubt, to speak with empathy for the situation in which many working people find themselves.
Suzie, you usually have good taste in linking to writing that’s interesting (even where it relates to Clinton, generally …), but this one’s a clunker.
Anyone who thinks that Hillary Clinton connects with middle America is out of their damn mind.
Funny, she’s won Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Texas, Arkansas, Massachusetts, et al. She’s about to open a can of whupass in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
BO sees the working class as some sort of exotic subset that he must placate and patronize until the votes are in. Very much like the Repuplicans do. I ‘m vey glad that Snobgate exposed Obama for the heartless elitist I believe him, now, to be.
“What’s the Matter with Kansas” is an imperfect analogy because it was about (I think) low income voters voting Republican, against their interests. The question put to Obama is why are Democratic voters in a Democratic primary choosing Hillary over him. And his answer was because we are white trash. Worse, it was preceded by a statement that the voters in question wouldn’t vote for him anyway because he’s black.
Everyone “got it” that it was about being single-issue voters. That doesn’t make Obama’s comments any less demeaning. It seems that it is inexplicable to Obama that anyone would choose his opponent except for the most insidious or stupid reasons. Heck, Samantha Powers called Hillary a “monster” because she was winning low income Democratic white votes. In Democratic contests.
If “it’s true” we’re nothing but white trash how are Democrats to win any elections? Or are we not white trash so long as we vote Obama? Anglachel is correct in her analysis that it’s all about class.
My greatest fear about Obama is that he doesn’t care about anything except power. Getting Tavis Smiley fired from his radio show because he refused to say the right things (if those are the facts) is the latest in a series of bad omens.
Gallup recently put a poll in the field out which it was extracted that two thirds of white Democratic voters with only a high school education favored Clinton, whereas an equal number of post-graduate Americans favored Obama. Gallup then dug up a recent poll in which 91% of high school diplomaed white Democrats said they would vote for a qualified black man for president. Obama’s handlers argue that the “uneducated” won’t vote for Obama because he’s black. But what if these voters assert they won’t support him because, in their mind, he’s unqualified? And why is it that the “uneducated” are determined to be “biased”? Perhaps it’s the post-graduates who have the problem, who see a JD from Harvard as an appropriate qualification for President. I mean, if it’s enough for Obama, shouldn’t also be enough for them? Aren’t they then good enough to be president?
Amelia writes, “The question put to Obama is why are Democratic voters in a Democratic primary choosing Hillary over him. And his answer was because we are white trash.”
That ain’t what he said, and I think y’all damn well know it. This is silly - let’s not pretend that this is about anything other than political maneuvering. Obama said something which can easily be misrepresented, and Clinton folks are using it to try to gain advantage in the upcoming primaries. Shocking that politicians would stoop to … politics, I know.
And Hillary has astutley jumped on the opportunity to down a few at the local pub. Must have been some scene there with all the cameramen and reporters - just a regular shot-and-a-beer gal, on a regular night out. Paaartyyy! Gosh, just like you ‘n me, down at the legion hall havin’ a brew! Well, except that we don’t surround ourselves with union busting turds like Mark Penn …
This thing is political ping pong, and that’s all it is.
Amelia writes, “The question put to Obama is why are Democratic voters in a Democratic primary choosing Hillary over him. And his answer was because we are white trash.”
This phrasing used to twist and intentionally misconstrue words is exactly kind of BS I experienced when my biracial sons became leaders to their white peers in a very, very white suburb of Boston in the 70’s and 80’s. The similarities are overwhelming and are approaching flash back levels.
The term “elite” as it is being applied to Obama has been used for many, many years as a dog whistle term to use in “polite” society when what you really you want to indicate is uppity n*gger.
The fact that a Republican would do this is not news. Clinton has decided that only Archie Bunker can save her failing candidacy so she has become a pathetic caricature of Huckabee with her whiskey slamming, swapping gun stories good ol boy pretenses. I expect to see her spitting chaw anytime now. It is not a coincidence that her be very afraid of the “elitist” black man tirade is done in conjunction with this charade.
Wendy’s creative writing offering: “I guess this country actually offers great opportunities to even average Americans but Senator Obama fails to see that even in his own family.” is a further display of pretending something about Obama that is a pure fantasy in order to make an entirely invalid point. Please point out ANY reference ANYWHERE that gives the slightest indication that Obama does not see and appreciate the opportunities to lift oneself up offered in America.
no one is arguing about the racism of certain segments of the white working class in places like PA and OH, what is being discussed is the absurdity of attacking a candidate for statements which are easily and demonstrably TRUE in yet another desperate attempt to change the arc of the election.
I like Theda Skocpol’s take–posted by Josh at TPM.
–careful! Theda Skocpol has that “elitist” grad school education and I think she likes goat cheese!!!
“I have been in meetings with the Clintons and their advisors where very clinical things were said in a very-detached tone about unwillingness of working class voters to trust government — and Bill Clinton — and about their unfortunate (from a Clinton perspective) proclivity to vote on life-style rather than economic issues. To see Hillary going absolutely over the top to smash Obama for making clearly more humanly sympathetic observations in this vein, is just amazing. Even more so to see her pretending to be a gun-toting non-elite. Give us a break!”
I live in very rural Maine in a town, population of around 1,000 of whom 99% are white. there are a grand total of 3 black residents according to the census. The nearist thing that passes for a metropolitan area for us is over a half hour drive. It has a population of 18,560 .
Hunting is much more than a sport for many families here. We have friends with 10 kids, and when they were all at home the family’s yearly take of 5 - 6 deer and a bunch of wild turkeys was pretty much their only source of meat for the year.
You want to know what has offended folks around here this primary season? Hillary’s misremebring snipper fire in Bosnia. At first it was mostly a source of much humor, but when she joked and made light of it on Leno, that stirred up vehement anger. Our native sons and daughters are dodging real bullets in Iraq and Clinton, who played Bush’s co-dependent to put them there, joking about sniper fire completely obliterated just ut any support she had in my neck of the woods.
The only comments I have heard about Obama’s take on bitterness and yes, even guns and religion, is several forceful cries of “damn straight” at the last meeting of the town selectmen, which was well attended because of issues around the schools.
The new talk at church and civic gatherings? How utterly fake everyone finds Clinton’s new persona. They just aren’t buying it.
The sad part is that until fairly recently she actually had a fairly strong following around here. She blew it big time.
memyself:
Obama is going around telling lower income Americans they can’t make it because the government is not provinding the tools to succeed. My point is his own mother made it and I assume there was some government help involved. That is my point lady- how about you did you get any govt help along the way to your very comfortable earnings today?
If you did it, why can’t everyone else? Have you ever considered that question?
And your point about elitists is so far off- it has never been used as a “dogwhistle” to describe blacks like Obama.
Dogwhistle has become a very commonly used word - see what political campaigns can do to the vernacular.
I didn’t appreciate that I’d be taken literally with the “white trash” characterization. I thought it would be obvious that that was my own characterization. I was never intending to assert that Obama himself used the phrase “white trash.”
Actually “What’s the Matter with Kansas” is not an analogy at all. The author of that book wondered why people voted cultural issues despite the fact that their (Republican) votes were against their own economic interests. Obama was saying people were voting cultural issues (by voting for a fellow Democrat) only when and only because they had become embittered poor–specifically because of poverty, not despite it. This is really idiotic, in that people vote guns and abortion when they are economically well off as well.
And it’s our assumption that Obama was talking about voting. He said nothing about voting. He said “clinging” to guns and God.
There’s another layer of irony in that Obama has gone after those “clinging” by pandering on guns and abortion. He must be bitter after this long Bataan death march, the only possible explanation being that the voters are stupid racists.
Obama’s statement is unfortunate for him as well in that in feeds into the sense that he doesn’t really care about anything he says he cares about, especially on the God part but also on the guns part. If none of this God stuff is for real, it’s only for embittered suckers, then what about his own assertions of his religious beliefs. And if none of the guns part, or the anti-trade stuff, is anything but the last refuge for suckers and the embittered poor, what of his own professed positions on these issues.
I think Amelia has it right- Obama stands for nothing except prhaps getting elected. Heck he is the first black Bill Clinton.
Wendy Whinner says “Obama is going around telling lower income Americans they can’t make it because the government is not provinding(sic) the tools to succeed. ”
Utter and complete bullshit. Obama is discussing the 3 decade long trend whereby the American worker is getting royally screwed by business, aided and abetted by the government - BOTH parties have contributed to the mess!
Try reading Krugman’s analysis of just this phenomena. He is pro Clinton through and through, but the article linked below says it all. It is real and Obama understands it. He has never said or even implied that lower income Americans can’t make it. That is a figment of your rather fertile imagination.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/introducing-this-blog/
Wendy - I am a 57 year old woman with biracial children. Your condescending lecture to me about what has and has not been used as a dog whistle phrase is totally inaccurate and highly offensive. Elitist is EXACTLY the term that was used by the local riff raff to describe my sons when they were elected to leadership roles in suburban Boston schools where they were almost the only black students. Their intelligence and popularity frightened the living shit out some of our town’s citizenry.
I am sorry that your fear or ignorance doesn’t allow you to understand, but this is 100% real. I have lived it.
Amelia, in the context of this discussion, how were we SUPPOSED to take your statement that, “The question put to Obama is why are Democratic voters in a Democratic primary choosing Hillary over him. And his answer was because we are white trash.”
I don’t think anyone was under the illusion that Obama actually used those words, nor that you were asserting such. It was pretty clear to me, and I imagine to all, that those words were YOUR characterization of what Obama said. And that’s what we were addressing and objecting to, your mischaracterization of what he said. Among other things. To quote myself:
“That ain’t what he said, and I think y’all damn well know it. [i.e. you’re intentionally misrepresenting it] This is silly - let’s not pretend that this is about anything other than political maneuvering.”
Memyself:
Let’s take you as an example. Thirty years ago you were a struggling worker? Today you are very prosperous (that is what you posted here). How did you an average worker avoid being screwed by big business, etc? Just asking because the anecdote is just that. Many many Americans have moved up to the upper income brackets by studying and working and being smart (i.eObama and his wife, the Clintons). They are not bitter are they? Are you bitter towards business, etc? If you are , why?
And many many Americans have dropped down from upper income to the lower income bracket- that is the way our country works.
What are you going on about Wendy? That doesn’t address what memyslf said … I’m guessing you didn’t read the Krugman link, which elucidates her point.
MacJazz, I agree none of this is about the end of the world to say the least but there is some substance beyond “political maneuvering.” The way I read it Obama was analytically (sp?) explaining why blue color workers are not voting for him, and his explanation excludes the possibility that perhaps they just like his opponent better. That can’t possibly be the case. So therefore they must be stupid. Or racist.
With respect to the people Obama was describing, others have used words like rube, redneck, ignorant–white trash is in the same ballpark. There’s a disconnect not just to the people he’s describing but also with respect to his own sense of himself. No humility. I have no idea how important this is. If he becomes President we shall find out.
You’re doing it again, putting word’s in Obama’s mouth, that people “must be stupid, or racist” if they don’t vote for him. Again, that ain’t what he said (i.e. that’s not a good summation of what he said). He describes a dynamic where people don’t always vote in their own interests, which is demonstrably true. I certainly know people like that, who work union jobs and vote Republican for example, and don’t appear to understand that the GOP in general embodies an anti- union agenda that seelks to undermine and/or outsource their very jobs. (The Democrats unfortunately have begun to drift more into that direction … even some prominent people in Hillary’s camp …^_^)
The fact that other people make similar misrepresentations about Obama’s statement (”others have used words like rube, redneck, ignorant–white trash is in the same ballpark”) is no validation of it. If others claim that Obama asserted in his staterment that the moon is made of green cheese , that doesn’t make it so.
I don’t think there is any substance to this, beyond political maneuvering. None that’s been demonstrated, and none that I’ve seen. This bruhaha is about jockeying for position in the Dem primary.l That’s ALL it is.
“The question put to Obama is why are Democratic voters in a Democratic primary choosing Hillary over him. And his answer was because we are white trash. Worse, it was preceded by a statement that the voters in question wouldn’t vote for him anyway because he’s black.”
Amelia is right–this is exactly how it came across. Tell me all you want that “what he really meant to say was”. . . this is how it comes across.
He seems to me the sort of poser who goes on and on all about their authenticity in living the hardworking farmer life here (on their farmette, subsizided by their trust fund and their spouse’s job) and neither have ever had dirt under their fingernails nor could think their way out of a paper bag. And the “creative class” term is another pose. Please! Having a cushy job or shopping at the health food store doesn’t make you creative, no matter how much you say it does. I could say I was Bill Gates . . .
If he believes his own press, that he is utterly amazing and will solve all our problems by his charisma, that’s pathological; if he is just saying anything to get elected, he is as full of BS as he sounds.
His petulance at anyone supporting Hillary is embarrassing, and his supporters’ need to believe they are mentally & culturally superior is just sad. I know many college educated folks supporting both Democratic candidates; the dividing line seems to be how strong the need is to be in posession of the newest, coolest, most status conferring things. The Clinton supporters I know are looking for a strong Democrat, not to date the captain of the football team.