Fear of a Black President
Maureen Dowd touches upon a paradox. On the one hand, a lot of anti-Obama anxiety seems driven by race. But on the other hand, a lot of the hysteria seems eerily normal: “Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.”
I think the crux of the matter is that since 1928 or so, the Democratic Party has typically presented itself in national politics as representing a coalition of “outsider” groups—Catholics & Jews back in the day, nonwhites and seculars more recently. The actual identity of the leader of the coalition matters, but only at the margin. It could be a patrician from upstate New York or a war hero from South Dakota or a cracker from Arkansas at the top of the ticket, but fundamentally no matter who’s in charge the election of a Democrat represents the mainstream’s loss of power to the outsiders. Clinton’s win, notwithstanding Ricky Ray Rector and all the rest, still represented the triumph of the “cares what black people think” political coalition and thus enhanced power for black political machines. Thus the reaction to an actual black president is different, but not all that different, from what you saw previously.
111 Responses to “Fear of a Black President”
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September 14th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
It is different, and distinctly so– and I think this explains the escalation in vitriol.
The right wing, with their decades of carefully cultivated grievances and persecution complexes has finally become an outsider group itself.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Re “the election of a Democrat represents the mainstream’s loss of power to the outsiders”
———-
Er… I tend to think of Democrats as representing the mainstream.
The owners of the Republicans are the ultimate outsiders–by choice and outlook. A small, privileged elite.
They think they should get most of this country’s wealth — and owe not a single fucking thing in return to the broad mass of citizens who sweat to create this country’s wealth and who die in this country’s wars.
They have no loyalty to their grassroots — who they think are mere herds of cattle to be stampeded with one emotional firecracker after another.
Their politics is simple: Divide and Conquer
They could be fucking Martians for all we know. Martian Vampires.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Who you callin’ “CRACKER,” CRACKER!
September 14th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Rainbow Coalition > Magic Pony Brigade
September 14th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
or a cracker from Arkansas
==================================================
I mean really
September 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Thus the reaction to an actual black president is different, but not all that different, from what you saw previously.
Yeah, but different enough. The difference may be marginal but it is not nominal.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Maybe this is just another way of saying the same thing, but I think that “scary black people” was and is an important term in the social contract between the various groups that comprise the Republican coalition. The election of any Democratic President is a rejection of that term by a majority in the country, but the election of an African-American President is a much deeper rejection of the same. Note that you don’t have to be worried about actual scary black people to get really worried when a major term in the social contract gets changed. (This is actually an argument that’s explicitly made by some parts of the Right about gay marriage.) The language stays the same for any Democratic President because the language is being use to the same end: to remind people of the important term. (Shades of Atwater.) The hysteria increases only because the value of that term is being challenged more deeply.
And all of this is, in some way, tied to the fact that the Democrats represent outsider groups and the legitimacy of their claim to “American-ness” must be challenged. That is, I’m not sure it’s the mainstream that loses so much as a pretty specific and large voting bloc.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
ITMS (it’s the money stupid).
The oligarchy loves ethnic and culture wars. They distract the rabble’s attention while their pockets are picked.
Just as plantation owners used the sharecroppers’ fear of slaves, the oligarchs use culture wars. That is why Glenn Beck has a TV program and a Huey Long type doesn’t.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
it’s a significantly worse version of the same old bad.
and part of the problem is that the media, as well as the d.c. establishment (duncan’s “villagers”), have come to believe that the white house belongs, by rights, to the republican party.
the village is okay with the house swinging dem or rep. the senate can be majority d or majority r–the village can cope with that too.
but only a republican can be a legitimate president. no democrat ever can. all of the trappings of the imperial executive–the “commander in chief” racket, the adulation of the president’s person and persona–all of those are only deserved by republican presidents.
when the village does this, its primary motive is not racist. its primary motive is just establishment conservativism. they are the courtiers. they want to select their own king.
on the other hand, when the commoners do it from transparently racist motives, the villagers don’t mind that, either. racism is slightly declasse, slightly distasteful, of course. but nothing like the appalling bad taste, the affront to nature, of a democratic president.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Republican Democrat
a dichotomous plutonomy … not a dimes worth of difference between either party other the propaganda spewn by the mainstream media they own. Both are populated with corporate criminal who use a revolving door to private sector pay-offs. WAKE UP PEOPLE!
Its no longer our government. Its the two party one faced system designed and defined by Fredirich Hegel two centuries ago to push an agenda… THE SAME AGENDA.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Re John Birch Society
Actually, the founder of the John Birch Society, one Robert Welch, stated that Dwight David Eisenhower was a conscious Communist conspirator while John Fitzgerald Kennedy was an unconscious dupe of the International Communist Conspiracy. It would appear that he disliked Eisenhower more then he disliked Kennedy.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
If hunting anyone not white, straight, Christian and English speaking was legal there would be 50 million people in the country down at the bait store buying their permit and picking up their tags.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
And Matthew’s little dialogue conveniently overlooks the fact that it was the Democratic Leadership who cut the nuts off of Jesse Jackson’s Presidential bid in the Primary –not the Republicans in the General.
They had to send in Armor to quell the Rainbow insurgency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dukakis#Public_relations_failure:_The_.22Tank.2FHelmet.22_disaster
September 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
If opposition to a black President mostly looks like previous opposition to white Presidents, that only proves that this previous opposition was also motivated by racial prejudice, not by policy disagreements, right?
September 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Has Matty already forgotten the crazed Lefties and their attacks on Bushit?
And of course the Right came right back with their charges of “hater”.
We’ve only changed the wedding singer not the song.
But you gotta hand it to Dowd… in her desperation to find evidence for her charge of racism she was forced to resort to auditory hallucination.
Some people get locked up for that sort of thing.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
that only proves that this previous opposition was also motivated by racial prejudice, not by policy disagreements, right?
It’s actually the language used to oppose Democrats that proves it. “We hate black people!” is pretty good evidence that, well, a non-trivial part of the Republican party is distinctly uncomfortable with African-Americans, even if the Republicans are shouting it only at white Democratic politicians.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
“a cracker from alabama”
“a nigger from chicago”
September 14th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
The oligarchy loves ethnic and culture wars.
Yes, it certainly does. Both the wingnut and liberal halves of it, and it’s hard to tell which half loves it more.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
«representing a coalition of “outsider” groups—Catholics & Jews back in the day»
You are putting that in terms of religion, I prefer to describe it ethnically and in class terms. Democrats used to represent irish, italian and jewish ethnic immigrants, who were marginalized as an underclass or at best a lower working class; the irish and italians were catholic, but the key to their banding together was their common interests, not their common faith.
The democrats also represented a bunch of northern europeans mostly in the Great Lakes area, who were mostly protestant (lutherans I think), and for the same reasons, even if in theory they were nearer to the more established anglo elites. Also those northern europeans were more communitarian and socialist oriented than the irish or italian or jewish components of the coalition.
And the italian, irish or jewish components seemed to have no problems allying with the sourthern protestant racists, as the northen Yankees were also their enemies.
Then in recent times the jewish, italian and irish components have become petty bourgeoisie, small landlords and rentiers, and they have largely abandoned the progressive movement (by following their southern racist allies into the conservative movement) as they now feel more threatened by the underclass and the working class than by the northern Yankee bosses. The northern europeans component seems to be more ideological and seems to have remained progressive.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Oh yeah—criticism of Bush was straight out of left field, huh?
September 14th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
We will give some representation to the niggers and the Jews but we don’t want the Irish.
Govenor William J. Le Petomane
Democratic Convention, 1956
September 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Conservatives care more about and get more angry about the small amount of minority-on-majority racism (ex. black on white) than the more prevalent majority-on-minority racism. Why is that?
September 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
“The oligarchy loves ethnic and culture wars.”
And why wouldn’t they? Stuff like gay marriage, abortion, etc. is just bait to get the sheeple riled up and faked into believing there are real differences between the “2 parties”. In the meantime on issues of importance to the elites (= $$$ and power) both of them cram it up our asses.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
nope, no racism here. not a bit
September 14th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Eight years of foaming, deranged, unhinged, “bushhitler” left-liberal insanity? Naah, never happened. See no evil (on the left), hear no evil, and absolutely, definitely keep your trap shut about it … Little Mattie and the Ministry of Truth have airbrushed it all away. There now little ones, doesn’t that feel much better?
September 14th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
What is “histroy?”
September 14th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I’d just like to note, for any conservatives who might be reading this, that eliminationist racism, ideological white supremacy, and sympathies for the Ku Klux Klan appear nowhere in Matt’s argument.
I bring this up, because I often see conservatives argue that race and racism cannot possibly account for anything that happens in politics, unless there is explicit support for the violent subordination of the black race.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
FDR was loved by both blacks and crackers, Jews, Catholics and Baptists – at least all the poor ones.
That’s because he mounted a class war. His 1936 acceptance speech was a beauty – “And I welcome their hatred”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9yoZHs6PsU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRZUaW0HwCM
September 14th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
You forget that southerners made up a large component of that ‘outsider’ group until the 1960s. Perhaps a way of thinking about it is that the southern wingnuts used to be Democrats and the northern ones used to be Republicans, but they’ve become increasingly merged in one party, leading to a blending, refinement, and concentration — not to mention taste and drinkability — you will find in no other party at any price.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I remember being called “unhinged” for doubting the presence of WMDs in Iraq. I remember being described as “foaming” for predicting that Iraqis would take up arms against our occupation. I remember being called “deranged” for writing that Bush and Cheney had motives other than concern about Saddam passing WMDs to bin Laden behind their desire to invade Iraq. I remember being accused of all three for writing that the administration was ordering torture and wiretapping without a court order.
So I’m really not terribly impressed by the above argument. Yeah, those crazy, unhinged lefties. Remember when they thought George W. Bush was a bad president? Bunch loons.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
That’s because he mounted a class war.
Well, that and he was willing to sell out black people for the crackers’ votes and still African-Americans weren’t in a position to do any better.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Didn’t the Clinton fellow put like more black men in jail than practically anyone before that?
(That may be true Linus but he talked nice to them so it’s different.)
No doubt.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Granted, I didn’t pay attention to politics nearly as closely back in 2001, but I don’t seem to remember any hatred towards Bush anywhere near the levels that’s being spewed at Obama after what…8 months of his presidency? Granted, the left didn’t like him one bit, and I’m sure there was plenty of criticism…but there were no marches on DC, no talk of secession, no comparisons to Hitler…as far as I can remember.
The strong dislike (in some corners, yes, hate), came later….after the war of aggression in Iraq, warrantless wiretapping, Katrina, torture, politization of Justice, Homeland Security, etc, etc. Sure some of the reactions may have been over-the-top in retrospect, but at least they were justified by actual events taking place at the time.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Then in recent times the jewish, italian and irish components have become petty bourgeoisie, small landlords and rentiers, and they have largely abandoned the progressive movement
Hmm. What you see in Chris Matthews is indicative of how middle-aged “white ethnic” men are no longer political outsiders, but still have a chip on their shoulder about how JFK’s Catholicism was considered beyond the pale for the presidency. So you have a dash of social conservatism, but also a bunker mentality towards those long-standing bastions of white ethnic male solidarity, as seen in Tweety’s take on the New Haven firefighters.
What you see in Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, is the transformation of “white ethnic” politics into isolationist xenophobe ladder-pulling, sprinkled with a Hitler crush.
Jews? Not quite so much.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Wow, I guess you know black people’s interest much better than they do, linus.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Granted, I didn’t pay attention to politics nearly as closely back in 2001, but I don’t seem to remember any hatred towards Bush anywhere near the levels that’s being spewed at Obama after what…8 months of his presidency?
It wasn’t as nutty, but Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and pulled out a weird win in his brother’s state via the SCOTUS. There was something to be pissy about other than just losing.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Cracker is not the same as the N word. Not even close. But people are correct to object to Matt’s use of the term. Crackers lived in Florida and Georgia. I’ve never before heard of an Arkansas Cracker.
The term “cracker” is widely used to describe a whole slough of historic remnants here in Florida. I myself live in a house that is an excellent example of vernacular Cracker architecture. There are cracker cattle, cracker horses. There’s a historic Cracker settlement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker
September 14th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
but there were no marches on DC, no talk of secession, no comparisons to Hitler
Our base isn’t built from Southern conservatives, who have views that are radically different than ours about secession and Hitler.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Quote of the day (from Jonathan Martin, ‘Democrats see race factor for Barack Obama foes’) :
Luckily, we didn’t have this problem at any point in the eight years previous to the administration.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
This strikes me as perilously close to how the GOP would frame this as election time. “We grow good people in our small towns – remember?”. The Democrats don’t “present” themselves as outside the mainstream by any reasonable measure. If they did, they would never win an election. It would probably be better to see them as, in some sense, modernizing technocrats with liberal tendencies, confronting a primitive and often atavistic conservatism, with a strong religious component, that wants to believe that it is the mainstream. Neither picture tells the whole truth, but it’s a lot closer than this nonsense about the mainstream. I generally like your work, Matt, but this is a post that needs some serious rethinking and qualifying. Do you really want to sound like Sarah Palin and her ghostwriter after remedial English and Gov 101?
September 14th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Post 2000 election Bush was pretty far down the list of people to hate. My rankings would have been: Nader voters, VP Gore/his campaign, Katherine Harris, Rove, old people in Palm Beach, W. Bush.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Luckily, we didn’t have this problem at any point in the eight years previous to the administration.
Well, she can’t really say what’s really worrying her. She’s from the South herself. She can’t really say, “It’s not like they never committed treason or shot a President before.”
September 14th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Well, that and he was willing to sell out black people for the crackers’ votes and still African-Americans weren’t in a position to do any better.
This is not true. Blacks advanced along with other disadvantaged. The masses of blacks who paid their respects at FDR’s funeral train attest to that.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
It is indeed a shame that Bush was installed in the Presidency in an illegitimate manner. It’s bad for our country to have a large body of people considering the president illegitimate. That’s just one of the many reasons not to install presidents in an illegitimate manner.
But this really has nothing to do with the mass of people – I wouldn’t call them large, necessarily, but still a mass – who consider Barack Obama an illegitimate president merely because of his race and party.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
It wasn’t as nutty, but Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and pulled out a weird win in his brother’s state via the SCOTUS. There was something to be pissy about other than just losing.
Yeah there was that. Clearly much more actual reason for grievance that whatever the GOP base can come up with (stimulus, healthcare reform, birth certificate…oh noes!!).
What annoys me, is that Obama supporters have to now spend their energies refuting ridicilous charges from the other side instead of keeping their own guy honest. I’d rather not act like the GOP circa 2005, in full circle the wagons mode. I’d like to call out our guy, when he does something I disagree with, instead one gets the feeling the next 4 years will involve stating the obvious like: dude was born in Hawaii ok? No, there is no such thing as a death panel, etc….
And if you don’t think race has anything to do with it…come on. Talk to your parents, seriously drill down a little….it’ll clarify things, somewhat.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
An uppity nigger who puts on airs and walks around like he’s the King of Zamboni? Oh, they don’t like that, no, Sir, not one bit. Listen to Rush froth at the mouth, these dumb-ass town hall harpies twirling their FREEDUMB signs, Hannity and Hugh Hewitt at pains to show what a rhesus monkey in a pin-striped suit we’ve got in the White House. It’s a lot worse than with any ol’ Democrat. These are the people who vomit at the sight of a white girl with a coon, a darkie strutting his stuff and acting like he’s just as good, no better! than a fine, regular fella like Joe Wilson. However they dress it up – this is the atavistic ugliness of yore
September 14th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Blacks advanced along with other disadvantaged.
Yeah, because their lives well and truly sucked, they sucked more during the Great Depression, so any amelioration helped them a great deal, and they weren’t in a position to get a better deal. See here: “The widely shared consensus during the 1930s that economic recovery was the priority had enabled FDR to sidestep civil rights issues without losing African-American voters’ support.” (My emphasis.)
I’m not arguing that FDR was a bad guy. But focusing in on class didn’t magic away the inequities that fell on African-Americans.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
“Wow, I guess you know black people’s interest much better than they do, linus.”
Would it be in your interest to be in jail?
September 14th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Would it be in my interest to support people who hate me, oppose every policy that could make my life better, treat me with open contempt AND put too many people in jail, over the people who invite me to play a leading role in their movement, advocate the policies that help my community, treat me with respect AND also put too many people in jail?
September 14th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Like I said, I guess you just know better than black people which party best represents their interests.
Maybe you could explain it to them. I hear they like rap.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I’m not arguing that FDR was a bad guy. But focusing in on class didn’t magic away the inequities that fell on African-Americans.
But my point is exactly the opposite. By focusing on class, FDR got better conditions for the vast majority, including blacks. Crackers and urban whites were suffering too. FDR got southern democrat committee chairman to vote with him by focusing on economic conditions, not race or culture.
Furthermore, Eleanor Roosevelt was probably the leading activist for civil rights of the time. And blacks voted overwhelmingly for FDR in ‘40 and ‘44. FDR created the black loyalty to the democratic party.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I’m not arguing that FDR was a bad guy. But focusing in on class didn’t magic away the inequities that fell on African-Americans.
It didn’t, perhaps because he didn’t finish his program; his Economic Bill of Rights, for example, never materialized. I believe racial stereotypes are based exclusively on the class-race pattern. If tomorrow, by some magic, dark-skinned people become 10 times richer than the average citizen, the stereotypes will change quickly.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I shouldn’t blow you off entirely, linus. The Democrats are indeed horrible on the Drug War. I’d argue that they are marginally better than the Republicans, but they both still suck. It’s very frustrating to me.
But pointing out an issue on which the Democrats are, at worst, merely “no better” than the Republicans, and ignoring the fact that there are many, many issues where the Democrats are much better for black people than the Republicans, and none where the Republicans are better than the Democrats, isn’t an argument against the notion that Democrats are more attuned to the interests of, and more concerned about the well-being of, African Americans.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
They call Obama a facist, socialst or nazi because they can’t call him what they really want to call him.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
“The owners of the Republicans are the ultimate outsiders–by choice and outlook. A small, privileged elite.”
The stereotypical college educated white male straight married protestant with x children (i got no good idear how many children were considered desirable say 40 years ago, that seems to have shifted to lower numbers recently) was always a small minority of the population, but he did and to some extend still does represent the bigest high social status group. High social status trumps numbers to a large extend. So in that sense Republicans represent the ultimate in group.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
“Like I said, I guess you just know better than black people which party best represents their interests.”
I don’t think that viewing the past or even maybe the present through a partisan lens is the most illuminating way of looking at things, even if partisanship has some practical value.
I think that people should hold politicians to a higher standard. I guess I think that people in general – including politicians – should hold themselves to a higher standard. But I think that politicians like other people with power over lots of people have a special responsibility to hold themselves and to be held to a higher standard.
I agree with Robert D Kaplan about this: I think we’re likely to be remembered more for our prisons than almost anything else. Historical analogies are often overly-simplistic but it’s kind of like the way we remember Rome for its penal system.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Re Joe at 35: “Wow, I guess you know black people’s interest much better than they do, linus. ”
———-
Well, linus is here. A lot of black people — and many poor people of other races and ethic groups as well — can’t join us and give us their views because they are in prison.
And it’s kinda hilarious to argue that those people should vote Democratic when large numbers of them have LOST their right to vote because of Clinton’s Drug War.
A war which kinda also took care of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition challenge to the Democratic oligarchy , come to think of it.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
As usual, Matt’s thinking about race is always stuck generations into the the past. He doesn’t want to think about the future.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Don, I think you are missing the point. It’s not that black people “should” vote Democratic. It’s that it would be insane for them to vote Republican – given that you have all the abuses of the Democrats plus racism and class warfare that disproportionally affects them.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I immigrated to USA in 1970 and became a citizen in 1985.
From my vantage point, it is insane for any non-white to vote for the GOP. I have seen and heard enough to come to the conclusion that being anti-minority is one of the core positions of the GOP, obviously in practice and not in any official sense. So if any member of a minority votes for the GOP, ultimately he is voting against his or her self interest.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
When have the Democrats run a war hero from South Dakota?
September 14th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Fox, Limbaugh and the others can sell their racism, hysteria and lies with the strong support of their corporate sponsors, but we should know by now that a seller doesn’t necessarily bring buyers to the market.
So I think it is important that we take a step back to look as best we can for the root causes of reaction. ‘bm’ may be full of it, but he has a point. There is a similar kind of reaction on the left sometimes. In recent days, I’ve heard some elderly progressives spew despairing venom on Max Baucus and his contributors.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Somewhere Bob Somerby’s head is exploding…
September 14th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
The left and it’s collective amnesia.
Bill Clinton had it far worse than Obama. By comparison, Obama has it about as bad as Bush. Bill Clinton by contrast was trashed by both the right and the left. Ralph Nader was touring the country giving anti-Clinton speeches. The press was unusually hostile – USA Today going so far as to fire a reporter they thought was too ‘Clinton friendly’, while carrying any anti Clinton screed, putting it on their front page and calling it ‘News Analysis.’ Remember that completely fabricated haircut story?
As for Obama being black, it actually helps blunt opposition and criticism. When protesters show up with blatantly racist signs, it tags the whole protest as a collection of backwards trailer trash. Not so with Clinton haters. This country is nowhere near as racist as the leftists in the comments above would like it to be.
And one more thing – what’s with the continuing sympathy for Ricky Ray Rector? The guy was a cop-killing scumbag. If you’re opposed to the death penalty, so be it. But stop using that piece of garbage as a martyr. The only reason he was ‘mentally unfit’ at the time of execution is because he tried to kill himself and failed – after he murdered that cop. Leftist sympathy for human garbage on death row doesn’t help their cause.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Dear Matt:
You know how you could defuse white people’s suspicions that Obama is motivated by his race to use his power to take from them and give to blacks? Since you’ve read “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (which you mentioned in your only blog item on it that it was “well-written”), you could go through the book page by page and quote chapter and verse for us about how Obama doesn’t see his life as a story of race and inheritance!
You should get working on that project right now. After all, the book is 460 pages long, so there must be a lot of reassuring material in it!
September 14th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
“When have the Democrats run a war hero from South Dakota?”
George McGovern.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
This is amusing for a simple reason: it ignores the equivalent frothing that comes from the left whenever a Republican is in the office. Reagan was going to start WWIII, the elder Bush was going to send grandma onto an ice floe, and W was going to abrogate the constitution and become president for life with Cheney as his svengali. Read up on the archives of Daily Kos from 2007/2008 to see just how whacked out the left got – they ended up as far “out there” as the “birthers” are now.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
N, tell us how many people showed up at Bush events with assault rifles? Also, you show yourself to be, at the very least, an uncareful reader when you suggest that the commenters here want the nation to be racist. Odd, because we actually have a stone racist commenting here (he’s not worth mentioning by name).
September 14th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
When it comes to voting, it is. When you’re choices are the Republicans in control, or the Democrats in control, it really is a binary choice between parties.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
James, you fucking moron, Bush came into office on the say so of five hacks in black robes. He ran the economy into the ground and started an unprovoked war against the Iraqi people.
Reagan armed terrorists on two continents. The elder Bush colluded with Reagan in arming terrorists.
The Republicans have a track record, and it isn’t pretty.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
There were anti-Reagan, Bush, and Bush marches in Washington eight months into their terms? By people calling them Nazis?
Why, no, there weren’t. You, yourself, have to jump forward to the end of Bush’s term, when we had the Iraq War debacle, the mortgage meltdown debacle, torture, the Plame affair, yadda yadda yadda behind us, to find something even remotely equivalent.
These teabaggers have been holding protests like this against Obama within weeks of his taking office, before he had even done anything. They took one look at him, and hated him as much as anti-war liberals hated Bush after Abu Ghraib.
That’s nuts. And it’s unique.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
There’s a general lack of civility on both the left and right. Bush (whom I despised) took his share of personal attacks and being accused of staging the 9-11 attacks is pretty damn low on the civility meter.
Also, I think the left has a tendency to reach for the ‘racism’ charge a little too quick. Some of it’s justified, much of it is not. And for the record, the guy at that protest with a gun was black and as the cops standing a few feet away at the time said, ‘he’s not breaking any laws.’
That said, Clinton faced more unfair hostility than any president I’m aware of and far more than Obama. The Whitewater ’scandal’ was a scandal of bad journalism, the rape allegation wouldn’t pass the laugh test in court and the Starr Report is the single dumbest thing to cost forty million dollars in world history. All to tarnish a president who did far more to improve the lives of liberal blacks and conservative whites than any president before or since.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
1) Nowhere near this amount of vitriol from the “left.” Even Fox fucking News had to admit that the 2004 RNC protests were calm and orderly. The *millions* of people marching in protest in March 2003 were just completely ignored except for a few brief mentions of Code Pink or, better still, “black-masked anarchists,” who totaled about 20 people among over 500k, in NYC at least.
2) As joe @30 notes, people were protesting actual sources of legitimate grievances, including fraud and abuse of power by the Bush Admin that led to a costly and murderous military enterprise, illegal wiretapping, torture, and innumerable other scandals. None of the frothing about Obama (with the exception of the “porkulus” canard) is even based on anything close to reality.
In short, the lefties were overall substantially calmer, AND THEY WERE CORRECT. That’s why this false equivalency crap is just that.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
It is indeed. On the other hand, ordinary Democratic voters didn’t make that accusation, and respectable liberal media outlets didn’t cover it.
Saturday’s march was small, but it was a damn sight larger than any Troofer march was under Bush.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I don’t think that Father Coughlin is at all representative of the conservative opposition to Roosevelt (and Coughlin was certainly not anti-Catholic, nor was Joe McCarthy); the main opposition to Roosevelt came from Mad Men types (in the show it’s assumed that all executives at a WASP advertising agency like Sterling-Cooper were Republican; I wonder if it was really so extreme).
Then in recent times the jewish, italian and irish components have become petty bourgeoisie, small landlords and rentiers, and they have largely abandoned the progressive movement
I find your description highly inaccurate. For one thing one ought not conflate the three – Irish were the mainstay of the Democratic party in the Northeast in the earlier part 20th century, Jews and Italians joined the Democratic coalition only with Al Smith and Roosevelt. While one can’t make the claim that Italians or Irish were particularly Progressive, the Jews were quite considerably more left-wing, exhibiting far greater support for far-left candidates like Eugene Debs or Henry Wallace than the rest of the American public.
To this day, Jewish support for the Democrats is extremely high, higher than Asians or Hispanics. I would imagine that Irish and Italians tend to vote Democrat at a higher percentage than White Protestants, even non-Southern White Protestants (though I don’t have any figures to back this up).
September 14th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
In short, the lefties were overall substantially calmer
Well, if they were, that’s their problem right there. The virtue of civility is highly exaggerated. You don’t achieve anything with civility and non-violence; the authorities just ignore you.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
#71: There’s one huge difference between the 80’s and the early 90’s (and even the time when Clinton was in office):
The internet
Bush’s term in office was really the first time that most Americans had “always on” net access, and the first time that mobile phone technology really spread completely in the US. Flash mobs and large scale organizing were much, much harder before; it’s easier now, pretty much without regard to what kind of axe you have to grind.
It was way easier for the left to create large antiwar marches because of better communications technology, and it’s much easier for the right to create large anti-Obama demonstrations for the same reason.
This is – for good or ill – the new normal. Each new President is going to face organized resistance to their policies of a sort that was not easily directed until the last decade or so.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Also, I think the left has a tendency to reach for the ‘racism’ charge a little too quick.
While the right tends not to see it at all. I know whose side I want to be on. I know whose side history has been on.
That said, Clinton faced more unfair hostility than any president I’m aware of and far more than Obama.
Are you kidding me? Maybe I’m forgetting something, but I certainly don’t remember a march in DC against him. You’re comparing an eight year period to eight months. Jeebus.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Bush wins White House, Democrats think about moving to Canada
Obama wins White House, Republicans think about seceding
Only one is traitorous
September 14th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Bush didn’t win the White House. Individuals expatriating doesn’t compare to states leaving the union.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
SCMT
“Who Killed Vince Foster” started days after his death, six months into Clinton’s first term.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Hmm, looks like there’s someone other than me who’s started posting using the initial “N” as a name – confusing. I probably should have picked a distinctive name; I guess I’ll switch to something else.
Anyway, on topic I think it’s very clear that Obama’s race has had a major intensifying impact on the level of anger and paranoia present in the opposition.
And while there was certainly some “uncivil” weirdness emanating from the left of the far left during the Bush administration, the genuine crackpots were far fewer in number, and were far less proximate to the supposed mainstream of a major political party. There’s no real comparison.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
“Who Killed Vince Foster” started days after his death, six months into Clinton’s first term.
I see your “Vince Foster” and raise you “death camps” with associated Hitler imaging.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Before the election Obama was a Muslim terrorist. Who can forget the charming “kill him” at the Palin rally?
September 14th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I think the some of the idiot conservatrolls have a point. They went absolutely loony when Clinton was President and it wasn’t because he was black.
The underlying cause of their reaction to Obama is insanity; racism merely explains the means by which their insane reaction is expressed.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
BBB @66: When have the Democrats run a war hero from South Dakota?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=presidential+candidate+south+dakota+war+hero
September 14th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
oops, someone beat me to it. but it’s always worth taking an opportunity to use lmgtfy.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
SCTM
You win but only if Michelle Obama is euthanizing all those old people in the death camps. The WSJ was much more coded back in the day with ‘a massive command-and-control system’ and a ‘coercive proposal that takes personal health choices away from patients and families.’
That being said, the conservative apparatus started an organized attack against Clinton even before he was elected.
It did not have the racial/foreign component they are using against Obama (and less Hitler) but it was still ugly on the fringes.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
The essential difference between “cracker” and the other word is that the former was never used as a description of property. Next — why “faggot” is a bunch of wood.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
cracker was certainly used for rental property
i expect better from charlie pierce
September 14th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
What total fucking moron James Robertson ignores is that his compatriots in the “Hate Obama” campaign failed to generate a “large anti-Obama” march. They couldn’t get more than a moderate sized NASCAR race gets every Sunday.
And that’s with the modern technology he mentions. So, we have on the one hand, righteous anger over a bunch of assholes stealing the election for a dimwitted clown who was in no way competent to hold office (c.f. 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina), and on the other we have phony outrage over “death panels.”
Only a total fuckwit would think these were comparable.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
[...] Yglesias is working a similar angle today: “I think the crux of the matter is that since 1928 or so, the Democratic Party has typically presented itself in national politics [...]
September 14th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to think James Robertson is right.
The hate and lunacy went just as deep about Clinton. It was during the campaign when the Washington Times proclaimed that he’d been recruited as a KGB asset during a college trip to Moscow. That’s not so different from the Sekrit Muslim/Birfer stuff.
It’s the internet that’s different.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I lived with a guy who had a “Lee Harvey, Where Are You Now?” bumper sticker in 1994-1995.
Cracker-ass mofo. He once told me, “One day, people like me – and there’s people like me all across America – are going to rise up against the niggers and the queers and the Jews and the people like YOU!”
Dude owned a Binelli shotgun. Like a semiautomatic rifle, but the clip held shotguns shells.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
The essential difference between “cracker” and the other word is that the former was never used as a description of property.
I somehow forgot that “cracker” was a denigrative term. My apologies for using it above.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
the Washington Times proclaimed that he’d been recruited as a KGB asset during a college trip to Moscow. That’s not so different from the Sekrit Muslim/Birfer stuff.
Pretty fair point. I remember reading some other blog in which the author said that Yglesias claimed something like the following: some part of what we see as nastiness really has to do with a style of rhetoric (Southern) that the rest of us weren’t used to and didn’t really see until Clinton was elected. That’s by recollection, so I may have that wrong. But I thought it was a pretty interesting claim. (FWLIW, I seem to recall that the claim was that Clinton was in part responsible for bringing that style of rhetoric to a broader audience. But I really, really might have that wrong.) I’m not even sure where one would look for evidence to support that, though.
September 14th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Clinton was a betrayer, Obama is an usurper
It all comes from the same pool of hate and is harnessed and provoked by the same conservative infrastructure.
September 14th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
#93 – the key thing to keep in mind is, it’s not limited to the right. The left had a whole contingent of people who were convinced that Bush was going to declare a national emergency and not allow an election in 2008 – go back and read Kos archives.
Like I said, the difference is the net, and I think this is the “new normal”. Every President from here on out (and it started during Bush’s term) is going to have to deal with an opposition that can amplify itself via internet organizing. 50,000 people spread across the country with no easy way to communicate (the people who hated Reagan or Clinton) looked isolated. The same number who opposed Bush, or now Obama, look like a crowd.
September 14th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Missouri, Matt. “a war hero from Missouri“. Or Massachusetts.
September 14th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Wow, a whole contingent? You mean, among people who allowed to sign up for an account? Are you sure there wasn’t half a contingent?
That’s really not the same thing as the editors of the Washington Times pushing the Vince Foster story. Yes, there are loonies on all sides, but only one of the sides includes such loonies in positions of importance in their political and media operations.
September 14th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
joe from Lowell
Remember when a senior Democratic Congressman tried to prove that Harry Whittington was shot in the face at the San Antonio Hilton instead of while bird hunting at the Armstrong Ranch by firing a shotgun into a pumpkin in his back yard?
September 14th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Joe,
Obama had a truther – Van Jones – in the White House. The rot went pretty deep.
– Congress members
– commondreams.org
Trawl through this search for awhile.
September 14th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Let’s do a comparison of Truthers and Birthers in Congress.
Democrats had one Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, who flirted with Trutherism. They primaried her out of Congress twice and she is now a member of the Green Party.
Republicans have eleven co-sponsors for the Birther Bill. I predict that not a single one of them will face a strong primary challenge, let alone be disowned by the GOP establishment.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
James “Let’s fuck the Iraqi people because I’m too stupid to notice that WWI is over” Robertson keeps playing the idiot card because it’s all he has. If he weren’t a total disphit he might notice that, even if his accusations were true, there is a huge difference between one guy who was not elected, and a party willing to elect dumbfucks like Burton and the eleven birthers.
September 14th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
That’s not to say that James the fuckwit is wrong about one thing: Republicans like him, willing to repeat any lie about a Democratic President (See dumbass’ “truther” lie – and compare it with Jones’ statement).
I guess for people who just enjoy a good slaughter, the facts just won’t do.
September 15th, 2009 at 3:23 am
The only thing on the left that is equivalent to all the current irrational nonsense on the right is the 9/11 truth stuff. That stuff is just as wacked as the crazy shit people believe about Obama right now. But the 9/11 truth garbage didn’t hijack an entire political party.
September 15th, 2009 at 3:25 am
@Joe From Lowell 93
We also have Fox News to fan the flames of crazy in a way we didn’t with Clinton. But, yeah, it was batshit gone back then, too.
September 15th, 2009 at 8:55 am
No, he didn’t. He had a guy who signed a petition for an investigation of 9/11, after being misled about the group’s aims, which then used him name, and lot of other people’s names, to push a theory none of them ever endorsed – even going so far as to refuse to remove their names when directed to do so.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am
James Roberston,
“Congress Members” “Common Dreams” – in fact, the Bush administration looked into contingency plans for canceling elections in case of a terror attack. This documented, including a letter from Tom Ridge discussing the matter.
Did you manage not to know this? I’m not surprised.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Whoops, wrong link.
September 16th, 2009 at 9:25 am
How dare people disagree with a black man!? Grrrrrrr!