At issue are comments he made privately at a fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. He was trying to explain his troubles winning over some working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Vacuous, condescending, junk sociology comments from a Democratic candidate are not usually interesting. But the Code Orange hysteria generated by the young millionaire with a law degree from Harvard has some interesting content. He and his elite critics genuinely believe in wholesome effects of privileged, neoliberal license. Subsidized capital mobility and militarized protection for it are unalloyed goods in their world. "Bitterness" over the actual, real world effects of it are attributable to cretinous social values, bigotry, ignorance and personal inadequacies that can be compensated by owning weapons.
His crime was not saying anything that might allude to that elite point of view, however. His crime was the implicit recognition that things are not all rosy for the white working class. He broke the magic, and now he needs to be punished.
This is not his first flirtation with a public understanding that all is not well for people in the harvestable class and I think the hints he gives towards that understanding are attractive to the gentler-souled progressives. It's audaciously adorable to vouchsafe a qualm or two, with imploring eyes cast upwards towards a heaven where a kindly God (who looks remarkably like FDR) looks down in genteel dismay, and pleads with the recalcitrant inhabitants of His creation to be just a little bit nicer to each other. But not too nice, of course -- welfare was divisive.
Comments (9)
condescending ..it is ..indeed
maybe not ob's wind surf moment but ....
as to hillary's -- to the insulted plebs--
response....
hell
her's is pure human resource
liability prevention
employee pap rap
not even a dash of talk radio agitprop
the gal has so much redo artifice
to her lines
they sound like joan rivers face looks
get an openning like this
and
she has nothing "to slug back with "
but these plastic mask screech lines
she might as well be
president
of
the american federation
of school draft harpies
Posted by op | April 14, 2008 12:08 PM
Posted on April 14, 2008 12:08
does punching out shit like this
really land on ob's jaw ???
"The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich...I also disagree with Senator Obama's assertion that people in this country 'cling to guns' and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration...People don't need a president who looks down on them...They need a president who stands up for them."
my guess most white folks plain enough to notice
will figure "christ ..they both wind surf "
Posted by op | April 14, 2008 12:15 PM
Posted on April 14, 2008 12:15
There are two basic responses to economic insecurity: solidarity or scapegoating. It's not a given that people will automatically turn to scapegoating others. That ideology is fed to people from the likes of Lou Dobbs, and it's reinforced when politicians like Clinton and Obama support anti-immigrant legislation. To then turn around and blame the distressed people who bought into this hate-mongering is an elitist and hypocritical insult. Limousine liberals indeed!
Posted by Nicholas Hart | April 14, 2008 12:26 PM
Posted on April 14, 2008 12:26
"People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich...."
Wasn't there an old saying about getting pie and something when you die? I like pie! So I guess I'll be voting for Hillary, the pro-pie candidate.
Posted by chthulu's mom | April 14, 2008 12:31 PM
Posted on April 14, 2008 12:31
That's about the lie of the land, ain't it? Vote for Barack! He'll make it easier to go bankrupt (well maybe not so much)!
Unless you're the DP, for which he'll perform (if he survives the Klintons) the reverse and do another J-Carter by taking all the pent-up, from-the-left resentment and openness-to-reform smilingly down to Davy Jones' locker, where lies the Alfred Nobel Prize for Doing You First Something a Generation After Leaving All Offices.
All of which clearing the set for a production of:
"Morning in America II: Die Harder With More Vengeance"
-starring Buzz Raygun the Second and Killary Roundpants, leader of the Democratic New-and-Improved Leadership Council
Posted by Michael Dawson | April 14, 2008 1:55 PM
Posted on April 14, 2008 13:55
oh noooooo
not the memphis blues again !!!!
Posted by op | April 14, 2008 7:52 PM
Posted on April 14, 2008 19:52
The truth-telling fly in this ointment: "anti-trade sentiment"
Posted by Michael Dawson | April 14, 2008 8:01 PM
Posted on April 14, 2008 20:01
It's hard for me not to root for Obama a bit, because so many of the people opposing him are actively evil.
Nobody's calling him out on the trade thing; they're just asking whether he has enough respect for the deep spiritual pursuit of blasting the fuck out of furry animals.
It's hard not to think that they're trying to keep us stupid.
At least Obama explicates his stupid philosophy in a non-condescending way.
Posted by Christopher | April 15, 2008 5:24 AM
Posted on April 15, 2008 05:24
Christopher, I think Obama does benefit from a style of communication that is often less offensive than the one used by his colleagues. Neoliberal infantilization is hard to sell and he manages pretty well.
Posted by Al Schumann | April 15, 2008 11:07 AM
Posted on April 15, 2008 11:07