Barack Obama And Small Town People
While talking to billionaire donors in San Francisco, Barack Obama showed why many people living in small towns in the United States (but this is the same everywhere) distrust and dislike “Ivy League Liberals.” He said: “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.”
“And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And 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.”
First things first: anti-trade sentiment? Pardon me? Which candidate has been encouraging that sentiment for a year already? Right, that’s you Senator Obama.
More importantly, though, although some may try to explain what Obama really meant with the above, what he said is simply incredibly condescending. This could cost Obama dearly among small town voters.
And rightfully so.
His words prove that he’s an arrogant, big university progressive, who truly believes that those who disagree with him politically are acting irrational, based on emotions, and so on. That’s the kind of unity he represents: progressive unity. Disagree with his agenda, and you’re treated like a little child.
Obama should not make any more gaffes like this one; these gaffes give people the impression that he’s the big city, liberal elite candidate.
And he is of course.
Just like George W. Bush was, in essence, the big city, conservative elite candidate. But he knew how to hide it rather well. Obama doesn’t. Not only that, I think that big city conservatives tend to less condescending towards small town people than many big city progressives.
Also: why is it that Obama’s campaign is called a positive campaign? He’s constantly telling people that they’re right to be bitter, that they are bitter, even when they sincerely believe they are not. “It’s logical you’re bitter.” “We’re not bitter.” “Yes, you are!”
I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances–welfare and immigrants were “scapegoats,” part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. …
P.P.S.: Note that guns are not the only thing Obama says “white working class” people “cling” to for economic reasons:
[I]t’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. [E.A.]
Hmm. Isn’t Obama the one who has been clinging to religion lately? Does he cling to his religion for authentic reasons while those poor Pennsylvania slobs cling to it as a way to “explain their frustrations”? … They worship an awesome God in the blue states because they’re bitter about stagnant wages! I think that’s what he said in his 2004 convention address …
Obama’s astonishing sentence offers a syllogistic string of superciliousness: Gun ownership is equated with religious fanaticism, which is said to accompany hatred of the other in the form of opposition to immigration and support for trade barriers. It drips with an attitude so important to the spiritual well-being of the American liberal — the paternalistic attitude that says, “Oh, well, people only do thing differently from me because they are ignorant and superstitious and backward” — that it has survived and thrived despite the suicidal impact it has had on the achievement of liberal political goals and aims.
Now, we don’t need to guess anymore what he’s thinking when he’s on the campaign trail in rural and small-town Pennsylvania. Instead of hard-working, patriotic, faithful Americans, he sees “bitter,” “frustrated,” resentful scary people whom he’ll readily diss while sipping Chardonnay in Baghdad by the Bay.
What’s most offensive? The condescension displayed here by the intelligentsia’s candidate of choice? The sheer breadth of the stereotype, which would send Team Obama screaming from the rooftops if a white politician drew a similarly sweeping caricature of blacks? The crude quasi-Marxist reductionism of his analysis, which he first introduced in his speech on race vis-a-vis the root causes of whites’ “resentment” — namely, exploitation by the bourgeoisie in the form of corporations and D.C. lobbyists? Or is it the shocking inclusion of religion, of all things, in the litany of sins he recites? What on earth is that doing there, given His Holiness’s repeated invocations of the virtues of faith on the trail? Note the choice of verb, too. Why not just go the whole nine yards and call it the opiate of the masses?
Instapundit has more:
I once saw Alan Dershowitz argue an appeal back when I was a law clerk. He made clear from the beginning that he thought he was the smartest guy in the room — which, as one of the other clerks remarked later, proved that he wasn’t. He lost. Must be a Harvard Law thing . .
Asked to respond, McCain adviser Steve Schmidt called it a “remarkable statement and extremely revealing.”
“It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking,” Schmidt said. “It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.”
“It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who face hard times are bitter,” Clinton said during a campaign event in Philadelphia. “Well that’s not my experience. As I travel around Pennsylvania. I meet people who are resilient, optimist positive who are rolling up their sleeves.”
“Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them,” she said. “They need a president who stands up for them, who fights hard for your future, your jobs, your families.”
Uh ohhh. An when given a chance to expound on his comments he simply reinforced these sentiments.
"When you’re in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging."
Now watch the incredible double standard kick in. It is getting virtually no airplay from the media. As noted above, if a white person had said something in a similar vein about "those people in the inner city", how long would they last in a race for president?
This seems very similar to his take on race
"For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings."
I can’t see how people like Bill W can say that his use of ‘bitterness’ and ‘exploited’ are so much nicer than ‘bitter’ and ‘cling’. Yet clearly you think his statements about the two groups are somehow fundamentally different. I don’t get it.
I agree he’s being hypocritical about the trade issues, and it certainly would have shown more political savy to at least say "it’s not surprising then some get bitter…" even that one word would make it easier to explain this, overall pretty accurate assessment of people (not just rural people, but all people everywhere). It is very clear that economics have large social ramifications. A quick example is that the number one reason for divorce is financial issues.
I’m annoyed that our presidential races reduce themselves to trivial character-driven narratives. In 2000, Al Gore was pummelled as a lying, out of touch elitist, while GWB got a comparative free pass as a guy with the common touch, a good guy to have a beer with. I suppose such narratives sell more papers as they’re more accessible than substantive policy papers. But, as you note, Michael, GWB merely succeeded in hiding his true identity- as the ‘uniter-not-divider’ immediately began leading by excluding everyone but his base. Further, as nearly as I can tell, GWB is as out-of-touch with the country as Gore ever was.
I’m really tired of American Idol politics. Painting Obama as an elitist is a meaningless distraction- good grief, he went to Harvard Law for god’s sake. McCain’s been in DC since the early 80s- I suspect he may be slightly out of touch with most Americans too. Most professional politicians are. We’d all be better off ditching the character tea leaves and focusing on substance.
Vanity Fair’s piece on the media and Al Gore in ‘00 is becoming more and more pertinent in this race: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/gore200710?printable=true¤tPage=all
Don’t we have better things to do than to paint Obama as an elitist? Let’s see- the mixed race kid from a broken family in Hawaii is an elitist- as opposed to the common man GWB- who went to Yale and Harvard, whose grandfather was a Senator and whose father was President. These narratives are tiresome, misleading and inaccurate. Let’s move on (and omit the .org).
Virtually ALL politicians are "elitists"; the only differences among them are who does a better job pretending to relate to the average person. This is not unique to the current generation of politicians, either. Go back to the founding fathers, the wealthy merchant class (e.g, Fugger, Medici) of the Italian Renaissance period, the Roman "patrician" class, etc., etc., and you will find those gravitating to governmental office to be generally of a higher socioeconomic status.
This is so for practical reasons (they can afford to run for office as they don’t have to worry about making a living) as well as egotistical ones. History buffs may recall Charles Beard (one of the original "revisionists") and his attempt 40 odd years ago to deconstruct the US constitution on the basis of the incongruity of the writers’ social status and class with that of the general population.
However, Beard made the same mistake as those who are focusing on the "elitist" aspects of Obama’s remarks - that is, he completely missed the point. Being a member of the "elite" class is not the problem, it is the belief system seemingly concomitant with membership in that class, that has Obama looking more objectionable by the day. The troubling comment is posted again below:
"And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations".
So then: people cling to their second amendment rights not out of philosophical conviction, or as a part of their culture and way of life, but out of "bitterness"? Better yet, belief in God is not an issue of chosen and considered faith, but an irrational choice born of the alleged "frustrations" Obama refers to? Please also note, that in attempting to rationalize the xenophobia of the people being discussed (quotes: "anti-immigrant" or "antipathy toward people not like them"), those people must first actually BE xenophobic. And of course, it couldn’t possibly be that the people in question obey their country’s laws and would prefer that others do the same.
It is not elitism in and of itself that is the problem with Obama. It is the "What’s-the-matter-with-Kansas" mentality possessed by the far left, to which it becomes increasingly clear that Obama subscribes. This verbal nugget of condescension, originally related by HuffingtonPost, makes it perfectly clear. The reasons that Obama supporters don’t address this aspect of the quote, that average people don’t have informed or well considered views but only opinions driven by "frustration" or bitterness, is regarded by themselves as self-evident; and therefore they can’t see the problem inherent in such a statement.
Follow up to Hobbes. Charles A. Beard’s "An Economic Interpretation of the American Constitution" was published in 1913, over 90 years ago. Beard closed out his career in 1948 with a bitter note, writing a book, "Franklin Roosevelt and the Coming of War, 1941" which argues that FDR had maneuvered the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor, and implying that FDR and advisors had insured a Japanese success by suppressing knowledge about the pending attack so that Admiral Kimmel and General Short would not be adequately prepared to meet it.
Obama’s statement about midwestern rural people, like Beard’s interpretation of the Constitution and the US entry into WW II reflect an elite frame of mind, which tends to be patronizing of those they disagree with. In an academic, like Beard, it probably isn’t too bid a deal. But for someone who wants to be president, it’s not wise to go around ticking off groups of voters. The Obama in San Francisco event also underscores another important point: it’s very hard to really keep anything totally private any more. If you don’t want it to appear in the opposition’s spin machine, best to leave it unsaid. All the candidates are grappling with this, not just Obama. The Clinton family is discovering that someone else has recordings of the landing at Tuzla, McCain is going to keep hearing from unhappy conservatives and people concerned about immigration reform. But,on the other side, are the crazies, the people who seriously buy into all the conspiracy theories. The ones who are still convinced that FDR secretly plotted to get the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, or - whatever the local tin foil hat topic is.
I would not be voting for Obama in any case, but I will be interested to see if he does better, worse, or about the same as predicted before his little aside became public. It just shows me that he’s not much of a politician, since he didn’t realize that statements like his knock on the rural folks get out. Snide remarks about any voting bloc are really poor form for anyone running for office. Message to the Clinton campaign - lay off the feminist nonsense about how ‘it’s our turn, and the country owes a woman the presidency.’ No matter how much you believe that nonsense in your heart of hearts, keep it to yourselves if you want to win votes.