My Keloland colleague Cory Heidelberger has a mostly reasonable defense of Barack Obama's recent incendiary comment about bitter, small town Americans. But I think Cory sort of misses the point of the criticisms. Mickey Kaus has identified Obama's comments as a "Category II Kensley Gaff." A KG (first classified by Michael Kinsley) is when a politician makes the mistake of saying something that is true, but unpopular. A Category II KG is when a politician makes the mistake of saying what he thinks, regardless of whether it is true or not. I concur with Kaus's diagnosis.
There are two questions here. The first is whether Obama's comments were true. Cory has this:
There's no hicks-and-rubes talk there, just an honest assessment of why some people feel and vote the way they do. As was the case in his March 18 speech on racism and Reverend Wright, Obama once again demonstrated his ability to see how a lot of our politics has its roots in economic issues.
Cory is surely right that a lot of politics has its roots in economic issues. But it is a very tangled plant growing from those roots. I would be interested to see a correlation demonstrated between small town economic problems and religion, gun ownership, anti-immigration and anti-trade sentiment. The fastest growing neighborhoods in America are the exurbs, mall-centered communities detached from urban centers. Churches are doing very well in these places, and I am guessing that Cabela's does a lot of business there. And I suspect that the folks who run the risk of hunting with Dick Cheney aren't really bitter about their economic prospects.
The bigger problem with Obama's comment, taken as a serious analysis of political and economic facts, is the idea that small towns have been neglected and that, if only the elites had paid attention, the prospects of small towns would have been better. Does any reasonable person think that if Obama is elected President that Groton and Ipswich will suddenly start to grow again? A lot of small towns in America have economic trends going against them, but the biggest problem is very simple: the people living in them aren't having very many babies. If Obama can fix that, I'll vote for him.
The second question is whether Obama's gaff tells us what he really thinks about small town people. Given Obama's twenty year relationship with a man who preaches that America is the great Satan, his wife's dismal view of America, and now his view of small town Americans as clinging to religion, to guns, to prejudice, to anti-immigrant sentiment and anti-trade sentiment, I think we have a pretty good idea what Obama thinks about most of America. Cory was right to call Obama's comments "honest." That is precisely the problem.
And it seems pretty clear that Cory agrees with Obama.
The plutocrats and their fundagelical tools would love nothing more than for this and every election to be about nothing more than guns, gays, and religion. As a fanciful tangent, let's imagine what would happen if we gave the Radical Rich Right its fondest wishes and then some. Instead of an economic stimulus package, have the federal government send every American a handgun and an assault rifle. Deport every homosexual. Require everyone to go to church. We could do all that, and we'd still be in a recession. We'd still have a trade deficit. We'd still have stagnant wages. We'd still have corporate welfare. Another gun in my house and fewer gays down the street won't help pay the bills.
This is what we call demonizing the opposition. The other side doesn't disagree with Cory because they are wrong, they disagree because they are wicked people. The views described above are sheer fantasy. They have nothing to do with any party or organized group in American politics. Small wonder that Obama's association with Reverend Wright doesn't bother Cory.
Recent Comments