Clinton Gave Voters Permission to be Racist

Yesterday, RJ Eskow was on our show and we had an interesting discussion of why so many people in West Virginia and Kentucky admitted to pollsters that they voted based on race. This is otherwise known as racism. It's also something that people are usually loathe to admit. So, why did 21% of the voters in Kentucky freely admit that race was an important factor in their vote?

It's because Hillary Clinton's campaign gave them permission to be racist. Let me explain.

Normally the race issue is a third rail in American politics; you're not allowed to touch it. But Clinton did two important things to change that paradigm. First, she turned it into a legitimate issue by framing it as a matter of electability. The argument is -- it's not that you wouldn't vote for a black guy, but knowing how you and others around you feel, you know the black guy can't win.

This argument has soaked into the Hillary team so much that I'm afraid they've actually come to believe it themselves. That's part of the reason why they can't let this campaign go. I keep hearing them say -- we can't let the party make this kind of mistake. It is profoundly disappointing to see them internalize this ultimately racist argument.

What's interesting is that the primaries allow them to make this kind of race-based argument. In the general election, you can't say -- don't vote for this guy because he's black. But in the primaries you can say -- don't vote for this guy because you know in the general election people will not vote for him because he's black. It's not that you're racist, wink, it's that so many other people are, wink.

The second way they gave their voters permission to be racists is by using thinly veiled code words like, "I'm looking out for people like you." The very thin veil on these code words was lifted when Senator Clinton flat out said she was looking out for "hard working white Americans." And presumably Obama wasn't. And why is that? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the implication that he wasn't looking out for people like them because he wasn't one of them.

So, when the voter in Kentucky stepped into that booth, he didn't necessarily think, "I'm going to vote against Barack Obama because he is black and I'm racist." He thought, "Hillary Clinton is looking out for people like me. Obama cares more about his own people. And besides which he's going to lose in the general election because who would elect a black guy as president?"

Voila, he has been given permission to vote based on race. Now, how many of you think that the Clinton team stumbled upon this phenomenon and how many of you think they understood this and took full advantage of it? Well, now you understand why so many of us are frustrated and disappointed with the way Hillary Clinton has run her campaign.

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Comments

[KarateKid]

It's ironic when you consider where she was at the beginning of this process, the self anointed "presumptive" nominee, with all the money ($44m v.s. Obama's $3.5m), the name recognition, the Democratic Party apparatus, a lot of superdelegate endorsements (she was more than a hundred ahead of Obama at one point), and all the publicity.

She got overconfident and trivialized her competition and smugly told us about her "experience and leadership" when the voters were looking for change. Instead of the coronation she expected, Iowans gave her campaign a huge wake up call, and she's been staggering ever since.

So, it's not surprising how she played the race card. But, the problem is, it only works with the ignorant and uneducated, and with actual racists who would not have voted for Obama anyway. But that's not all she did. She changed masks as often as we change our socks. Two faced? Ten faced is more like it.

Now, she and her campaign are deep in denial, trying to overturn decisions that she agreed to. The hubris and spin doctoring of her campaign has set a new paradigm for future phonies to emulate.

It is a fascinating and disgusting thing to see. This is feminism? I think not, but she has set the movement back with the aid of people like Geraldine Ferraro and all the shills she sends on the TV shows.

Mr. Uygur's assertions are spot on.

[seawolf77]

Oh please just give it up. Everyone is racist and everyone is sexist and anyone who says the are not is lying. You try and minimize it but you can not eradicate it. To be honest I am a little surprised the Republicans have not declared war on it. The war on racism. See how serious we are about this. The war on sexism. The war on poverty. The war on drugs. The war illiteracy. Blah blah blah blah. I've got an idea. Why don't some of the chicken hawks who are always pushing for war go fight in one. Maybe they would not be so war happy afterwards.

[yoli647]

Thank you, thank you, you are correct!!

[dubop]

Just as disturbing to me as being[or allowing] racist tactics to be part of her message are the documented abuses to women over at least 3 decades covering for her sexually decadent husband. Does any one have to be reminded that he was impeached, disbarred and proven not only to lie under oath but to look straight into the camera and lie to every citizen in this country. Does any thinking person think that Paula Jones would have been audited by the I.R.S. twice and that Kathleen Willey would have found her cat dead etc. etc.if Hillary was a champion for womens rights. If I could ask her one question,it would be " how would you feel about a man, any man that did what your husband has been proven to have done, to your daughter Chelsea"? If she could spin her way out of that one maybe she should be president .

[Dap]

Dear Brother Cenk,

That was great to see You and brother RJ together on the Young Turks, you guys were Spot-On. Agape.

[ResidentChimp]

I don't think Wright felt he needed Hillary's, or yours for that matter, permission to be racist. He'd been doing it for over twenty years. But keep up the good work. Calling people who don't agree with you racists does give them permission to vote for McCain.

[michiganfan]

Holy projection Batman!

[knighthowl]

At what point was Wright a spokesman for Obama? And in what way was he racist?

By the way, did Wright call the Catholic Church the great whore? Did he say Hitler was God's servant in carrying out the Holocaust?

No bogus argument seems to be beneath you. Are you Karl Rove's avatar?

[rdplum]

I agree with your Hillary message, Cenk, this behaviour /race baiting, plus, her tales about FL and MI vote woes, the people /staffers who surround her campaign, and her manipulation of facts, are driving away the young people. They want a new start - a clean vision / a clarity of purpose that isn't seen in Hillary's campaign. What is seen is the same Blll and Hill show - politics as usual.

I'm still trying to figure out how come so many people think Pres. Clinton was so grand. There must be a lot of well-off upper middle-class people who benefited from Pres. Clinton but from my advantage/job, his policies, which seemed to me more Republican than anything liberal/progressive, hurt the population I work with: The poor, the disenfranchized, the mentally ill, special ed. children and their families, ..... you know, the ones who people don't care about until election time, if we're lucky. Yes, I'm glad the budget was balanced but guess whose back it was balanced upon?

Whether fair or not, if the Democrats lose this election, Hillary will probably be blamed and would she want that burden along with all this other "stuff"? It all makes me sad how Democrats started out so wonderful but has come to this Rovian fiasco. We need to do better than this.

Peace

[MPeter]

With no message, no money and behind in delegates, the Klan has become her last refugee. Sadly, she has exposed the fact that the Democratic Party probably has more racists than we once thought and in fact, most of them are in the leadership positions. Hypocrites.

[StillIRise]

Even before reading the entire article, the headline itself was all I needed to see to know that I agree with this wholeheartedly! In fact, for the last several months, as the MSM talked about Hillary's "blue-collar" constituency, it was clear that they were talking about racists, white rural Americans who would never vote for a black man solely because of the color of his skin. Both Senator Clinton and the MSM not only abrogated their responsibility to address this concern with with clarity and honesty, but they surrendered their opportunity to use this as a foundation to educate and to mitigate the racial fears of this community. To the contrary, the media simply went along with it, as if it is acceptable for this community to be racist; and Senator Clinton merely exploited their racial fears to accumulate votes! This, above everything else Senator Clinton and her campaign have done to inject race into this election, was not only the most offensive, but it also made clear who she is and what her regard is for people of color. I hesitate to call her racist, but her insensitivity to the racial divide is just as bad.

[JerDogNebr]

This is EXACTLY what I've been saying for the last two months. Not just HRC, but Rush, Sean, and the whole right wing noise machine was using Rev. Wright as their surrogate for a racist attack on Obama. Their argument was, "I'm not being racist, but Obama is associated with that scary black guy who hates America. It is his 'judgment' that I question, and his patriotism, and everything else," HRC picked up on this thread and has played it for all it has been worth to damage Obama in a primary campaign she knows she can't win.
Rather that focusing on "why can't Obama win the white working class vote," maybe we should be asking, "Why can'l Clinton win the educated whire vote or African American?" Well, the "eggheads" can be ignored and the African-Americans, they'll come back to Clinton in the general election.
Hillary "say anything, do anything" Clinton. It is so sad.

[StillIRise]

The question itself, "Why can't Obama win the white working class vote?" is disingenuous. It's like asking, why can't this one black man miraculously eradicate the racism within this community that time itself has been unable to change. Rather than suggesting that this is Senator Obama's challenge and weakness, the challenge should have been placed where it belonged, which is with the community that shamelessly acknowledged their racism. Instead, by placing responsibility on Senator Obama, the media removed responsibility from the people who are solely responsible for the attitude they have embraced toward race, and Senator Clinton simply encouraged this behavior to give her an advantage with the popular vote. Hillary Clinton has shown her true colors, no pun intended, and as far as I'm concerned, she is no longer qualified to hold any political office, much less the presidency!

[northcan]

I just wish the Clinton's would go away.

[mortrefuge]

Rather than say don't vote for Obama because he can't win the White working class vote, Hillary should say (should have said) that if you won't vote for Obama because he's Black then I don't want your vote. By not explicitly rejecting the racist vote, she has implicitly embraced it. And her supporters as well. But then she would have no argument to make to the superdelegates, right? She may not be racist, but she sure is willing to profit from it...

[PioneerKing]

CENK:

What took you so long to see the Clintons as they really are?
When I told you that the Clintons are nothing but political opportunists and would do anything and say anything to get elected you ignored me.
The Clintons do not care about the democratic party it is about Bill and Hillary and it will always be that way.
The democratic party is still trying to recover from the political losses of the 90's when the Clintons were in office.
The democratic party stood by the Clintons and ended up loosing seats at the local, county, state and federal levels. It is the Clintons who owe the democratic party rather than the other way around. Yesterday Bill was floating the idea of Chelsea running for president in 2016 and he is dead serious. Imagine Chelsea ready to be president at 36! I mean if Obama is not ready why should anyone expect Chelsea to be ready? The Clintons are serious about this; heaven spare us! I think all American are quite a bit exhausted with the Clinton and Bush political machines; for the good of the democratic party the Clintons, all three, should leave politics and never return.

[sheikwil]

For those that are asking if the African American voting for Obama is racist? I ask was it racist that all the U.S. President have been white men since the beginning of this country, nobody had a problem with African Americans and all the other minorities in this country voted for all the white men that have been President in this country, but now it's racist because some African Americans are voting for Senator Obama, you can't have it both ways. White people have not been called racist all these years when there were only white men to vote on President. Now Hillary Clinton has injected race into this campaign because she thought she would just walk into the White House because they think they own it and cannot believe that some unknown Black man has more delegates. America keep saying that white people won't vote for Barack Obama for president in the general election, well Hillary Clinton and her camp apparently think that only works one way. people say that African American will vote for Hillary if she ends up the nominee, they better rethink this, it works both ways. The sad thing is those people that Hillary keep talking about the Hard Working Americans don't realize that if McCain wins in November, they will end up worst than they are doing now and they are to simple minded to realize it.

[northcan]

Once again, the whining woman demanding to be heard. Found their 'voice' in Clinton. Once again Bilary is playing the sexist card. Men won't vote for her. Obama's black, and women have more right's than black men, stupidity. I've never seen such a childish, whiny, tantrum led couple of idiots in my life. Bilary Clinton.

The rip off's they've done, with taxpayers, government, foreign governments, Foreign bank accounts, they 'incite' the selfish part of the population "WOMEN VOTERS". Voting only for themselve, not their country. To think their vote should be counted as some kind of 'referendum' about women, is sickening.

We are voting for a President for all Americans. This woman is the most narcisstic, self-centered, grandiose failed candidate in history.

We need a woman in power that has substance, inclusive, strong in an intellectual way (not part of 2 for 1), honest. Hillary is like picking the rotten apple at the bottom of the barrel, like choosing a woman for the sake of all those that have been oppressed by men. You've got the wrong country.

American women have equal rights. Hillary wouldn't know a damn thing about a woman's worth. She''s been paid handsomely for screwing everyone. In fact, any other person would have been dismissed month's ago from the elections. NO Kidding.

The Women in many countries have little, here she is running on her 'I am woman, hear me roar" stand. It is an insult to women everywhere. She's using 'gender bias'.

[flatus]

It makes me want to cry. We have such a good chance this time to take out the Forces of Darkness and now, for the first time, I'm begining to sense that we are blowing it.

[pompmom]

by the same reasoning you have used, obama gave voters permission to be sexist when he said that hillary attacks him when "she feels down", a thinly veiled reference to pms.

[SeriousBlack]

Nice reach.

Nice try.

[StillIRise]

This is truly the epitome of reaching ...

As one woman to another, you must be feeling pretty down today to find something this pathetic to use to suggest that Senator Obama is sexist or that he was giving voters permission to be so! I doubt if anyone but you interpreted his words to mean "a thinly veiled reference to pms." How desperate you must be to have even posted this absurdity!

[devadasi]

So what POMPMOM. That's your delusional take on it. It's nothing in comparison to the lies and smears by the Clinton machine. Cenk is 100% correct. The Clintons have made race the issue. I just watched a video where folks from rural Kentucky were being interviewed who said they would not vote for Obama, not only because he's black but because they're afraid of retribution from black people if Obama wins.

I've heard the phrase 'feeling down' thousands of time in my lifetime and it had nothing to do with being a woman. You're either reaching or your ignorant. Which is it.

[pompmom]

if cenk can use "thinly veiled code words such as I am looking out for you" to support his argument for clinton racism, then that same argument can be used to support obama sexism using thinly veiled code words such as when hillary is feeling down.

[Syco]

that sounds a bit paranoid.
a link to her being weak because shes a woman would have made more sense

[bostongreen]

paranoid is an understatement. calgon, take her away.