The recent AP-Gfk poll reconfirmed that whites again are at political war with each other. The war this is time is not over slavery, secession, or Lincoln. The war is over President Obama. The division is fueled by the same race, class, and governance issues that sparked the Civil War. The poll found these glaring contrasts. White workers are older, less educated and staunchly conservative. They overwhelming loathe Obama's policies, and have a strong visceral dislike of him. Many openly and passionately say that Obama is shoving the country to socialism. All assail the federal government for giving the company store away to the poor. The poor in this case are blacks, and all at the expense of white workers. A TV ad by Wisconsin House GOP candidate Sean Duffey rammed that point home.
The ad shows a blue-collar, hardhat worker getting dumped from a rolling log into the drink. A grave voice intones the point and the punchline, "Our working folks have been tossed aside." It's brash, bold, in your face, and crudely calculated to prick the deepest fears among white workers that Obama, the Democrats and the federal government is one big ATM machine giving free everything to undeserving minorities which equals money snatched from the pockets of hardworking whites. That race lurks sneakily just beneath the surface in the GOP and Tea-Party-leaning candidates' appeals to white, working-class voters is beyond dispute. The code word drips appeal and imagery in the ads and the campaign stump shouts from the candidates is a surefire sell for a bitter reason.
They never liked Obama anyway. In the 2008 presidential primary they backed Hillary Clinton by overwhelming margins in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and every Southern state. This had less to do with any rapture with Hillary, or of her stance on the issues, but simply she was the white, and the only ballot alternative to Obama. In the general election, they backed GOP presidential rival John McCain by a whopping twenty percent bulge over Obama. By contrast, Obama could not have won without the massive support from younger, college-educated, middle-class whites. They gave him a double-digit bulge in vote numbers over McCain. The bulge carries over to GOP candidates in general. They give current GOP congressional candidates a double-digit vote margin over the support they gave GOP congressional candidates in 2006 and 2008. The Democrats sole hope for staving off major losses in the House and possibly Senate is to rekindle the fire among white supporters that proved the margin of victory in 2008. The choice of a massive rally kick off rally at the University of Wisconsin was the first attempt to rev up the Democrat's white support base. The crowd that turned out -- overwhelming white, young, and college attending or educated -- was the exact prototype of Obama's white support base.
The rally was also tacit recognition that the split between white voters across class, income, and age, lines is real and potentially a make-or-break point for the Democrats. Their political fate in November rests squarely on how effectively they can exploit that division. The GOP already has their answer, and they have tailored their entire election strategy to exploiting the white division for their purposes. It's hardly the first time for that.
Nixon stoked the fury of blue-collar, white, ethnic, rural voters with his slam of the Democrats for coddling criminals, welfare cheats, and fostering a culture of anything-goes permissiveness, and of course, big government Great Society pandering to the poor. The crude, thinly disguised code words and racial cues worked. Nixon eked out a narrow victory over Democratic presidential opponent Hubert Humphrey. The tag of law and order and permissiveness became a staple in the GOP attack playbook for the next four decades. With tweaks and refinements, Reagan, Bush Sr. and George W. Bush used it to ease their path to the White House. In the mid 1990s, Newt Gingrich and ultraconservatives recycled the strategy to seize Congress, and pound out an agenda that made big government, tax and spend Democrats, and soft on crime liberals the fall guys for everything wrong with America. It touched the familiar nerve with white males.
Hate groups, anti-Obama Web sites and bloggers, and radio talk jocks can craft this as the prime reason for the anger and alienation that many white males feel toward health care and, by extension, Obama, while loudly denying that this has nothing to do with race.
GOP strategists are again giddy at the prospect, as one GOP pollster put it: "People who have been part of our majority coalition are looking to come back to us." That's a neat phrase to say white workers are firmly back in the GOP fold again. It's the classic white versus white political battle with an election again riding on the outcome.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
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In my freshman college history class, it took a Bulgarian exchange student to speak out before the professor admitted there was a dark side to Joseph Stalin.
I got A's in the non engineering classes but I needed to conceal my beliefs and actually write essays contrary to them as these electives existed to indoctrinate not educate. American Universities are too politicized for the free exchange of ideas.
"Nixon eked out a narrow victory over Democratic presidential opponent Hubert Humphrey."
Nixon also beat Alabama Governor George Washington on the "American" party ballot. If you add Nixon and Wallace's votes together they were a clear majority in favor of traditional American values.
so now he has numerous self avowed communists and socialists, has taken over health care, higher education, and many other segments of the economy by proxy, he proposed draconian legislation for the energy industry, seeks to limit production and deny new permits in effect hindering the economy of the southern "red" states.
so i oppose all of this because i am a classist, racist, and there is no way possible it could just be his misguided policies, or his continued grasp of keynesian economics, or his obvious disdain for traditional american culture.
you are correct about one thing though and that is the similarities with the prelude to the war of northern aggression.
The attacks that we are being inundated with during this election cycle belittle the democratic process. During these very difficult times all of us should be supporting our President. The challenge for all of us is, how do we improve upon this imperfect union that we call the United States of America? One thing I know for certain...it is not by dividing us.
Please go to http://thompsoninthehouse.blogspot.com and learn about my position on the important issues facing Ohio and our Nation.
Jacquelyn K. Thompson
Candidate for Ohio House District 20
look, there can't be any real moving past this until white privilege is acknowledged for what it is. That racism is more sophisticated, and that it's been euphemized almost out of view doesn't negate the fact that it's there. Problem is, it's hard to see for anyone who's white. Right now, I'm sure lots of 'baggers are typing away, assuming I'm poor, uneducated, on welfare, and non-white, only the last of which is true. Thus demonstrating how you can only have my view if you're not white...
NO ONE!! Why?
Race will always be bread winners for many of the "professional political pundits" because it's easy to divide and conquer a nation of people, than to come up with a solution.
I have asked several times on this site of why people vote against their own causes and go with the race of a candidate? Crazy concept to me.
Looking at Congress now, how many blacks are in the Senate? How many blacks are in the House?
For the last 400 years what race of people have controlled our government? The straw man argument I hear oftentimes is "blacks/minorities are destroying our country."
If blacks/minorities are destroying "our country", where have the Whites been for the last 400 years??
Insofar as your argument, saying 'whites have controlled this country', well, it was founded by a bunch of white guys. Of course, that was right on the heels of their ending the colonization being perpetrated by another bunch of white guys, one white guy in particular, King George III. Well, in 2008, King George IV got dethroned, and now we've got Obama, who's done a great job, and still enjoys wide support. So, 21st century, different ballgame, different demographics, door's open for new things coming down the road, so, when do you start YOUR run for office?
The GOP does well when it divides the 98% of us against not the 2% but against eachother.
The GOP southern strategy of wrapping economic issues around cultural issues (the mosque in NYC, Obam as not a 'real' American, socialism, etc.) is on full display this election season.
The fact that, as noted above, the GOP is running ads showing working people being "thrown aside," (after 8 years of Bush throwing working people aside) is another indication that the recent rosy talk among Dems that 2010 is not going to be THAT bad is just more whistling past the graveyard.
The GOP did not invest heavily in 2008 because they knew it was a change election. But now they are back and if you think this 2 year cycle was rough, wait until 2011-2012 when the presidency is on the line.
This nation has/had a lot of people who fought and died to preserve the American way of life, not the Bangalore way of life.
Your article is spot on though. I live in Jacksonville, most recently from Chicago - and I see the ignorance towards Obama and democrats down here and it really riles me up. These people are too stupid to realize that the GOP works for the corporations and the wealthy and that Obama, is in fact, helping the majority of these people down here - by lowering their taxes and making health care (something really lacking in southern America) affordable for them. But they still go to the polls to vote against their best interests; because of race and ignorance or their country and religion. I've never met a more contradictory people.
That's creepier than a back rub from Grandma, and he sold himself as the FAMILY VALUES candidate.
He also has a staff member who was caught on video BEATING his live in girlfriend, and that's who Vitter chose to head his WOMEN'S ISSUES area of his campaign.
Honey, the women of MN wouldn't just vote him out, they'd chase him to the state line beating him with vibrators.
We're efed. Obama isn't the person who can make it happen.
I understand things are looking pretty bleak there right now - David Cameron and his ilk are turing to austerity measures and slashing social spending. If the GOP comes to power here again, we may see a rollback in human rights as well.
The rich and powerful are all in bed together, in every country. What did the French do? Off with their heads!
You have no critical thinking skills. That's why you grasp onto the bible and the constitution which are old. You use these to maintain your position of power and justify your actions and beliefs and conveniantly skip the parts that may call for deeper understanding. You accuse those on the other side of being intellectuals but they also cling to their classics from days gone by. They are not always intellecutals but like you they are elitist-because they have to be. So called "Liberals" have a clear and simple goal -keep people alive. Not happy, just alive. Republicans reduce every aspect of life to a competition involving money and this is where the two sides will never ever agree.
Are republicans rascist? I don't know. I only know they are wrong.
It all amounts to job security for both of them.
To all my Southern Democratic friends, please know that I do not ignore your existence and I do feel for you all living in red states. Everyone with any sense, please vote November 2 and lets continue moving this country Forward.