04 November 2012

Race and the Election


This election is far closer than I ever imagined it would be. It really is incredible what that first debate did for the Romney campaign. The cynic in me says that we vote for the candidate we perceive to be more presidential, regardless of experience or other more accurate qualifiers. This is surely how Obama was elected. I like the guy, but no one who voted for him could honestly make the claim that he won because of his vast experience in government or the private sector. People voted for him for a variety of reasons, but surely two big ones loom: we enjoyed the narrative power of electing the first black president in a nation whose first politicians owned black people, and he just seemed more presidential than John McCain (and certainly more so than Sarah Palin). And, Mitt Romney, in that first debate, seemed more presidential. And it did wonders for his campaign.

But alas, that narrative is too unsatisfying to many on the left who in this zero hour of the campaign are thinking of ways to spin a potential Obama defeat. The current answer: race. Now, don't misunderstand me, it is 100%, incontrovertible fact that there are people in our nation who will not vote for Barack Obama because he is black. Working in a blue collar industry in Tulsa this past summer I received direct confirmation of this truth. My boss there, a staunch Republican, lamented that honest, hardworking Republicans like him, unmotivated by prejudice (there were, after all, Republicans before 2008) are made to look like racist idiots by some of the things we heard people say in our store. There are racist Republicans, as, surely, there are racist Democrats. But you know what? They all voted against Obama four years ago. In other words, it is not like they were egalitarian left-leaning vegans before the 2008 election and then became the frothing at the mouth racist Republicans who are trying to unseat the Nefarious Kenyan this year. So it is not like Obama has lost the racist support this year; he couldn't, because he never had it. He is losing support among other voters dissatisfied with what they see as four more years of stagnation in the economy.

Andrew Sullivan, one of my favorite voices in politics who has become increasingly unhinged over the last few years (you should read his posts about his recent move to New York City; he makes it sound like a third world country because his internet speed is slightly slower than he is used to, not to mention the way he went absolutely apoplectic over Sarah Palin, even to this day refusing to acknowledge the excess she drove him to), is one of the principal figures spinning thisnarrative. (Here is a great takedown of Sullivan in the Dartmouth Review, exposing his utterly uncomprehending grasp of U.S. history). And it is surely a comforting narrative for those on the left to try and sell. We were not defeated because our ideas were bad or our policies failed, but because this country is still filled with a  bunch of backwards rednecks. 

These folks cite a recent AP Survey on race to justify their claims. I have perused this survey and I didn't find this dramatic uptick in racial prejudice. The favorability numbers for whites and blacks are largely the same as they were two years ago and consistent between the two races as well. And the survey also features frustrating questions like the following: "It’s really a matter of some people just not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could just be as well off as whites." You are then asked whether or not you agree with this statement.

Now, how do you answer that question? Think carefully. Say that you respond, "no." You say this because you are aware of the crippling effects of generations of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow on the psyche of a people. But you know what that sounds like to me, the cynic? You don't think black people can work hard enough to succeed. So say that you answer, "yes", because you believe in the ideals of the American Dream, that through hard work and perseverance we can all become successful.  Now, the cynic in me sees you as a blatant racist who believes the age old trope that blacks just don't work as hard as whites. How can you answer that question without your response being spun as racist? You do what slightly over a third of the respondents did: you say neither agree nor disagree. Really, what else can you do?

Again, I am not saying America is healed of its racist past. Show me a place that is. The Enlightened Europe we like to look to as an example for everything right is either entirely homogenous in its composition or filled with racists (or both), as was readily evident in the Euro Cup soccer tournament last summer, the great French resentment of the growing Muslim population, and on and on. My point is simply that it is too easy, yet all too predictable, that any Obama loss will be sold to the believers on the left as ample evidence of the rise of racism in this country. The AP poll is providing the fodder for that narrative. But it is not true. Obama won four years ago on the backs of independents who liked his hopey changey message. If he loses this year, which I seriously doubt he will, it will not be because those same people all of a sudden became racists, but because they do not like the direction he has taken this country in his term of office. 

On a side note, I am well aware that if Romney loses the narrative on the right will be that this is all due to the refusal of the lamestream media to hold Obama to account for his mistakes in office. If Bush would have tried to spin Benghazi like Obama has the media would have crucified him (which is probably true), if growth was this slow under a Republican there would be widespread calls by the media for something to change in Washington, etc. And it will surely be comforting for them to hear.

Gary Johnson, 2012.

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