;)
The Real America Is Not Pro-America
If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000. A broad mandate this is not. -- Jim Vandehei & Mike Allen of Politico
Think about that. Josh Marshall of TPM did. He helpfully translates the Politico writers' meaning into plain English: "Obama’s winning but not with the best votes. I mean really, if you can’t win with a broad cross-section of white people, can you really be said to represent the country? Really."
So get this, people. If you're Hispanic, African-American, a single woman anywhere or a highly-educated urban white, you are not a full-fledged citizen. Maybe, you know, your vote shouldn't count as much as a white person's vote. Perhaps 3/5ths of a vote is all you deserve. Surely, the belief that Vandehei and Allen toss out helps explain why Republican leaders feel comfortable and justified in suppressing the votes of blacks, Hispanics, students and urban voters.
The Politico writers are simply expressing, in a slightly different way, what Sarah Palin meant in 2008 when she told (white) North Carolinians they lived in "the real America" and the "pro-America areas of this great nation."
There is a particular irony to this line of thinking which anyone who has lived in the American South or in parts of the West knows. White Southerners are Southerners first and Americans second. Many of them are still fighting the Civil War. They resent the North, and they express this resentment in their loathing of the federal government. A hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, the federal government is still a powerful agent of suppression. It wasn't just the war, it wasn't just Reconstruction; it was Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Acts, Title IX. It's "liberal judges," it's the EEOC, it's the Clean Air Act, it's OSHA, it's Lilly Ledbetter, it's ObamaCare. The South still believes in states' rights; Southerners and Westerners are Tenthers because they are not pro-America. They want their independence. That standard Republican line, "We don't want Washington telling us ... (fill in the blank)" resonates with these people.
Racism, xenophobia, Tentherism, gun obsession, anti-abortion activism -- and sexism in general, rumblings about secession -- are all symptoms, not causes, of "Real" America's hatred of the United States of America. These pathologies express a sense of powerlessness and a core belief that the federal government, in particular, is sapping white American men of their God-given right to do whatever they want. The Tea Party reveres Early America because in those times, certain men of certain European stock had a monopoly on power. (It never occurs to the Tea Partiers, of course, that the majority of them do not come from that same stock. They assume, wrongly, that they have the right stuff. Why women belong to the Tea Party baffles me; it might be ignorance of history [see Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann], it might be Stockholm Syndrome.)
The only part of the federal government these "Real" Americans support is the military. Why that is should be obvious: the purpose of the military, in their eyes, is to gain dominion over all of the second-class citizens of the world; that is, Anybody But Us.
Some will see another irony in "Real" Americans' hatred of the federal government: that is that red states, generally, get more back from the federal government than they put into it, something New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie alluded to last week. This really is not so ironic when you look at it from the point of view of a Real American: (1) I deserve it, and (2) I resent it. There's a general belief that people are grateful for favors. A lot of us are. But that gratitude often turns into resentment. We "owe" our benefactor. That gives him a certain power over us. Add to that the likelihood that the benefactor was more powerful in the first place: he was able to do a favor because he had some power we didn't have. In fact, often he continues to exert that power. Yeah, I was glad the boss hired me, but now he's making me jump through hoops. Yeah, I was glad the bank gave me a loan that I barely qualified for; now I'm paying usurious interest. Yeah, the government gave me food stamps when I was out of a job; now that I'm back at work they're taxing the hell out of me.
The Republican party is awfully good at tapping into that resentment, and they're good at it because the party leaders share it. Those whom they don't resent, they despise. They are all about power, power they believe they deserve. When the Romneys say its "their turn," they believe it. They resent the 47 percent, and they don't think "those people" -- those irresponsible moochers -- should have equal rights. "Those people" haven't done their fair share. (Never mind that this isn't necessarily true.) When Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen imply some are more equal than others, they believe that so deeply that it doesn't occur to them not to express it as fact. The Democratic coalition -- they say -- simply does not represent Real America. So it is illegitimate.
This is birtherism writ large. During his first term, the right tried to prove President Obama was not an American. (Oddly, they never tried to prove his mother was not an American. Whether or not Obama was born in Kenya, he would still qualify for the presidency as long as he had an American parent.) This was a necessary sideshow because a lot of Real Americans voted for Obama. In this election, as the Politico writers suggest, many of those former Obama-backing Real Americans will vote for Mitt Romney. This allows Republicans to delegitimize a second Obama term in different ways. One of course will be a claim that the election was rigged. If the election is as close as polls suggest, expect voter fraud suits to pop up almost as fast as conspiracy theories. But the other way to delegitimize the election is already here, perfectly captured by Vandehei & Allen: Obama voters are illegitimate.
So, to those of us who vote for Obama, here's the word: We are all Kenyans now.
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Reader Comments (20)
Mel Brooks was there first -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boO4RowROiw
Good job, Marie. The future is a scary place all alone and no matter how much religion and bullets the evangelical/fundamentalist/neo-conservatives have they are people scared of the future.
Why would anyone want to join their revolution if dancing is not an option?
This is terrific. Somewhere along the long line Republicans seem to be survivors of a simpler America that exists mostly in myth––and this is nothing new for them. Their vision of a turn-of-the-century America is one of like-minded neighbors, mostly white, proud of their achievements, resentful of criticism, fiercely opposed to change. And decades ago as the changed standards of the mass society swept over traditional America, many of these people were frightened––who would guard their America of memory against a world of alien forces, strange people and dangerous ideas. So they vote for the one who they think will restore the "way we were." Romney, I think, represents this savior in sheep's clothing and his lies fall like manna for them–-such fierce believers in restoration they are! Obama could never be their guy––– as Marie says, they think he's not really American––not one of "us"–-but even more so, "How dare he become our President!" Who does he think he is?
So tomorrow I'm going to vote for that Kenyan and join other like-minded voters in encouraging some community spirit––something the Germans call "Hausgemeinschaft."
Mention of Mel Brooks reminds me of someone who was doing research on the old comedy shows and asked Brooks, "How come all those writers were Jews?" His answer: "Because we were the children of old Jews." Perfect.
Marie presents an outstanding distillation of the anti-American, anti-intellectual right. They hate and (more imporantly) fear any ethnicity or idea that doesn’t sit well with Teabaggers, anti-patriots and their warped vision of an America that has never been and never will be.
The Teabagging fondness for thoughts of certain, but not all, founders, has promoted a kind of Founderism that has turned very quickly to Flounderingism. The right, unable to find any true and authentic source for their particularly noisome brand of Nativism (which, if you want to be technical, as Marie declares, includes very, very few right-wing haters, unless they happen to be direct descendents of actual Native Americans) and an even more parlous and malignant Nationalism, has opted for the only course open to the intellectually dishonest: cherry picked, carefully edited bits of flotsam and jetsam that fit their ideological needs, and a fondness for teleological casuistries designed to make their conclusions seem inescapable.
The problem with this sort of system, in which the conclusion of one’s argument is also included in the premise, is that it creates what logicians and philosophers call a tautolotgy, a way of saying the same thing over and over which makes no sense in the real world because there is simply no logical basis for it (something along the lines of "Real Americans look and think like us so we're the only Real Americans", another way of saying it is "We're Real Americans because we're Real Americans."), thus turning their brave, rah-rah Founderism into saggy, soggy, Flounderingism, replete with all the internal contradictions that cause such inert thinking to collapse.
But this doesn’t worry the haters. After all, that founder stuff is just a cover for what they see as the desired end result: Republicans in charge no matter what the electorate says, with, as Marie points out, their lack of concern for electoral rules, law, elections, and democracy itself.
Thus the lie of their love of the founding principles of this country and the truth of Marie’s branding of them as anti-American.
The vitriol and hatred directed toward Obama as an all-purpose bogeyman/avatar of the left, liberals, and progressives demonstrates just how far afield these assholes have gone from these founding principles.
A few weeks ago I brought up the Tom Paine problem. Thomas Paine, arguably more important than any in the Founders Hall of Fame (if it hadn't been for his pamphlets and firebrand opposition to tyranny, the public will to dissolve the bonds with Britain might never have materialized), including Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Washington, or Franklin, has this to say right up front in his pamphlet Common Sense. Paine hopes that…
“...the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often; because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflexion of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a COMMON INTEREST WITH EVERY PART OF THE COMMUNITY, they will mutually and naturally support each other…” (emphasis is mine)
Paine goes on to state that thus is government brought into the world to care for ALL citizens because of the “…inability of moral virtue to govern the world.” Ie, religion or the kind of “natural” morality the right is always yapping about (but rarely observing), also the idea of the “marketplace” which we are told by the Rats of the world, will take care of everything.
For them, that is.
For Paine, EVERY PART OF THE COMMUNITY matters. Not just the white, wealthy, connected, Christian, radical right.
Another reason he is so despised by the right, at least those who have actually read him and understand the import of the genius of this most vital founder.
But this is not the world they seek. And people like most of us are not desired as members of their community. Not unless we agree to knuckle under, go along, shut our mouths, and salute the LEADERS when we’re supposed to.
Sorry, not for me. That ain’t America. That’s some rat fuck Ayn Randian nightmare world beloved only by haters of other human beings, lovers of unbridled power, and the intellectually feeble. In other words, the American right-wing.
Power is their escutcheon, not democracy. Not America.
Here is a piece with information about what to do if you get jerked around while voting--or observe more than the usual weirdness at the polls. (Of course, we do not need this information as much as do Hispanics, Blacks and other minorities who probably will never get it.) If you have some way to pass it on, please do!
TWELVE WAYS YOU CAN SAFEGUARD YOUR VOTE
Doug Pibel and Fran Korten, News Report: We recommend two nationwide networks where you can report problems. One is 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683), which will have volunteer lawyers in many locations standing by to provide assistance. The other is 1-866 MY VOTE-1 (1-866-698-6831), which will record your problem by voicemail, then forward your call to your local board of elections. Both will enter the information you provide into a database, then use that information to support challenges to problem elections, as well as demands for reform in the future.
RTFS!
Historically I've thought of armies as being led to victory or defeat by their generals not vice versa. In America where have the generals come from? Since Nixon the armies of reaction have been led by politicians from California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Nebraska. Hardly a list of Confederate strongholds. The conservative mind is not a product of geography. Climate change illustrates the difficulty of changing the individual conservative mindset. Thirty years of scientific evidence is shrugged off as inconclusive. The conservative community is an alternate universe that is impervious to conflicting truths. Trickle down economics will be believed an obvious truth forever. The civil war was about states rights, not slavery etc.
I sit here with my TV tuned to Fox, listening to all the experts predicting Romney by 5-10% and condemning Obama for slow response to Sandy, abandoning the Benghazi consulate, and arrogantly ignoring reasonable Republican suggestions to improve legislation. For many Wednesday morning will be a day of allocating blame, naming scapegoats and calling for recounts. By December the faithful will be back to fighting ACA and abortion while demanding that government get off their backs.
Re: great essay Marie; That's why I came to this site in the first place. Strange how the very thing that made this country great; constant flux and change, has become the demon of those that suggest they revere the country the most.
Cowichan: Nebraska was barely a territory in 1861-65, so could hardly have been a Confederate State. It is so solidly red now, that it surely would qualify as one if and when the Civil War is refought. Dubya may have been born in Connecticut, but his heart was from Texas before he was bequeathed the Presidency. And Mitt's heart (if he has one) is obviously in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, regardless of where the rest of him was hatched.
@cowachin. As usual, your logic eludes me. I'm not sure what you means when you say that "the armies of reaction have been led by politicians from California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Nebraska."
If in California & Illinois, you're referring to Reagan, let me remind you that Reagan went to California from Illinois as a Democrat. He was the head of a union, for Pete's sake. He became a reactionary while an adult living in California, a melting pot best known as the land of fruits & nuts. Whether or not Reagan resented his "B" movie status, imposed upon him by librul Jewish moguls I don't know, but I do know conservatism was for him an acquired taste. If by Connecticut, you mean Bush Pere, he was not a reactionary; he was a "noblesse oblige" kind of patrician. Remember those 1,000 points of light? If by Michigan, you mean Jerry Ford, he also was no reactionary. He thought government was supposed to do things. If by Nebraska, you mean Bob Dole, ditto. You got me on Massachusetts; I don't know who you mean there. If you think Mitt is "from" Massachusetts, um, he isn't. He's from Money, & he missed the "noblesse oblige" lesson that the Bush boys inherited from Prescott Bush & their long line of New England ancestors. I doubt that Romney harbors any more animus toward minority men than he does toward the clubby, blue-blooded boys who shunned him. As for his feelings about women, see "Binders, Full of." That may be the product of his religious beliefs and/or his lack of interactions with women other than his wife; I don't know.
You're right to the extent that there are Real Americans everywhere. But the cultural centers of Real America are in the South as well as in Western states; many of the latter were populated by ne'er-do-wells from the South. Most of those survivalists living in Idaho, for instance, came from someplace else. Crafty politicians on the right & their millionaire/billionaire enablers have tapped into the resentments that those cultures foster. But that kind of existential resentment of other people's power is innate. We all have it, and it would be ridiculous to pretend that we haven't all felt it & perhaps expressed it. But most liberals aren't obsessed with it; we think their are better ways than self-righteousness and self-interest to create a more perfect union. We are glass-half-full people, and we aren't afraid of how the refill will taste.
Marie
Calyban: Ford was born in Nebraska but raised in Michigan. Bush was 29 when he graduated from Harvard by which age I usually consider even males to have matured. Perhaps in his case I should make an exception. Mitt is a conservative? I think of him as a blank slate upon which you are free to write what you will.
@P.D. Pepe. "Fucked" sounds so much less objectionable in French.
@calyban. Bush II was reared in West Texas. He went to school in Midland, then a couple of years at a Houston prep school before he went to Phillips Academy in Massachusetts. It's true he spent time in Kennebunkport with the swells, but he lived in Texas most of his life. He's a Westerner. It's not by accident that he & Reagan made ranches their Western White Houses, tho Reagan did so more for the tax break than the rootin' tootin' ambiance.
Marie
@Madame Marie
Touché touché, bravo.
In reading the initial Politico piece, I recall feeling a small sense of welling pride at the juxtaposition of American voters backing an equally diverse candidate. Those of us that accept the melting pot as being the basic recipe that creates our vibrant culture and society feel pride when we come together to do big things for our country. Knowing there's still a large swath of fellow citizens that share similar democratic values and are willing to fight to preserve them gives some reassurances whenever you occasionally toe the edge of Right Wing World and witness the crocks of shit they're boiling up.
That's why the end of the Politico quote didn't even translate into English when it first went through my head. I had to reread and reflect as to what they were getting at, a testimony to the different visions we still hold within this country regarding diversity.
Such a sad state of affairs. Demographic analysts have already said, as has been aforementioned here, that the minorities are the majorities of the future. Anglo-saxon folks are already the extreme minority on the global scale, and now the world's getting smaller.
If there is one thing that the architects of the Repugnant Revolution have perfected better than anyone else, it's fomenting fear for personal gain. I'll give 'em credit where credit's due, and those fuckers know how to unnerve some jittery white folks.
It should be noted that the constant discharge of pseudo (or overt) racism is structural. It's a top-down policy with a direct mission. Institutions have been built to guide this policy to the misinformed populace. It's become a véritable machine de guerre. But this war is on our national identity and the foundations of this country. The Repug architects know time is not on the white man's side. So long as they stick to their formula, more scared whities will fall into their trap, and thus they'll hold the key to the "most important" voting group.
The Neo-Con bubble these ideologues have been living in have rotted their own brains, crying foul at each and every instance of counter-thought. This extreme paranoia is making them act without forethought. Everything is knee-jerk. But now time's running out and the Repug odor is making all sensible minorities allergic. The machine's directors have again authorized the employment of "other" methods to save our Democracy. But with the national scale of illegal manipulations and dirty money sloshing into the coffers of the local minions, I'm hoping some ambitious journalists can connect some dots and sniff out another Watergate-esque moment. We need election reform. Or else...
Cowichan,
Perhaps you could fill us in on the reactionary conservative(s) you were ascribing to Massachusets; if not Romney, whom you quite correctly describe as an agnostic etch-a-sketch opportunistic tabula rasa motherfucker, then who? Surely not Bill Weld or even Paul Cellucci. Maybe Jane Swift? Surely not. John Volpe? Even though Nixon appointed him Secretary of Transportation, Paul Ryan would be unable to pick him out of a line-up with Gromyko, Stalin, Gorbachev, and Karl Marx.
Are you talking about moron beefcake dickhead Scott Brown, who would rather admit to blowing dogs than being a conservative?
I understand what you're saying about the plague of nodding stupidity that is conservatism afficting Americans from all points of the compass. But I think most observers would have to agree that the epicenter of right-wing hatred and imecility is lodged squarely below the Mason-Dixon Line and West of the Mississippi.
Bonne chance mes amis, c'est déjà domain
Wonderful analysis, Marie. Happen to be reading (because it's no Team of Rivals, not recommending) Year of the Meteors, an account of the body politic in 1859, 1860, leading up to the nomination and election of Abraham Lincoln. Of course, it's all about slavery and sectional rivalry. Because the country continued to expand post Civil War, the electoral map 150 years ago does not exactly duplicate that of today but its disturbingly close. If you add in all those once blue states where agrarian progressivism arose that are now mostly red, it's almost identical. Faulkner's observation about the past not being dead, in fact not even past (and who better to have noticed than an American southern writer?) comes to mind: precisely the point you make so well.
Re today's NYTimes "analysis" of the so-called bitter rivalry between MSNBC and FOX in their coverage of the presidential race. The author actually took Rachel Maddow to task for saying that the rash of new voter identification laws were a Republican attempt to shrink the voter base. As if it were not manifestly true that the Republicans are doing all they can to suppress the votes of anyone who is not a Real American. And that's only one example offered of MSNBC's purported bitterness and stridency, most of the same low quality. I guess the truth is a bitter pill for the author.
Not as bitter, though, as my feeling for the Times when they run this kind of claptrap.
Good luck to us all. May sanity prevail.
Yes! Marie, this is a fantastic analysis. Thanks to Politico for setting it up. It is amazing to me that they came right out and said it so clearly. But then, the way the GOP has attacked voting rights so blatantly, perhaps this is the new normal.
Marie is the Rachel Maddow of the Internet.
I, like a number of commentators on MSNBC today, am tremendously encouraged by the long lines here in Ohio and in Florida.
Allons enfants de ma patrie!
@ The Constant Weader: Let me start again.
I think you are oversimplifying and giving more importance to the southerner than is their due. Wikipedia tells me that the republicans won in '68, '72, '80, '84, '88, without the southern states. I think the republicans have had a lunatic fringe as far back as I can remember. The idea that the rich should be given special dispensation because they are the creators, that there is too much government etc, etc, is the culmination of a thread that runs back, unbroken for at least 63 years that I know of. To a time when the south was Democratic. Those beliefs may be repugnant to you but I think they are beliefs shared by southerners, not originating with them. They are American beliefs held by Americans who march to a different drummer than you but, as painful as it may be, as authentic as you and from every state in the union.
@cowichan-
To continue beating an already dead horse: Yesterday's Southern Democrats ARE today's Republicans. Most still are. The only important idea here is that all are/were racist. And no doubt will continue to be through our lifetimes. We must wait for these deficient human beings to die, but, unfortunately, we all will be dead as well. SHIT!
My husband was born in the South--and spent years "losing" his southern accent. He detests the South and what it stands for and believes, even more than I, that almost all Southerners are racist--the exception being those who moved there from somewhere else.
Mitt Romney was not born in the South, but the man is an absolute racist. Paul Ryan as well. Rich will work if you are not Southern, and they are simply rich, uncompassionate men with almost no experience in the world as it is. Not to worry, they will not win. America is not THAT stupid! Just frighteningly low-information.
Remember the Supremes!
(my last chance to say this)
@cowachin. What you're really missing here, & what I perhaps did not convey well enough in the first place, is that I am not talking in my post specifically about the birthplaces of conservative standard-bearers. These men (and they are mostly men) quite often have no particular racial or ethnic animus (though some, like Nixon, of course, did) & they don't necessarily resent the federal government -- Paul Ryan, for instance, has never held anything but a federal government job (and no, working for Der Weinerschnitzel doesn't count). What they do is use the resentments of Southerners & other whites for their own selfish aims. So it doesn't matter where a candidate comes from -- nobody knows where Mitt Romney "comes from." What matters is that these candidates tap into the small-minded sensibilities of Real America to advance their own aims. When they say, "We don't want Washington telling honest, small businessmen how to run their businesses," what they mean is, "We don't want our fatcat corporate backers to have to follow rules that greatly benefit the general public." Republican politicians -- more than Democrats -- are tricksters. They manipulate the yokels; they aren't necessarily yokels themselves.
I don't have time to check all the Electoral College results, but I cannot imagine what Wikipedia entry you found that indicated, for instance, that Republicans won the '84 presidential election "without the Southern states." Reagan carried every state but Minnesota. That is to say, he carried every Southern state, not to mention almost every other state in the Union. Likewise, Bush won all of the South in '88, and Reagan won all of the South except Georgia -- his opponent's home state -- in 1980.
As I've said before, if you're going to cite a "fact" that is, to say the least, "controversial," please provide evidence. Just making stuff up that is blatantly false but suits your argument does not cut it here. I respect your right to disagree with my opinion, but egregiously misrepresenting commonly-known historical events is not acceptable. I do not have time to fact-check this crap. So quit the crap or quit commenting. Please.
Marie
@The Constant Weader: The Republicans won in '68, '72, '80, '84, '88 without the southern states. Not that they didn't win them but in the sense that they won even BEFORE counting the southern states. They did not require the seats provided by the southern states in order to gain power.
Thx for your post above which gives more of the emphasis on the republican party I feel your lead article lacks. When the Democrats decided that for the good of America they would cast off the southern states I don't think they realized just what a mix of the dixiecrats and the republican party would result in. Perhaps because the growing influence of the ultraright wasn't that obvious. Johnson had just crushed the Goldwater republicans and probably thought they were going away while in fact the John Birch Society, Koch brothers et al were busily carrying on. The southern states and the republican party are the best example of synergy I know of. A corrupt southern contingent and an increasingly corrupt republican party combination has become so powerful that an incompetent republican can fight down to the wire an exceptional Democratic candidate. In most societies a political party employing tactics common to republicans would be rejected to the point of being relegated to a political purgatory for at least 2 election cycles, say 8 years. In America even the GW Bush administration only resulted in the party being rejected for two years. When you consider that in 2008 Obama won by only 7% over a corrupt party led by an old apparatchik you have to think either that Bush really wasn't that bad, or that going to war on the whim of the president isn't anything to get excited about, in the opinion of the American people.
Because the raison d'etre of republicans is power, not politics, moderates can't criticize the fringe because winning is all and nothing justifies endangering the party and thus moderates end up being relegated to insignificance. Legitimated, enabled, and empowered by their alliance with the republican party southerners will never be challenged to modify their belief system.