But Illinois and Indiana are irrelevant, since they aren’t swing states like Ohio. Obama is pretty certain to win Illinois – Chicago is really big compared to the rest of the state – and if he loses Illinois, he will have lost enough other states to be a one-term president. Obama might win the Hoosier state like he did in 2008, but if he does, he will have already have won enough other states to have the election in the bag. So, of those three very similar states, only Ohio really counts in the 2012 election.
Well Obama has foreign DNA don’t you know, how can he patriotic? He is one of them thar anchor babies!
Well so does (almost) everyone in the US – unless Scottish, Irish, German, Polish, Italian, etc., DNA does not count as “foreign”. (Or am I being whooshed?)
You’re being whooshed, that was sarcasm.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to mention Anglo-Saxon heritage in Germany?
I find Anglo-Saxon pride in England disturbing. I don’t believe in nationalism, but if one wants to be proud of something one has absolutely no control over, it’d make more sense to be proud of the country one resides in rather than a country one’s ancestors migrated from.
Edit:
I watched Blood in the Face recently. Interesting documentary.
Well, this shows that people who value “Anglo-Saxon” highly, and value the landmass “Great Britain” highly, think that about 1,600 years is more than enough time to cause some group of people to be “from” a place. One wonders where their threshold lies. 1,200 years (thus excluding Danes/Norse)? 1,050 years (thus excluding Norman French)?
In any case, this little aside demonstrates how ridiculously arbitrary this kind of ancestral place-based tribal identity-making is. I would say the whole notion isn’t quite so ridiculous in the case if “indigenous” peoples, where there is a much clearer distinction between those whose some-ancestors arrived in a (more or less well defined) place 15,000 years ago, and those whose some-ancestors arrived 150 to 350 years ago…
It’s not liking country music itself, it’s because the lyrics to that song (and I’m totally wrong about the artist) appeal to exactly the same emotion that ‘you don’t need to see *my *birth certificate’ appeals to. (Why does that song have a verse about honoring soldiers? It’s so out of place, and seems stuck in cynically.)
If Illinois were a swing state, I would have mentioned it. Racists could be the difference in many, many states where the vote was close.
adaher’s original claim that all the racists are in states Romney’s going to win anyway didn’t bother you. Why not? Why does my saying there are plenty enough racists in swing states (yes, including Florida) bother you?
What isn’t strong down there is thinking that “the only way to be a ‘real American’ is to drive a pickup, drink beer, and listen to that stupid song by Uncle Cracker about being raised 'neath the Georgia Pines.” considering that a significant portion of those folks are from up North.
Again, I’m not denying that we have racists, I’m denying that there’s any significant connection between liking country music and being racist.
And I’m denying there’s any significant connection between liking that song and liking country music.
If it twangs, its country. No twang, no country. Kitty Wells is country, so is Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. Charlie Daniels was country forty years ago, when he was a hippy, and recently, when he became an asshole.
Zakalwe, I am a Northeast Elitist Liberal, and was about to post in complete agreement with you, and in defense of country music, but … tarbrush?
Was that ironic?
What do you think? Granted, probably not a very good use of irony. But since the whole thread is about dog whistles and “hidden” racism/xenophobia I couldn’t resist.
The song went double platinum and was Number 1 on the Billboard Country charts. Are you using some sort of “no true Scotsman” definition of country music here?
Did they try this with Clinton? with Gore? with Kerry? Would they try this shit if Obama’s father was from Britain or Israel?
Romney’s “joke” walks like a duck; quacks like a duck; stinks like a racist duck. Yes, he may hope some less-racist listeners think he’s accusing Obama of being a homo-loving crypto-Islamist or such rather than a Black, but the Otherness has its root in race.
Well, my first thought was that it was a reference tarring & feathering some-one (really), then I did a double-take.
(It was a very good use of irony.)
No, the song is country. But it’s possible to like country and hate that song.
If you look at my original quote, it’s clear that I’m going after people who think the lyrics of that song embody what a ‘real American’ is are the problem. I never said country.
Oh. Well shit. Here I was all fired up.
It’s possible to dislike any country song and like country. For example, I think “Truck Yeah” currently climbing the charts is an odious piece of shit.
I disagree about the “real American” thing with regard to that particular song. The verses in question aren’t over-the-top “America above all” patriotism. Just a reflection of the fact that freedom ain’t free. YMM(and obviously does)V. With that said, let’s end the hijack.
j666, thanks for the compliment! It was just a not-so-subtle twist of the “broad brush” thing, nothing deeper than that.
I was watching a couple of the national political shows this morning and one of the guests (Mary Matalin) was talking about the Romney family and mentioned how they, supposedly in an attempt to show that they are subject to the same kinds of problems and issues that everyone else is, mentioned that one of their sons was “troubled” or a “problem child” back when he was younger.
In everything I had heard or read before now, the Romney’s have been portrayed (especially here in the local Utah media) as the perfect Mormon Family, and nothing has been even whispered of any problems with any of their kids.
Does anyone know what Matalin was referring to?
He once had a decaf?