What are working-class Americans so afraid of?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=you with the face]
I’m not handwaving it away as unimportant, I just refuse to accept as gospel, without scrutiny, the meme that Obama is widely perceived as more elitist than the others. People may say they view him that way, but if they can’t point to anything more specific than the bitter thing that was blown out of proportion and the “OMG he ordered orange juice instead of coffee” tripe, this chick ain’t buying it.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that is your call of course. I think there are a combination of factors going on here as to why SOME working class American’s are ‘afraid’ of Obama…and racisim is only one of them. But it may be easier for people to focus on that as an easy out…it’s always easier to look at people who don’t agree with you as one dimensional. And it’s easier to paint folks with the racism brush and move on than to look at deeper factors.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
Since I haven’t done that anymore than you have, I gotta wonder why you’d say this.
[/QUOTE]

I acknowledged that racism is part of the mix. You made the bald statement:

[QUOTE=you with the face]
I really don’t think people see Obama as an elitist. They just don’t like him and use the elitist slur as an excuse. And it’s politically incorrect to call the guy uppity, so you reach for the word that is safe and kinda-sorta means a similar thing.
[/QUOTE]

YOU don’t think Obama isn’t an elitist. YOU think it’s all just an excuse to cover racism. YOU characterize such things in a cartoonish way (‘uppity’). I have’t characterized the racist angle in a cartoonish way, and in fact agree that it plays it part. Ehe?

-XT

42

I think race is part of it. Ugly as it is, I think there are some white working class folks who can’t stand to see someone of a different race succeeding when they’re struggling to keep up. It seems like there’s a suspicion that successful African Americans (outside of the entertainment industry) got where they are because of affirmative action.

But another, bigger part is that Clinton has shown herself to be a down and dirty scrapper who will do whatever it takes to win. I think that turns off a lot of middle and upper-class voters, but appeals to many working class voters.

43

[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
That’s fairly broad Mr.Moto…

That must be a non-New England thing because I’ve worked on many a town council in one capacity or another and I don’t know that I’ve seen anything resembling that here in CT. Perhaps it’s my towns demographic.
[/QUOTE]

Well, things are different everywhere, and I was mostly talking about working-class white voters of my experience.

Still, I think you’ll find things are different in Stamford than they are in Bridgeport or Hartford, right?

44

:smack:

Obviously this should have been ‘YOU don’t think Obama is an elitist’. Missed this before the edit window closed…not that I’m sure anyone is surprised by my lack of coherent sentence structure…

-XT

45

I think it’s fear of retaliation. People are worried that if black people are in charge they will treat white people the way that white people have often treated black people when they were in charge.

46

I think it’s Fear of a Black Hat…

-XT

47

[QUOTE=xtisme]
YOU don’t think Obama isn’t an elitist. YOU think it’s all just an excuse to cover racism.
[/quote]

And YOU* need to stop jumping to conclusions and read what I’m writing and not what YOU think I’m writing. I said that people don’t like him and call him elitist because its safe and convenient. And plus, there are some words (uppity being one of them) that are too unPC to use, so folks will call him elitist instead. You know, it would be great if we could talk about race on this board without someone yelping about broad brushes.

*Why the emphasis on “YOU” like this? It makes no damn sense and it makes you sound like a 7 year old. Come on now.

48

I am a 7 year old…well, 7 and a half…

[QUOTE=you with the face]
And YOU* need to stop jumping to conclusions and read what I’m writing and not what YOU think I’m writing. I said that people don’t like him and call him elitist because its safe and convenient. And plus, there are some words (uppity being one of them) that are too unPC to use, so folks will call him elitist instead. You know, it would be great if we could talk about race on this board without someone yelping about broad brushes.
[/QUOTE]

I did read what you wrote. I quoted it in fact. You said “I really don’t think people see Obama as an elitist. They just don’t like him and use the elitist slur as an excuse. And it’s politically incorrect to call the guy uppity, so you reach for the word that is safe and kinda-sorta means a similar thing.”

The emphasis on ‘you’ is because you are making these claims for yourself btw as if speaking from authority on this. ‘I really don’t think people see Obama as an elitist’. What do you base that on exactly? ‘They just don’t like him’ :rolleyes: ‘and use the elitist slur as an excuse’. You say that by fiat that you know their motives and that those motives are racist. This is reading exactly what you wrote mind…I’m not spinning this any way here. If you mis-spoke then that’s fine. If this didn’t come out the way you meant it then that’s fine to…say what you meant and we’ll move on from there. ‘And it’s politically incorrect to call the guy uppity’ … not only is this highly offensive (why didn’t you just say ‘uppity nigger’??) but again you are claiming by fiat that you know peoples REAL motives. Additionally it’s a strawman as no one is saying (here anyway) that Obama is ‘uppity’.

I know a lot of you Obama faithful are frustrated that your golden boy hasn’t sailed into the nomination before being anointed and sent off with trumpets and such to the White House (what…you mean he still has to beat McCain?!? What for???) but to me this sounds like the first steps to making excuses on the off chance he loses in November. You know the drill…‘Obama WOULD have been elected if only Americans weren’t so racist! It’s only because he’s black that he didn’t win!’ blah blah blah, etc etc etc.

Does racism play it’s part? To be sure it does. But this is a complex issue that the Obama faithful SEEM to be trying to boil down to mere racism without looking at any other issues here. The man IS perceived by some to be a bit of an elitist…hell, I think he IS an elitist. It’s one of the things that most appeals to me about him in fact, that he isn’t playing folksy to get votes with the common man but is instead taking a higher course, a more intellectual course. But I can see that this wouldn’t appeal to everyone…and the color of his skin isn’t the only reason that is so. I can look at other candidates who were white as the fallen snow and see that if they came across as elitist they didn’t fair so well with the scruffy blue collar types either.

YMMV of course and I don’t want to get into a brawl over this to be honest. I have no real dog in this fight…and frankly I can say with some personal knowledge from my own family that at least from a hispanic perspective racism seems to be the biggest negative toward Obama. :frowning: Shames me to admit it but there it is.

-XT

49

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]

But I think union voters especially vote very much based on two general principles:

  1. What has this person done for me

  2. What will they do for me in the future

[/QUOTE]

I think middle class voters vote very much based on “this looks like a guy I could sit down and have a beer with”. That’s why we’ve had an imbecile in the office for the past 8 years an a (very educated) “good ole boy” the 8 years before that.

50

[QUOTE=xtisme]
The emphasis on ‘you’ is because you are making these claims for yourself btw as if speaking from authority on this. ‘I really don’t think people see Obama as an elitist’. What do you base that on exactly?
[/quote]

The baselessness of their claim that he’s elitist and the inability of those who say this to put forth an argument that sounds even remotely convincing. Do I need anything else?

There you go again, jumping to the racism conclusion. The guy can be disliked for reasons other than race, and nothing I’m saying excludes those possibilities. But within that cache of reasons includes racism, yes. That’s what I think is a big factor in the demographic (white working-class) that is the subject of this thread. I think that it’s easy for people to call him elitist instead of them vocalizing other, less savory reasons for objecting to him. If you disagree with this fine, come up with a persuasive argument, but let’s not protray my opinion as some inflammatory hyperbole.

I just don’t get why you leveled the charge of me painting with a broad brush, with so little provocation. I mean, I might understand you saying that if I proclaimed that everyone voting against Obama was a racist. But I didn’t and never have on this board (and in fact, have come down others who seem to go in that direction).

If you yourself can admit that racism is at work within your own family wrt Obama, then you might want to rachet down the defensiveness when I suggest that the elitist card is more often than not an excuse, not a reason. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the same demographic who is most likely to say he’s elitist is the same demographic that historically has had friction with blacks with respect to jobs and other class-related matters.

You’re offended that I think some people are using elitist as code for uppity?

Pass this man a Kleenex and show him the door to MPSIMS.

51

[QUOTE=msmith537]
I think middle class voters vote very much based on “this looks like a guy I could sit down and have a beer with”. That’s why we’ve had an imbecile in the office for the past 8 years an a (very educated) “good ole boy” the 8 years before that.
[/QUOTE]

I think you’re vastly wrong on this, and it is an incredibly overused phrase.

The general sentiment isn’t supported by exit polling. The “looks like a guy I could have a beer with” argument seems to mostly be made by liberals who are trying to demonize society for its decision to vote for someone who wasn’t their pet candidate–they infer that, well, the candidate that won dumbed himself down because the dumb people in America didn’t know any better, if they did, they would have voted for the Democrat.

I think there are broadly two kinds of voters:

  1. Voters who vote based on who they think is the best candidate for themselves
  2. Voters who vote based on who they think is the best candidate for society.

Voters of the first type tend to be poor/middle class, because only the wealthy or disconnected (like college students, who aren’t wealthy but are mostly insulated from the real world) can usually stomach putting societal interests so high in their decision making.

When it comes to that first type of voters, part of deciding which candidate is the “best for me” is, “how well does this person relate to me?” Sure, to beer-guzzling factory workers from Erie, PA that might equate to “could I have a beer with this guy?” But we’re talking about one facet in the decision making process, even the beer guzzling factory worker is going to be concerned with which candidate is going to help him send his kids to college, retire comfortably, keep his job and et cetera.

Now, sometimes the whole “beer buddy” thing may be a deciding factor but this is usually when “all other things are equal” when you have two candidates that are very similar in fact, or even just perceived as very similar, such a distinction can be key (remember, perception truly is the same as reality in politics–if people believe it, and they vote based on that believe, then perception is just as real as the truth.)

For example in 2000 a great many people I knew didn’t think Bush and Gore were very different. It’s easy to look at how ludicrous that idea is in retrospect but at the time, they were both arguing pretty bland platforms. It was a boring time in politics, until election day and the Florida fiasco.

52

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
Well, things are different everywhere, and I was mostly talking about working-class white voters of my experience.

Still, I think you’ll find things are different in Stamford than they are in Bridgeport or Hartford, right?
[/QUOTE]

Oh I’m sure - but those a big cities - I’m from the eastern part of CT where the cities are much smaller…

53

[QUOTE=you with the face]
The baselessness of their claim that he’s elitist and the inability of those who say this to put forth an argument that sounds even remotely convincing. Do I need anything else?
[/QUOTE]

Some proof of your claim would be nice. You CLAIM that their perceptions of Obama being an elitist are wrong (THEIR perceptions mind)…while simply stating this as fact. As if because you see something one way that their perceptions are in error. It’s actually quite amusing…as are you.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
There you go again, jumping to the racism conclusion. The guy can be disliked for reasons other than race, and nothing I’m saying excludes those possibilities. But within that cache of reasons includes racism, yes. That’s what I think is a big factor in the demographic (white working-class) that is the subject of this thread. I think that it’s easy for people to call him elitist instead of them vocalizing other, less savory reasons for objecting to him. If you disagree with this fine, come up with a persuasive argument, but let’s not protray my opinion as some inflammatory hyperbole.
[/QUOTE]

You think it…so therefore it must be right. Gotcha. Hey, I was just repeating (exactly) what you wrote.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
I just don’t get why you leveled the charge of me painting with a broad brush, with so little provocation. I mean, I might understand you saying that if I proclaimed that everyone voting against Obama was a racist. But I didn’t and never have on this board (and in fact, have come down others who seem to go in that direction).
[/QUOTE]

You said what you said…and you then elaborated on it even in this post. Your first sentence in THIS post was “The baselessness of their claim that he’s elitist and the inability of those who say this to put forth an argument that sounds even remotely convincing.”…IOW the label of ‘elitist’ is baseless when applied to Obama (because you say so), therefore they must have some other motive (namely racism) for their stance.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
If you yourself can admit that racism is at work within your own family wrt Obama, then you might want to rachet down the defensiveness when I suggest that the elitist card is more often than not an excuse, not a reason. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the same demographic who is most likely to say he’s elitist is the same demographic that historically has had friction with blacks with respect to jobs and other class-related matters.
[/QUOTE]

You are the one who is claiming that people perception of Obama as being an elitist are wrong (because you don’t see it that way), and then extrapolating that they MUST be racists. I conceded in my first post that racism plays a part…but that this is a complex situation here. You want to make it black and white (heh) and allow no other explanation.

And btw, you are the one being defensive here…I already said I don’t have a dog in this fight.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
You’re offended that I think some people are using elitist as code for uppity?
[/QUOTE]

I said it was offensive…not that I was offended. Though honestly it’s a bit transparent that you are trying to label me as a racist by connecting ‘elitist’ with ‘racist’ via supposed code word connections.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
Pass this man a Kleenex and show him the door to MPSIMS.
[/QUOTE]

BOOM!

Damn…just when I thought I finally had an irony meter calibrated to the rigors of the Straight Dope, there you go and blow up another one. sigh Now I need to go and find another industrial strength one somewhere…
ETA: BTW, just for fun I did a google search on ‘perception Obama elitist’ and got…well, a lot of hits. Just for drill, try it and go into some of the links. Mind, I’m not saying they are right…just saying that there are certainly a lot of folks who THINK Obama is an elitist.

-XT

54

[QUOTE=Belowjob2.0]
It’s not just working class whites. It’s also Mexican Americans and East Asian Americans. Here in Cali, Obama lost both groups by big margins. Asians in particular, 3 to 1. A lot of Latinos polled here frankly admitted that they would never vote for a black person.
[/QUOTE]

Isn’t this really the the case. It seems most people in this country grapple with some sort of racial prejudice, and that Obama suffers because of it in almost every demographic. He does well with young people because they have less history with racial strife and baggage. They have also been primed by media that has been fairly good about presenting a wide variety of Black stars and figures to acclimate young people of all backgrounds to seeing Blacks in positions of power and reverence. He does well with Blacks because he is a democrat, AND because many Blacks have been turned off by the Clinton’s antics. Obama didn’t have the Black vote locked up until relatively recently in this contest. IMO, most Black people are voting for him because they are Black, not because he is. When the Clintons started to write off the Black vote, we started to rally around Obama.

It seems forced to focus on White blue-collar voters when his blackness seems to be an issue for nearly everyone.

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Does racism play it’s part? To be sure it does. But this is a complex issue that the Obama faithful SEEM to be trying to boil down to mere racism without looking at any other issues here. The man IS perceived by some to be a bit of an elitist…hell, I think he IS an elitist. It’s one of the things that most appeals to me about him in fact, that he isn’t playing folksy to get votes with the common man but is instead taking a higher course, a more intellectual course. But I can see that this wouldn’t appeal to everyone…and the color of his skin isn’t the only reason that is so.
-XT
[/QUOTE]

Don’t you think him being Black, and wanted to live, be accepted, and be educated in the places he’s has, has a lot to do with why he is perceived this way? Is there anyway a Black person, who has a serious chance at higher political office, could be dramatically different from Obama? Maureen Dowd talks about this in her latest op-ed :

[QUOTE=Dowd]
It must be hard for Obama, having applied all his energy over the years to rising above the rough spots in his background, making whites comfortable with him, striving to become the sophisticated, silky political star who looks supremely comfortable in a tux. Now he must go into reverse and stoop to conquer with cornball photo ops.

“I do think that one of the ironies of the last two or three weeks was this idea that somehow Michelle and I are elitist, pointy-headed intellectual types,” he said, adding sincerely, “I filled up my own gas tanks.”

It’s hard not to be who you are, but it’s doubly hard to be who you’ve strived not to be. Obama not only has to figure out how to unwind with a Bud. He has to rewind his life.
[/QUOTE]

Do you think he, as a Black man, could have been successful at Harvard Law School without being an the type of guy he is? Being palatable to White people generally entails being fairly eloquent, intellectual, non-threatening, and affable. Those same characteristics are being used against him to paint him as an elitist. What choice did he realistically have? Obama couldn’t be Bush even if he wanted to because a folksy, ivy-league Black guy that cruises by with a gentleman’s C would be considered a token. You say it has little to do with race, but I think his race has largely dictated his public persona, who he is, and how people respond to him.

55

[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Do you think he, as a Black man, could have been successful at Harvard Law School without being an the type of guy he is? Being palatable to White people generally entails being fairly eloquent, intellectual, non-threatening, and affable. Those same characteristics are being used against him to paint him as an elitist. What choice did he realistically have? Obama couldn’t be Bush even if he wanted to because a folksy, ivy-league Black guy that cruises by with a gentleman’s C would be considered a token. You say it has little to do with race, but I think his race has largely dictated his public persona, who he is, and how people respond to him.
[/QUOTE]

Obama is living in a catch-22. You said it well.

56

[QUOTE=xtisme]
I said it was offensive…not that I was offended. Though honestly it’s a bit transparent that you are trying to label me as a racist by connecting ‘elitist’ with ‘racist’ via supposed code word connections.

[/QUOTE]

No it’s not apparent that I was trying to label you a racist, since 1) I never said or implied anything about you personally, 2) I didn’t even know you were among those who view him as elitist, and 3) I don’t care enough about your opinion of Obama to attack you in a roundabout way.

Consider this: I’m sure a lot of nice people go around saying that Obama might be a Muslim terrorist and that’s why he’s not going to get their vote, and I have as much respect for that opinion as I do the elitist bullshit. Yeah, I’m a bitter meanie. Eight years of buffoonery in the White House and a voting public that latches on to scare words like “terrorist”, “WMDs”, and “elitist” will do that to a person.

57

[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Don’t you think him being Black, and wanted to live, be accepted, and be educated in the places he’s has, has a lot to do with why he is perceived this way?
[/QUOTE]

Certainly…the fact that he is black is going to put the man under a microscope. No doubt about that at all. And the fact that he’s a well educated and articulate black man is going to also factor in to people perceptions.

I said it was complex. However, the fact that he is black isn’t the ONLY reason he is considered a bit of an elitist by people…and the fact that he is black isn’t the ONLY reason some don’t want to vote for him.

[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Do you think he, as a Black man, could have been successful at Harvard Law School without being an the type of guy he is?
[/QUOTE]

I think that his success has more to do with what and who he is than the color of his skin, if that is what you are getting at there. I think it’s admirable that he is successful in spite of the fact that he is black.

[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Being palatable to White people generally entails being fairly eloquent, intellectual, non-threatening, and affable.
[/QUOTE]

Certainly…guess what? It make white people palatable to other whites to. It helps hispanic people merge in (why do you think I tried so hard to lose my hispanic accent? I worked for literally years so that my spoken English sounds…well, exactly like your’s probably does, without a trace of hispanic lilt).

[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Those same characteristics are being used against him to paint him as an elitist.
[/QUOTE]

To be sure…but here is the thing. He IS an elitist. The fact that he’s a black elitist puts him more under a microscope than some, but frankly most people who come across to blue collar types as elitists don’t generally do well in that crowd whether they be lilly white or black, brown or blue. Why do you think folks like GW and Clinton try so hard to be ‘just folks’? Billy boy is a Rhodes Scholar for gods sake…yet he comes across as hillbilly, someone who you could play pool with or have a beer with. Personally I find that folksy shit repulsive when it’s so obviously an affectation…but then I’m an elitist too. Which would be who Obama appeals to me so much, considering I like the man, respect the man, and disagree with his politics.

[QUOTE=brickbacon]
You say it has little to do with race, but I think his race has largely dictated his public persona, who he is, and how people respond to him.
[/QUOTE]

Did I say it has ‘little to do with race’? If so then I misspoke (though I don’t recall saying that). I said it was complex and that it didn’t SOLELY have to do with race. That there are other factors at play here that go beyond race.

Honestly I think that the whole racial angle is a boondoggle and a way to look ahead for excuses if Obama doesn’t win (which I highly doubt myself…I still think he’s going to walk away with the thing, assuming he gets past Clinton). To my mind it’s a wash between people who are voting for Obama BECAUSE he’s black and those who won’t vote for him because he’s black. Which leave a lot of folks who are voting for him because they actually agree with his message, respect him and actually think he will make a good President. YMMV…that’s how I see it.

-XT

58

[QUOTE=xtisme]
<snip>
Honestly I think that the whole racial angle is a boondoggle and a way to look ahead for excuses if Obama doesn’t win (which I highly doubt myself…I still think he’s going to walk away with the thing, assuming he gets past Clinton). To my mind it’s a wash between people who are voting for Obama BECAUSE he’s black and those who won’t vote for him because he’s black. Which leave a lot of folks who are voting for him because they actually agree with his message, respect him and actually think he will make a good President. YMMV…that’s how I see it.

-XT
[/QUOTE]

I think I’ll have to agree with you right there. A lot of people I deal with at CT for Obama say things very close to this, and a lot of colleagues and close friends feel this was as well. It’s what keeps Obama in the race. Enough people belive in him or his movement to help propell him onto the big show in the fall.
Additionally, lot’s of upper level dems feel this way as well, and are throwing their weight behind him.

59

I think racism and sexism, at the surface, is probably not the issue for most people, but some, while not avowedly racist at all, themselves, fear that nominating a white female or an African American male is, in effect, making a gift to the other side of a few percentage points. If five percent of the electorate really is racist or sexist, so that they WILL NOT vote for Obama or Clinton, that could very well affect the outcome in November.

For my part, as a Democrat–as much as I don’t want to see McCain win, I’m extremely disappointed with both Clinton’s and Obama’s response to the price of fuel. Offering a gas tax holiday is much like an employer who says, “I know the company is going down the tubes, and we’ll probably all be out of work in six months, but here’s my plan: We’ll give everybody a free lunch next Friday. And oh yeah, you can start wearing Casual Friday, every day!”. That’s been the main focus. And while both candidates have offered some ideas for the longer term, they are not emphasizing them as they should. In the time we’ve been talking about a federal gas tax holiday, the price per gallon has gone up more than the per-gallon tax rate.

Say what you will of JFK. He might have from a rich family that paved his way into politics. He might have had a conniving, power-obsessed father who had founded the family fortune on Prohibition-Era bootlegging. And our Viet Nam debacle could probably be laid at his feet as much as anyone’s.

But at least he got up on his hind legs and said we should send a man to the moon, not because it was easy but because it was hard. It would be hard, but we were a mighty people capable of great things, and would rise to the challenge. We need that same kind of drive on the energy front.

60

What the hell do you think working-class Americans are afraid of? Dying on the street of an untreated chronic condition, living in a box! Pardon me if I didn’t read the OP… isn’t the answer to this one obvious? Working-class Americans are often one paycheck or less from this situation!