This is your response to "bittergate" after your return from your Malibu weekend? Why not include some of the photos from the beach at Malibu? That would be lovely. Something to look while looking at your out of touch commentary.

I don't think that the argument is that economic distress causes gun culture or the other things. Rather, the argument is that people vote on gun issues or non-economic issues because voters don't perceive that their distressed economic sitation will change depending on who they vote for.

I think the point ... and I'm not sure if I agree ... is as a consequence of long-term economic distress, rural areas are voting on gun culture or religion, rather than pocketbook issues.

I think at best it's partially correct. You have the "after NAFTA, what are the Democrats offering that's different?" voters, but you also have the fact that things like gays-in-the-military really do upset a lot of people. I don't know what the mix is.

I think at its heart, Obama's comments were addressing how the real causes of economic stress are pushed to the sidelines by attempts to separate voters on values issues. It was very clumsy phrasing and he would have been better served if he inserted a republican 'they' as those trying to make rural Americans focus on the issues he listed.
Really stupid non-issue, though.

I looked it as trying to explain why some people become so emotional and intransigent in their views and politics. They've lost so much of thier particular way of life (and blaming it on outside forces beyond their control) that they're going to dig in their heels to protect what's left. Doesn't matter that gun culture and religious tradition go back for centuries - right now, these people are ultra-defensive (for good reason) and see no reason or need to compromise.

As usual with the media it lends itself to shallow analysis and redicule, rather than attempting to explain the situations and motivations of real people. Kudos to Obama for recognizing it and talking about it (after all, these are people who should be Democrats, except for antipathy for some issues that are very important to other Democrats and they shouldn't be taken for granted) and shame on Hillary and the media for ignorantly piling-on without giving a good examination of what he said.

I don't think the meaning of what he said is how you've interpreted it.

I think you're the first liberal pundit I've read who DOESN'T think this is true, and I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Obviously, economic problems don't suddenly cause people to love guns or religion more -- but it's a truism, a correct truism, I think -- that stress tends to make people return to their emotional roots, whatever that happens to be. For me, it's matzoh ball soup and "Singin' in the Rain" or "The Daily Show," for someone else it might be guns and Lou Dobbs. And then politicians exploit this stress.

Robert Reich has a terrific post up about it.

honestpartisan and Nicholas are correct, Kevin. In no way did BHO say that economic anxiety among blue-collar voters "created" gun culture or other "culture" issues.

As others are posting the Obama statements are about why people of fractured circumstance vote against their own economic interest.

As others have said, the idea is not that Religion and Gun Culture are a result of economic distress... it's that after 25 years of economic distress and empty promises from politicians, those things are the only things they think their vote is going to effect... so it's very easy for Republicans to use these wedge issues against Democrats.

Obama's speech reminded me of the book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?", about why many rural and poor people seem to vote agains their own economic interests. I also think that it is true that some people feel they are free when they own guns but don't bother to question ways in which they are part of a system that limits their life choices and that is oppressive. Maybe Obama's speech sounded condescending, but it was accurate.

I think that Kevin is nitpicking at specifics in Obama's argument. It is hard to encapsulate the helplessness that various people and communities feel, and to decipher the root cause.

Obama went specific when he should have went meta. Kevin decided to deconstruct the specific instead of the overwhelming feeling of helplessness/hopleessness that many of these people are living with.

"This stuff just doesn't seem to be related to recent economic distress in any serious way at all."

Kevin, you're missing the point, I think. Obama's claim is that people have lost control over a very basic part of their lives -- economic security. Unions shrink, plants close and jobs disappear, the jobs that remain pay less and have fewer benefits, promised pension benefits disappear, and all the while the rich get richer and "the government" favors the rich and big business over "the little guy."

And because something so important has changed so drastically in their lifetimes, they cling even tighter to the other areas of their lives that are important to them. And they act out in inappropriate ways because of fear and because of misplaced anger and frustration.

I think what Obama was getting at was that economic troubles are why people increasingly VOTE according to religious issues, gun culture, immigration, etc. Not that it explains the lifestyles themselves. Cling = vote.

At the very least, Obama seems to be saying that voting/clinging to God or guns is a natural reaction to inaction from Democratic and Republican administrations. The Thomas Frank-type argument normally seems to view red state-voting as some sort of cognitive disfunction.

"But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry?"

Yes, I do. I grew up in a small town in Pa, and still visit it often. There is no doubt that as the financial and professional fortunes of these good people declined, they turned to various salves, and hating on other people became one of the major ones. Religion transformed into a sugar-coating for thinking ill of others, from libruls to Democrats and so on.

Several generations have seen their self-worth flushed away as they were told to get used to worse jobs, worse pay, worse educations, worse social services, etc.

I can recall no liberal or Democratic or other effort, by the way, to take away anyone's hunting rifles. I do recall the NRA (the "R" is for "rifle," ironically enough) making a huge amount of money by scaring these people into thinking someone WANTED to take away their rifles.

History, and facts, matter. Obama's remarks were on the money if inartfully phrased. But no matter - it gives the gas-bag press an opportunity to go on and on about how noble is American "faith." Well, that and the Pope's visit.

Sheesh.

I thought of it yesterday -- before Kristol's NY Times column today -- that Obama's comment could be interpreted as "religion is the opiate of the masses."

I'm not commenting on the correctness of that statement, only on how the GOP will be interpreting it between now and November. From this perspective, it's a very, very, very big problem for the Democratic Party (assuming Obama gets the nomination).

As economic systems of identification--labor unions, etc.,-- have faded in the last twenty or so years, lifestyle identification has risen.

But I'm still not sure Obama's right from an analysis standpoint. For one thing, the areas that have lost the most jobs--like the Rust Belt--seem to be voting more heavily Democratic than they were a generation ago, even though Democrats have embraced free trade.

If you read David Coleman on Huffington Post, who was actually there at the San Francisco fundraiser, Obama's comments were part of a longer answer to a volunteer's inquiry about how to talk to Pennsylyvania voters. And Obama's answer, per Coleman, emphasized the differences of people in various regions, and talked about how the conversations should be about the voters' real feelings, instead of 10 point programs. And, interestingly, Obama also talked about the alienation and bitterness of black youths in the inner cities, and how that gets expressed in violence.

The piece that Kevin is focusing on, and everyone else, is a small part of a larger extemporization about what Obama observed voters cared about. And yes, the phrasing sucked a little (Nobody likes to be told they "cling" to anything). But I think the attempt really was to express what other commenters have noted, that if someone who is in a bad economic position can't do anything about it, they divert their energies, including depression and anger, into stuff they can do something about and that politicians will help them with, like stopping gay marriage and any regulation of guns.

The interest in guns and religion wasn't caused by economic bad times. But it's a good way of distracting voters from thinking as hard about how to solve economic problems.

Obama, as he has clarified, was merely saying that people are pissed off, and politicians have exploited their anger over issues like gun control and "religious values" and immigration and race, to get them to vote against their own economic interests.

Granted, he didn't say it very well, but he was in a private fund-raising event in San Francisco. Anyone who misrepresents what he's saying as being "anti-gun" or "anti-religion" at this point is either unaware of the facts, stupid, or willfully misrepresenting Obama's statements to score political points (eg, Hillary Clinton, Bill Kristol). I think people are starting to see through this game, though. Reasonable people like Obama too much, and the more these outlandish accusations are thrown at him, the better he's going to look when he rises above them.

Point well missed, but thats the problem with every one taking this one dumb quote as some kind of Obama bible.

The point is, that voting for your own economic interest has been dead for decades. The only people who listen and really do something are interest groups like the NRA. So vote for the NRA and you at least get something tangible from the government. Pols like Hillary wont do anything and you know it.

Im more interested in Vittergate and why adult diaper baby hasnt resigned.

But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry?

No.

But you just wrote a really dumbass post attacking that very strawman.

Good job, Kevin.

Jesus Kevin, I'm not an Obamabot, but my god man. Read 'What's the matter with Kansas' and come back and repost.

"It's just that it was largely unnoticed until liberals started trying to take guns away in the 60s and 70s."
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Nice to spout NRA talking points. There are those wanting the sale of guns more carefully vetted. Some want handguns regulated so that you can't pick one up for 20 bucks on a street corner. Some want people of verifiable mental incapacity or those abusing drugs and alcohol kept away from guns. Some say carrying a concealed weapon in public should require special permission. Very few advocate zero ownership of any type of firearm by anyone in the public, thereby leaving at a minimum ownership of rifles for home protection. "take away guns" is unnecessarily inflammatory and certainly inaccurate. I assume you were being sarcastic or flip, no?

Once you clear out all the meta-clutter, though, what really strikes me as odd about Obama's statement is that, on its merits, it's largely untrue, isn't it?

No, Obama's simply paraphrasing "What's the Matter with Kansas."

Bigotry, fear, and superstition are how corrupt politicians get insecure voters to vote against their interests.

This is not news. What's news is that a major party candidate just said it out loud, so the establishment is freaking out.
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"Once you clear out all the meta-clutter, though, what really strikes me as odd about Obama's statement is that, on its merits, it's largely untrue, isn't it? "

What he said was, for the most part, true. I've lived in that small-town America for the last 25 years, and guns and religion, coupled with rabid anti-immigration sentiment is all anyone talks about at the local coffee shop. Obama nailed it, and for that he gets slammed. Small town people don't like to see themselves in mirrors, just has Bush has probably all mirrors from the White House.

Kevin, you really need to get out and see the world.

Obama's point, apparently lost on Kevin, is that all those things -- guns, religion, whatever -- are long-standing fixtures of American culture. Economic hard times did not create them. (That's an idiotic reading.) But, political frustration (not hard times, per se) has led to people voting on guns and religion, rather than on economics.

Whether Obama was being condescending or elitist or pandering or whatever, I don't know.

A better question is whether you are being an asshole, lazy, or just clueless.

Seriously, Kevin: try to avoid stepping into the shitpiles that others lay for you. Do you want to be next Amy Sullivan?

Granted, he didn't say it very well, but he was in a private fund-raising event in San Francisco.

Obama also said it four years ago in a non-San Francisco location.

But there's Hillary, playing the "San Francisco" card today, just like a Republican.
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Conversely, weekends at the Cape seem to foster an insane obliviousness (Chris? Tim?) to the bleakness of the prospects faced by many Americans. When your kid's only road to college includes a stop in Iraq, when you hope that your aged parent's final illness is quick and cheap, when you see your job heading south, DESPITE doing everything the way you were taught to do things . . .
Actually, the Parade wage survey is a pretty good tell. The more millions someone makes, the more ephemeral their career: 500 cops, paramedics. teachers or hospice nurses won't make as much as Miley Cyrus.

kevin if you can extract your pampered ass from Malibu for a weewk or two and actually talk to or spend time with the people that Obama was talking about you might find that your elitist viewpont of how they really think is off base. There's an old sayingt"some people need a plexiglass window in their stomachs to see where they're going". Figure it out.

I’ll play devils’ advocate and defend Obama on this point:

What Obama is saying basically describes American politics from 1964 to today: White, middle-class resentment. This is where the whole term MAR (Middle American Radicals) springs from. And it’s a resentment born of then sense that people who live in small towns, mid-sized factory towns (like the one I grew up in, Beloit, Wisconsin) and urban ethnic neighborhoods have no control over their lives and are at the mercy of trends both economic, cultural and political.

I hate to break the news to everyone, but politics in the U.S. in this day and age is about stoking fears and resentments. Both sides do it. Anyone who believes (as many neocons apparently do) that politics is this grand clash of ideas is foolish and stupid because as we have seen both parties believe in a grand consensus of free trade, foreign interventionism and big governments. Anyone who questions this consensus (like Ron Paul and Mike Gravel for example) is regarded as a loony not to be taken seriously. So politics is not about ideas, it’s about using fear and resentment to motivate different blocs of voters to vote for the candidates that only winds up hurting their interests in the end. Dr. Thomas Fleming said as much in his Chronicles column a few months back. Fear and resentment are very powerful motivators. Obama basically said what political consultants already know. We just don’t like to hear it.

Could he have worded it better? Perhaps. But I’m sure we know of or are folk who “cling” to their Bibles as hard as they can because we have faith and when Charlton Heston (RIP) says “you can take my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers” you can bet he’s clinging to it pretty hard. To “cling” means to hold on tight and I’m sure we either are or know people who hold fast to their guns and Bibles.

And why do they? Because in many cases, it’s all they’ve got. And such persons have every right to be bitter. Bitter about seeing their jobs go to Mexico. Bitter about seeing their kids bused from their neighborhood schools to ones across town. Bitter about seeing their values mocked in the wider culture. Bitter about being lied to about the benefits of NAFTA or the Iraq war and the supposed $1.00 a gallon gas we told we would be paying. Bitter about seeing THEIR kids go to war and die while the elites stay in the club box cheering them on. Bitter about seeing their towns socially engineered with the influx of immigrants without any kind of discussion as to whether this a good idea or not. Bitter about being let down by both the Democrats and Republicans, who supposedly talk good games on the issues they care about but in the end do nothing to help despite such empty promises.

Why else would Hilary Clinton repudiate the one concrete accomplishment of her husband’s Administration, the passage of NAFTA through Congress, unless she knew that bitterness existed? Shouldn’t she be celebrtating NAFTA’s benefits? She knows full damn well if she did that in Pennsylvania and Ohio they’d run her out of town on a rail. So she’ll down a boilermaker and pretend she’s one of the guys, this gal born of the upscale Chicago suburbs, a former Goldwater Girl and Wellsley and Yale Law School graduate. Yes, she truly is the salt of the earth. And of course there’s man-of-the people John McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals who was born on a tropical estate in the Canal Zone and who once told a South Carolina textile worker concerned about keeping his job and I quote “I didn’t know you’re biggest ambition in life is to work in the mill.” How is this any less condescending that what Obama said?

I said the same thing on my post about MARs: MARs fear. And they have good reason to fear, because they don’t know what blow is coming next. What they want more than anything is some sort of stability, so they don’t have to worry if they’re going to be out of work, or if their gun will be confiscated or they can’t pray even in their own churches. Maybe such fears seem irrational, but given the amount of cultural, economic and political changes over the past 45 years that has buffeted such communities, such fears can’t be discounted. The political consultants and politicians and exploit those fears every election cycle, because they know they exists and they know they can exploit them.

So Obama clumsly said what everyone knows to be true but doesn’t want to admit because that would spoil some sort of twisted image of Heartland America being a happy place of pure American values and virtues instead of pockets of seething bitterness. Yes the former can be true but the latter as just as true and if it wasn’t then the populist movement, the KKK, the religious right, the Prohibition movement, the veterans movement after World War II, Harlan County, Kentucky, labor strife, Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus, Tim McVeigh, Oklahoma City and militia movement, the George Wallace, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan and David Duke camapaigns, none of these things would have happened.

It’s good in a way that the primaries in Pennsylvania and Ohio and focused on the problems of America’s industrial heartland but those persons covering it have done so in their usual ham-handed and clumsly way, like they were commenting on the antics of an animal exhibit at the zoo. It’s hard for elites in the MSM to truly understand American’s small towns and rural areas because they don’t live there. They don’t know people there. Perhaps a few of them grew up in such places but they decided that working in the mill or on the farm or at the convience store or the auto garage wasn’t for them so they moved out and upwards to Ivy League educations and posh East Side apartments or Georgetown town homes. Maybe its true that Obama, like Daniel Larison said in his blog Eunomia, sees himself as sort of amabassador for MARs to the elites to try an explain why they vote the way they do. But I’ll at least give Obama credit for being more perceptive about American politics than a thousand brain dead political reporters have been.

Your answer is proof that manufactured outrage works on Dems as well as ditto heads. This is the last gasp of HRC to try and take down BHO...and it might have worked if ginned up by someone with more credibility.

I think the loss of manufacturing jobs has entrenched gun culture because that's what is left -- no one in my neighborhood made a big deal about guns or hunting when I was a kid in W.Pa., even though many of my neighbors did hunt. Now, it's a badge of identification to own guns, and to a lesser extent, hunt (which actually takes patience and skill and involves getting up early and freezing your buns off so it's less popular). There's more of a divide between people who own guns and hunt and people who don't.

I've lived in that small-town America for the last 25 years, and guns and religion, coupled with rabid anti-immigration sentiment is all anyone talks about at the local coffee shop. Obama nailed it, and for that he gets slammed.

I've seen it in suburban Texas for twenty years.

Obama should have said "they're just punking your bony ass!" Still would've been true.

But no one in the establishment press wants to talk about how poor whites are their betters' bitch.
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It ain't the "bitter" part that stings, it's the "cling" part. This is pretty much standard academic/Marxist cant, explaining away the views of the deluded peasants, poor things.

Here's wingnut propagandist Laura Ingraham's indictment of what "liberals" supposedly think, from Eric Alterman's column:

"They think we're stupid. They think our churchgoing is stupid. They think our flag-flying is stupid...They think where we live--anywhere but in or near a few major cities--is stupid...They think owning a gun is stupid. They think our abiding belief in the goodness of America and its founding principles is stupid."

So Obama goes to a high-dollar fundraiser in Marin, and (thinking he's not being recorded), basically gives them the whole thing. Oh, except for the Founding Fathers, whom Rev. Wright attacks over the weekend.

He's just half-baked is the problem, and anybody who kids him- or herself that this isn't a problem just hasn't been paying attention since, oh, 1968 or so.

...It's just that it was largely unnoticed until liberals started trying to take guns away in the 60s and 70s. The rise of the Christian right has lots of causes, but it's part of a long American religious tradition that has very little to do with the ups and downs of the economy. And bigotry hasn't increased in the past 25 years, so that part doesn't even make sense on its own terms.

My knowledge of the historical context of this issue is nonexistent, but the statement above sounds awfully close to what any Republican or a Fox News hack would say. Are we to conclude that the Fox News is fair and balanced after all?

This is the last gasp of HRC to try and take down BHO...and it might have worked if ginned up by someone with more credibility.

It might've worked if it hadn't come out on Friday.

By this morning, MSNBC had video of Hillary's audience groaning at her for this shit.

They know she doesn't believe this crap.
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The majority of your commenters (and Robert Reich) have got this right and you've missed the boat on this one Kevin. I don't think Obama meant there was a neat one for one correlation between economic instability and the list of concerns he highlighted, but does anyone really doubt that when people's economic security is at risk, when they feel it's NOT likely their children will do as well as - let alone better than - their fathers and mothers, then they will be less tolerant and generous, less open to new and foreign ideas and people. How many historians would deny that the economics of post WW I Germany helped set the stage for the nativist, militarist politics that followed ?
It may have been inartfully expressed, but the gist of the idea seems quite logical. Preferring the empirical, I'm sure it's not hard to find studies and statistics that support the larger point.

Kevin,
You might want to check out the hate group stats for some states with lots of out of work folks. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps pretty good track of this sort of stuff. If I remember correctly, Pennsylvania and Indiana both rank pretty high for numbers of represented groups, as do Texas and California. I think in places like Indiana and Pennsylvania where the manufacturing jobs have evaporated, there probably is a correlation to increasing bigotry. It's probably human nature to need someone to blame or look down our nose at.

1) Obama was condescending. Even he admits it. His words were very poorly chosen. Let's just get that out of the way.

2) He was also absolutely right. The politicians line their own pockets and those of their hedge fund managers at the expense of working people. This is as it ever was.

3) To distract people from the righteous anger they feel about #2, they crank up the social issues. Again, this is as it ever was.

4) Hilbot and McCain are making Obama's point for him by trying to make hay out of this.

5) Obama should stay on the offensive here. Every time they bring it up, say "See!? Instead of talking about why your jobs left, they want to do the FOX News sideshow!"
And every time he's accused of being elitist, say this: "Again and again, throughout the course of this campaign, the American people have proven they have a clear-eyed understanding of the problems this country faces. They don't need me or anyone else to dumb things down. In fact, I'm constantly hearing from people who appreciate a little honest discourse. So, I'm sorry Senator/Sean/Rush/Wolf, I'm not going to dumb things down for you."

But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry?

Yes, they do. When the people's faith in government as an institution fails, they turn to other institutions they can believe in, like local traditions or their church.

The belief that the federal government exists solely in order to enrich black people at the expense of whites is out there. Can you think of a better explanation for this belief? They're alienated from their government so they retreat into a clan. Their clan feels the same way as they do, like the government doesn't care about them. So the government must care about the other clans instead.

Sunday, on one of the four news shows I watched I saw/heard the entire verbal paragraph of the Obama comment. It clearly, in context, made sense and rang true. People who feel left out, over looked or worse yet, screwed over by society tend to attach themselves to ideas and ways of thinking that are familiar and give comfort. Republicans have been taking advantage of this for years with their Gods, guns and gays campaigns.

I knew immediately what Obama meant and he was right. BUT, the lead up to, the support of, "the money quote" is many sentences in length and except in that one instance is always edited out of the dozen or so stories I have heard referring to it.

And so the theme out of the Clinton campaign is that Obama is an elitist while HRC, slugging down Boiler Makers in a PA bar (made with Crown Royal), is not. WHAT?

In the mid 1990s, I had a neighbor who was a young reporter for the city's top news radio station. On the topic of politics and the press he told me that veteran candidates speak in short declarative sentences. Never build up to your point with premises that if edited out leave your key point unclear. If it can't fit on a bumper sticker, don't say it.

Surely then there is a lesson for Obama - talk with the press, and stupid people, in mind.

It's been said that we get the government we deserve. Yup.

What Obama should say:

Don't you wish Clinton and McCain would show even half as much enthusiasm for protecting workers as they do attacking me?

Good news: a mainstream candidate is pulling the sheet off the GOD GUNS GAYS machine.

Bad news: Obama should have focussed on the corrupt politicans, not their marks. No one likes to be called a mark, but they'll gladly run from a con man and pretend they were never conned ...

... just like so many people have done on WMD in Iraq.
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Honestpartisan nails it in one. The point isn't that economic hardship causes people to turn to religion or develop a rural gun culture: The point is that, if neither party is doing anything about stagnating middle-class wages - if both parties have offered little more than "I feel your pain" pablum for twenty years - then voters will choose the candidate they'd rather have a beer with, i.e. the one who claims to share their beliefs.

There's no incentive for these voters to consider economic issues, because they keep getting squeezed regardless... and by now they're profoundly cynical when candidates show up at their doorstep every election cycle and promise to change things. The good news for Obama is that voters are also increasingly cynical about the politicians who claim to share their values - especially when the claims are laughably false, as with Hillary's sudden embrace of her inner Elmer Fudd.

Have you been outside of California recently? His point is entirely valid--he loses style points for creating some overly callous-sounding soundbytes, but he's scratching at something important. These people are tired of having their collective chain yanked by Republicans and Democrats. When they go to vote, is it any suprise that they vote their fears instead of their hopes? Of course, it doesn't help that their fears have been exploited, but there's no trust in the status quo regardless.

If you had listened to his speech to a steelworkers local in Steelton, PA over the weekend, you would have understood this. He shows that he gets it; what's more, his audience gets that Obama gets it.

Wow, everyone here is right on the money.

In a way you almost have to admire the Republican plan - take away the people's bread and then convince them the Democrats want to take away their circuses.

Take the public's money and then distract them by telling them "forget that for a minute, those scummy Liberals are trying to take away your (guns, faith, kids, whatever they hold dear)."

This is very difficult to combat, even with normally sensible people. The authoritarians are pretty much a lost cause in the short run.

They think we're stupid. They think our churchgoing is stupid. They think our flag-flying is stupid...They think where we live

If Obama were stupid, he wouldn't try to explain it to them.

It's parasites like Ingraham who think Americans are stupid, 'cause they keep pulling the same ploys.

Too often, they're right.
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Sen. Obama was being a sociologist.

My country is trillions of dollars in debt. Its industrial base is gone. It now stands for agression and torture. Its system of checks and balances is barely alive. On scientific issues such as stem-cell research and global climate change, it has gone AWOL. It spends vastly more on health care than any other nation in the world, but covers less and less of its population. Ordinary people see their pensions disappearing and their health care costs rising, while failed CEOs walk away with millions. And on and on.

But, hey, I'm not bitter. I fly my flag and wear my pin. I've got a "power of pride" bumper sticker on my pickup. I've got my Bible and my gun, a six-pack in the fridge and sports on my hi-def. And I know who to hate: the foreigners sneaking in for welfare benefits and the liberals supporting the islamo-fascists. I know because Rush and Savage tell me so.

I vote for real men, like George W. Bush (a war hero and cowboy, as well as a truly "compassionate conservative" who would never hurt anyone) and John McCain (a self-made man who would never abandon his family, as well as a really "straight-talker" who would never change his positions).

Thank God we now know that Barack Obama is both a a Marxist and a Muslim, a fake Christian whose hate-filled pastor doesn't appreciate how blacks in America actually benefitted from slavery and segregation, and an elitist who bowls poorly and drinks (God forgive me for saying this) orange juice.

An early, frontrunning effort for Kevin's weakest post of the week.

Obama was actually pretty spot-on, if you see him saying the intensity and tenacity of rural gun culture, rural racism, etc., continues to hold on or even get stronger.

Grand Moff Texan,

In general Social Dominators seek out the gullible and exploit them. One way to do that, obviously, is to convince them "those guys over there think you're stupid . . . and the rest of the rant."

Remember how convinced the gun owners were that Kerry wanted to take their guns, even though Kerry was a hunter with no intention of taking their guns?

"Truth" is a poor defense against this prejudice and slander.

If we really really wanted to create a country of mostly tolerant liberals we need to raise everyone's standard of living and put is security-producing safety nets like pensions and healthcare. The problem is that instead of rising up to Denmark our country has been sinking down to Pakistan.

The ultra-rich and their minion Republican party know exactly how to manipulate and control the poor on the way down.

From Dave Lindorf in today's Counterpunch:

In 1992, neighbors in Spencer told me they were voting for George H. W. Bush-a patrician blue blood if ever there was one-because Bill Clinton, if elected "would take away our guns."

Irvine is not Zenith.

Unfortunately, being a sociologist is not his job. His job is to win the general, and comments like this don't help.

Over and over I've seen this referred to in terms of the "bitter" comment. But the real insult is the "cling" part of it which implies weakness on the part of rural voters.

This was a gaffe and his efforts to pull another W.O.R.M. at the faith forum was silly. RE Scripture and "Clinging to what is good" like he was really complimenting the voters? Please. I can see how that applies to faith, but it will take some serious spin to put guns and xenophobia in the same category.

An early, frontrunning effort for Kevin's weakest post of the week.

Yeah but you must admit the comments have been excellent. Really good job people.

But the real insult is the "cling" part of it which implies weakness on the part of rural voters.

Time to call a spade a spade. If rural voters use this as an excuse to go back to their abusers, then fuck them anyway.

"Oz didn't make you a bitch. You were born that way."
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I'm amazed at how many people on this blog feel it necessary to explain, in great length, what it was that Obama was TRYING to get at.

People, you can twist yourselves into pretzels. But your rationalizing on a progressive blog, to essentially elitist liberals, is a waste of your time. It is JSUT THIS elitist attitude - you, with your superior intellect, can explain away all the lower class ill political choices - is what pisses blue collar democrats off.

Obama blundered. Period. And given that his support with blue collar dems was weak prior to this gaffe, this will only make it weaker. And you can be that in the GE, if Obama is the chosen one, that the Reps will make hay with this, and the Dems will lose the white house.

Now this incident isn't quite up to par with a bimbo, or dill pickle sucking while wearing tin foil hat, but it leaves him a lot less wiggle room.

I guess I read it a bit differently than Kevin. I think what he meant to say is along the lines of what Howard Dean said, which is that people are in economic distress, don't think ANYONE in government is listening to them about his economic distress, and thus end up voting on other issues they think at least some people (Repubs) are listening to them about: those being god, guns and gays.

OK, if you guys will listen for a while, instead of calling me a troll, idiot, or numbskull, I will try to explain why his remarks are so offensive to this religious conservative.

The way I interpret his statement was:

OK. You have had economics of your life neglected. After all economics is all anyone who is rational is really interested in. So since you weren't getting any attention from the government about the economic issues of your life, you turned to these unimportant things to vote on. Unimportant things like second amendment rights, religion, or border enforcement.

Don't you see that what he has done here is said "Religious voter, you're being irrational and stupid." "Second amendment voter, you're being irrational and stupid." "Border enforcement voter, you're being irrational and stupid."

In every explanation I have heard, he has just cemented this position as coming from his real beliefs. And this viewpoint has been supported by some of the commenters on this board.

Please forgive me, but this is the narrow viewpoint of the liberal left on display. You can't see past your own narrow economic and (in the sense that Marx thought all was about economics) Marxist point of view. You dismiss religion, second amendment rights and border enforcement as non-issues that all smart people would neglect in their voting decisions. And probably some of you have gotten to the bottom of this post, and still do not understand the problem of your blindness. Therefore you say, "I see", and yet your ignorance remains.

Kevin, thanks for the post and you're absolutely correct about Obama's comments which is why the comments were so offensive. Obama's comments presume things that are not true. People support abolishing abortion because they have a different view point on life. Hunters like guns because they like to hunt and shoot and because guns are a part of their culture People look to religion because sometimes that's the only thing they have that provides unconditional support. Immigration limitations makes sense, not providing licenses to undocumented people who are breaking US immigration laws.

To say that "bitterness" drives these things is plain stupid and Obama's comments (among many other things)are just another example of why he will not prevail in a general election. This is the old democrat playbook of rationalizing the Republican's past victories as victories based on "wedge" issues when the real issue is that democrats are out of touch with middle America and the South. Obama's statements are the old biases that democrats continue to be pegged with and which continue to cost democrats elections.

Drum: But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry? This stuff just doesn't seem to be related to recent economic distress in any serious way at all.

...*tripping over Godwin's Law*...

Germany in the 1920s and 30s would be a counterexample to your statement, Kev.

I really, really hate making that comparison, but you asked.

Obama simply handed the GOP the wedge it needs to divide the Democrats from the so-called "value voters." Goodbye, value voters. Hello, President McCain.

I'm amazed at how many people on this blog feel it necessary to explain, in great length, what it was that Obama was TRYING to get at.

Um, no. We've said how we would have said it, and Obama has continued to amplify it.

And if "attitude" is more important to you than policy, you deserve to get punked ...

... again.

Thanks for being "exhibit A" in the "who falls for this ignorant shit?" category.
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Sen. Obama did not make his sociological analysis part of a stump speech that he repeats over and over. Mostly this 'controversy' is being repeated over and over on cable news, which few people actually watch.

Those who have become familiar with the 'controversy' from listening to conservative talk radio were not going to vote for a Democrat anyway. Economic pain has become so acute for the flag waving, gun toting typical American bigot, that callling them bitter is still going to resonate with many of them who have not been completely consumed by neoconservative parasites.

You dismiss religion, second amendment rights and border enforcement as non-issues that all smart people would neglect in their voting decisions.

No, we dismiss people who are stupid enough to be conned by empty religious rhetoric.

We dismiss people who think Democrats are coming to take their guns away.

We dismiss people who think the right is going to keep the Mexicans out when they've shown they won't.

Yeah: you're prettying fucking stupid. And we're sick of paying for your dumb ass. That's not condescension, that's exasperation. I'm sick of the dead-weight ignorant filth dragging this country down.
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I dont think he was wrong, I think he made very incomplete statements which opened him to attack.
What he was trying to answer I believe, albeit in a very clumsy manner, was what Bill Clinton answered years ago and what many Democrats have wondered and speculated about: why do working class people vote Republican when that is clearly against their own economic self interests? Up until Reagan they did vote their economic self-interests. Then they stopped. Why? Clinton's answer was that Republicans push hot button topics like abortion, guns, religion, gays and immigrants to 'anger' such voters into voting a single emotional issue over what helps them and their families economically. That was the better answer. Obama's main folly was failing to connect the dots to Republicans instead of making it more of a philisophical issue which sounded like a denigration of the interests of working class voters. Former conservative pundit Kevin Phillips gave pretty much the same analysis as Clinton did in one of his more recent books, I believe, and I believe it to be largely correct.

Again, Obama didnt go far enough and make it a Republicans pushing hot button topics issue. That was his blunder. And it was a blunder. You have to be more careful with your words as they will be parsed remorselessly.

and still do not understand the problem of your blindness

Maybe it was my blindness - but I didn't see anybody calling anybody "irrational and stupid" - excpet for you. Does you bitterness cause you to put words in other peoples mouths so that you can then have cause to be offended by them?

"I'm sick of the dead-weight ignorant filth dragging this country down." - Grand Moff Texan

Well then, maybe you should emigrate. Try the South Pole - lots of hoi polloi scientists live there.

John Hansen: ..you turned to these unimportant things to vote on. Unimportant things like second amendment rights, religion, or border enforcement.

Excepting that, in fact, Obama never said they were 'unimportant', John Hansen...Only that he had a hard time pitching his message to folks driven by cynicism to cling to those items, 'cause there wasn't much solace elsewhere.

Don't you see that what he has done here is said...you're being irrational and stupid.

If the shoe fits...what else do you tell someone - if you're being straight with them - who continues to vote against their own interests? It's a hard thing to hear, yes, and not something someone running for office has an easy time saying.

And this viewpoint has been supported by some of the commenters on this board.

Well, yes.

You can't see...(blah blah blah)...

I did read to the end of your post, John Hansen; hence the 'blah blah blah'.

Maybe it was my blindness - but I didn't see anybody calling anybody "irrational and stupid" - excpet for you.

Laura Ingraham already got to him. Liberals are looking down their noses at him, apparently.

Poor whiny little bitch.
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The first "anti-" part of Obama's mistake was more or less a lie. The second "anti-" part was certainly interesting, considering that he supports a highly questionable and highly secretive Bush trade scheme.

[Note: WM and/or KD have a habit of deleting or editing comments without notice, so this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted.]

I agree with leslie - and I think this is a reason why I would support Obama - Obama supports free trade, and doesn't hide the fact that he does. Clinton may or may not support free trade, and it's not possible to truly know if she does.

"John Hansen"

Gee, got your panties in a bunch about name calling?

The way I interpret his statement was:

That means it is fair game to attack you particular kind of "bias" because you don't pretend to be "objective." Do you really think a politician of either party would arbitrarily demean and disrespect rural voters and citizens? I don't think McCain would. I don't think there was a Republican running who had that issue--certainly, Mike Huckabee was probably the closest thing there was to a "populist" on the Republican side. But none of them expressed disgust at rural Americans. Now, they did a pretty good job of acting disgusted at liberals who are also Americans, but hey--you can't expect consistency.

OK. You have had economics of your life neglected. After all economics is all anyone who is rational is really interested in. So since you weren't getting any attention from the government about the economic issues of your life, you turned to these unimportant things to vote on. Unimportant things like second amendment rights, religion, or border enforcement.

You mean the wedge issues used to divide Americans? Like, I don't know--the Constitutional Amendment to ban flag burning? Abortion? Prayer in school? Gay marriage? You see, it's this simple--not a single one of those issues has a direct impact on the economic well being of the average American. If you can't get a job, pay for a mortgage, put your kid through school, and save for your retirement, you're not advancing through life. You're treading water, in a lot of cases, trying to make ends meet.

In the Arab world, this is what they do to inflame the masses and ensure that the totalitarian government of country X is never overthrown--all you have to do is say, "you are poor because of Israel, because of the decadence of the West, because of American gangsters" and stage a few riots and everyone goes back to simmering resentment against the wrong people for the reason as to why they don't have jobs, money, or a decent standard of living. Funny how Republicans use exactly the same tactics. Funny how we've seen the war on terror turned into a Fox News miniseries, coming up on seven years in heavy rotation now, with color coded scare slides, ominous music, bloody graphics and super-serious sumbitches telling us a guy who can't even find boots and a uniform is the second coming of a Jihadist Rambo. Is this all a Coinkydink?

Don't you see that what he has done here is said "Religious voter, you're being irrational and stupid." "Second amendment voter, you're being irrational and stupid." "Border enforcement voter, you're being irrational and stupid."

Well, yeah. Because religion isn't the reason why you lost your factory job. Wanna own guns? Go ahead--the only guns Democrats want to take away are the handguns or assault rifles used by criminals in large urban areas. Poor people coming to this country from Mexico to do jobs most Americans won't do aren't the problem, either. In fact, "poor people" aren't the problem in this society. They're just trying to get by.

In every explanation I have heard, he has just cemented this position as coming from his real beliefs. And this viewpoint has been supported by some of the commenters on this board.

What are his real beliefs? That good people have been led astray by lying assholes who want to distract people from the real reason as to why they don't have jobs, health care, education for their kids and a government that will protect them from standing water?

Please forgive me, but this is the narrow viewpoint of the liberal left on display. You can't see past your own narrow economic and (in the sense that Marx thought all was about economics) Marxist point of view. You dismiss religion, second amendment rights and border enforcement as non-issues that all smart people would neglect in their voting decisions. And probably some of you have gotten to the bottom of this post, and still do not understand the problem of your blindness. Therefore you say, "I see", and yet your ignorance remains.

Oh, fuck off with "Karl Marx" and all that shit. Marxism is a dead, discredited and abandoned philosophy that has no serious cachet in the modern world. Even the Cubans are quietly abandoning what little Marxism they were still trying to practice.

I will solve your 2nd Amendment, border control, and religion issue with one sentence, asshole:

Would Jesus shoot a poor man for being hungry?

No, he would not.

Now, grow up and quit wasting everyone's time.

I think everything Obama said is on the mark. The truth is - Americans don't like to hear the truth about themselves. They prefer a gauzy film of lies about how exceptional we are and how God blesses America (but apparently doesn't bless anyone else except maybe Israel and then only kinda). They like to hear how "free" we are (whatever that means) and how "brave" we are (even though people in Russia, Iraq and Viet Nam have had to be a lot braver over the last 100 years). They like to hear we have the highest standard of living (we don't) and the best health care (also not true) and the best government (highly questionable).

In short, Americans like to be told lies. Generally, the best liar is elected president. This has certainly been true the past 50 years and it likely will hold true through the 2008 cycle. Get ready for President McCain!!!

Well then, maybe you should emigrate. Try the South Pole - lots of hoi polloi scientists live there.

"Hoi polloi" means "the masses." It does not mean "fancy people." In fact, that's the opposite of what you think it means ... dumbass.

Welcome to western civilization, glad you could join us.

Now that US hegemony has been squandered, it's going to take real work to get it back. The bone-in-the-nose creationists don't have the skills that will take, nor are they likely to develop same.

Can't afford stupid any more, no matter how much the GOP's southern strategy relied on it.
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Would Jesus shoot a poor man for being hungry?

There are so few Christians in America that this is not a fair question anymore.
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Would Jesus shoot a poor man for being hungry?

Just to clarify, I originally wrote that sentence as "would Jesus shoot a poor Mexican for being hungry," but I changed it because I thought that was too provocative and too narrowly focused on one ethnic group. I think a lot of the people who come here do so because they want a better life. They don't come here because they have some sort of evil Hispanic jihadist islamocentric by way of Roman Catholicism sort of agenda.

This idea that rural people aren't smart enough to see through Republican bullshit spin is laughable--hasn't Bush been at %31 approval and dropping for the longest time?

Here's my take: what Obama is saying is that economic distress leaves voters more susceptible to the "god, guns and gays" diversions of the right, rather than concentrating on issues that directly effect their pocketbook.

Pale Rider on April 14, 2008 at 3:39 PM:

This idea that rural people aren't smart enough to see through Republican bullshit spin is laughable..

Ha-ha, very funny, Pale.

But it's not just rural people. It's everywhere, really; suburbs, cities, country, wev...

Me Lose Brain?

Exactly. They WANT to talk about Obama all day long.

They DO NOT want to talk about gas being 3.50 a gallon and rising.

Obama was correct; you are not.

Guys,

I really wish we'd start using the proper terminology or immoral people like John Hansen will continue to twist our words and use them against us.

Granted he will always try that but we don't need to hand him ammunition.

People who make decisions based on emotional reasons are not stupid. People who accept whatever their leaders tell them are not stupid either. The proper term for the second group is 'authoritarian.' They are gullible and willfully ignorant, they lack normal reasoning ability and are able to keep conflicting ideas in their mind at the same time, but they are not stupid.

In addition to those groups there are Republicans who ARE capable of rational thought and who are actually very intelligent.

We need to stop lumping them all together (Authoritarians do NOT comprise a majority of any of these groups: Rural, Republican, religious or poor) and we must stop accusing them of things they are NOT, because they are simply aching for a chance to prove that all their paranoia and close-mindedness and defensiveness and feelings of persecution are justified.

Regarding the conflict between what authoritarians say and what they do, we need to remember that while many authoritarians claim Jesus and the Bible are the most important things in the world to them they are also very willfully ignorant on these topics.

It is easy to find contradictions between what authoritarians do and what Jesus taught. Sometime it is fun to see how gross the contradictions are.
But pointing out the contradictions to an authoritarian will not persuade him. At most he will reply with a pre-canned slogan and if you continue to press him he'll retreat into his safe echo chamber where everyone simply knows he is right.

Look at the people in LGF. After the last election a few wondered in here to throw a few hand grenades but not a single one stayed around to debate. They suck at debating. That is why they do not allow an opposing comment on their blog.

Apparently Obama was preaching to the choir who already know what's wrong with Kansas, and much of rural America.

What's wrong with a lot of America is too many years under Republican rule.

It was bad wording from someone who specializes in good wording so most folks are surprised at the gracelessness of it.

Pigeon-holing any belief, rational or irrational, to a single or small set of causes makes for interesting reading. Reality, though, tends to be more complex.

What Obama meant to say is what I think he should have said instead of what he actually said.

OK, if you guys will listen for a while, instead of calling me a troll, idiot, or numbskull,

That will require that you stop being an idiotic, numbskull troll.

What Obama meant to say is what I think he should have said instead of what he actually said.

Funny, he keeps saying it. And amplifying it.

It's about time we started laughing at the GOP's bitches.
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"I'm sick of the dead-weight ignorant filth dragging this country down."

And this statement is indistinguishable from any made by Cheney and Rove as they discussed stealing the next election. Makes a pretty convincing argument for out-of-touch elitism, doesn't it?

I think grand moff texan's meds are a little off today. He keeps missing the irony.

Pale Rider writes: I originally wrote that sentence as "would Jesus shoot a poor Mexican for being hungry," but I changed it because I thought that was too provocative and too narrowly focused on one ethnic group. I think a lot of the people who come here do so because they want a better life. They don't come here because they have some sort of evil Hispanic jihadist islamocentric by way of Roman Catholicism sort of agenda.

Cute, but that's not really what the issue is about (even though Islam is gaining throughout LatinAmerica). The issue is things like this. MassiveImmigration leads to more power for people who shouldn't have any power to begin with.

And, needless to say, only a very small number of people who have no power are calling for border crossers to be shot. I don't know for sure what Jesus would say. But, I tend to think he'd expose those who try to present allowing IllegalImmigration as humanitarian for the fakes they are.

[Note: WM and/or KD have a habit of deleting or editing comments without notice, so this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted.]

Kevin said:
>anti-immigrant sentiment ... is primarily rooted in
>the simple fact that we have a lot more illegal
>immigrants today than we did 15 years ago

Is this really true? I think, at the very least, it's more complicated than that. Some anti-illegal sentiment is clearly anti-immigrant sentiment, not that well disguised, and for those people, it's the number of legals+illegals that's significant.

*

Economic stress and insecurity leads to ethnonationalism and cultural chauvinism. This causal relationship is as true in Parma, OH as it is in Belgrade.

I live in OH. Obama was 100% correct.

Oooooopppppppppsssss

Obama just said Hillary packs a six shooter when she goes duck hunting.

I think that there will be some folks who might find that, well, elitist?

I can just see the smirk on Cheney's face now.

Economic stress and insecurity leads to ethnonationalism and cultural chauvinism. This causal relationship is as true in Parma, OH as it is in Belgrade.

I live in OH. Obama was 100% correct.

I think grand moff texan's meds are a little off today. He keeps missing the irony.

Mistranslation is the new irony?

OK, erm ... and white male is the new "Jew," or so Jonah told me. Man, it's hard to keep up with all this shit.
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Obama is learning that you can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. The man is falling off his pedestal.

Yep. 'Cause what America really needs is a president in a diaper who can't tell al Qaeda from Iran.
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Obama knows NOTHING about gangs and why their members do what they do.

He seems to have the Republicans pegged.
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Obama was spot on, it is the media and Washington D.C. that does not get it. CNN is starting to look like FOX news on this issue.

Gee Kev, you take the prize for missing the point, once again.

Sure I'm bitter...bitter about Clinton's millions, McCain's beer heiress trophy wife, Obama's boyish good looks and gift of gab.

Then there's the bitterness I have about the billions CEO's have accumulated and spend on crazy luxuries life Lear jets, and 400 million dollar yachts, and Bush's insane war which will cost 3-5 trillion and, yes, I'm bitter because I can just about afford my cat food diet and now I worry that Purina might be bought out by some hedge fund. But don't mourn for me, organize.

Heck, I'm bitterness incarnate. But, I decided to move on. I started a group supporting Obama for president. It's called "Bitter People for Obama." Bitter as I am, I think he would be the best president ever.

But does anyone really think that stagnant wages and globalization are responsible for rural gun culture? Or the rise of the Christian right? Or an increase in bigotry? This stuff just doesn't seem to be related to recent economic distress in any serious way at all.

that's not how i took the remark. i didn't think that Sen. Obama was saying that economic frustration was the CAUSE of gun culture, or the political mobilization of the religious right. to me he seemed to be saying that frustration with the gov't in general {not just economic policy} cause the related issues to be more important, and that prolonged frustration causes these issues to become the deciding factor in a person's vote.

to put it another way: when you're not frustrated with the gov't, when you trust the gov't, there are many more issues you can choose from in deciding for whom to vote. you choose based on who you think will keep the gov't working the way you like, maybe overlooking certain specific issues on which you disagree with the candidate.
however, when you no longer trust the gov't, when you lived through 16 years of both political parties in power, then the idea of voting based on who will keep the gov't going in the direction you like seems less reasonable, less possible. so in that instance, you're less forgiving of differences on specific issues, and the "culture war" issues become paramount.

anyway, that's what i heard.
but then i may have gotten latte in my ears.