More reflections on race

May 10, 2008

I am very concerned about the racialized dynamics of this election which Mr. Capehart–who Tony links to below in the video section–sort of obliquely acknowledges but doesn’t say anything really critical about. I want to have a serious discussion about this–counter arguments can be made, but I want to hear them.

I really tire of the way in which working class white voters are always the demographic that supposedly dictate the nominee of the Democratic Party. This was the demographic that was reportedly responsible for the success of President Clinton and other moderate/conservative Southern Democrats in the nineties. Since that time, the strategy of the party has been to run socially conservative Democrats in swing districts under the assumption that liberals, blacks, and others would pinch their nose and support the nominee even if the only difference was the letter after his name.

The assumption about working class white voters is that they WILL NOT vote outside of their racial, religious, or lifestyle group and therefore should be pandered to whereas blacks, liberals, and others WILL vote outside of their demographic preferences. It’s an interesting way of asserting primitivism against working class whites and then adopting a political strategy that accommodates this less than flattering cartoon. But the other embedded assumption is that blacks—endlessly loyal that they supposedly are—can be essentially taken for granted. What I have taken to calling the “self-fullfilling prophecy” is the apparent wish of the Clinton campaign that whites are as mercilessly antagonistic towards a black man as she seems to think they are. At this point, this is the only argument for electability she has left.

Note that Senator Clinton doesn’t apparently think that her abysmal track record with blacks in this election is an argument against her electability. She assumes that they will come around and vote for her in November, presumably because they are motivated by a temporary preference for Obama. Yet, why can’t we make the same argument about working class whites? Why won’t they come around in November? Why isn’t it equally problematic that among blacks—a crucial demographic for Democrats—Mrs. Clinton never gets more than 10% of the vote? It is assumed that white antipathy towards Obama is stronger than black antipathy towards Clinton and therefore we should accommodate this antipathy by voting for Clinton. What an interesting argument for the party of civil rights.

What I find so interesting about these electability arguments is that they are based on speculations about how primary voters would vote in a general election. In this case, Senator Clinton is making a speculation about how working class white voters would vote in a McCain vs. Obama general based on the results of Obama vs. Clinton. This methodology is itself highly questionable. However, I personally don’t think the Democratic party should ignore the metrics which measure popular approval (pledged delegates and raw popular vote numbers) simply because Senator Clinton insists that certain working class white voters are so intractably committed to her that they wouldn’t consider voting for Senator Obama. According to her argument, he is so unpopular with this demographic that it irredemably damages his candidacy. Again, why that argument doesn’t extend to her much worse performance among African American voters remains to be seen.

I must admit, as a native southerner myself, that after years of this cynical underestimation of black Americans (especially among southern Democrats) I take a profound glee in them delivering the coup-de-grace, the swift kick in the ass, to Senator Clinton and all her cynical race baiting advisors. Justice is so sweet. And if working class whites do end up being as mindlessly race loyal as Clinton thinks they are—I actually don’t think they are—then at least we can say we tried to represent something higher than our lower natures.

Posted by MATT Posted in Bi/Partisan Politics, Current Events, Posts by Matt