Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama accomplished an amazing feat at a San Francisco fundraiser recently: He started, albeit unintentionally, a serious dialogue about the working class.
Obama’s remarks raised both eyebrows and tempers after they hit the press. Attempting to explain why he has difficulty garnering the support of white, working-class Americans, Obama stated:
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. … And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy, to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations.”
This statement represents all of the problems Democrats have had for the past eight years in trying to sway the voters for whose social and economic interests they allegedly fight.
Obama has attempted some damage control, according to the Los Angeles Times, by saying in a speech before The Associated Press’ annual meeting that he had made “poor word choices.” Yet he still emphasized his “larger point,” that people are upset with their political leaders for not addressing their economic concerns.
Yet nowhere does Obama address his association between bitterness ““ an adjective that I have never heard anyone use to describe someone they liked or respected ““ and an affinity for guns, religion or disliking immigrants.
What Obama implied in his original statement is that social conservatives would be able to see the error of their ways if only they would stop thinking with their emotions ““ bitterness being the primary one, apparently ““ and begin using their brains. This is pretty demeaning and elitist, the exact complaints that plagued Al Gore and John Kerry ““ and we all know how those elections turned out.
Perhaps what is most disturbing about this situation is that Obama and his supporters do not seem to understand what is wrong with his statement and how it damages the Democratic Party.
Obama apologized not for implying that working-class people are emotional and illogical, but instead for making that statement with “poor” (or perhaps he means “overly blunt”) word choice.
I honestly don’t believe Obama intended to be demeaning. He was speaking to supporters in San Francisco who are probably a lot like us ““ middle-class, college-educated and liberal ““ and trying to help them empathize with the struggles of people who are paid by the hour, have limited educational opportunities and live in close-knit communities.
Economic constraints and educational limitations, however, do not make the working class stupid. They can hear the arrogant benevolence in comments like those made by Obama: He knows what’s best for you, despite not being one of you, working-class people.
This sort of attitude is appropriate in a child-parent relationship. After all, children live beneath a dictator, usually one named Mom or Dad, and have no real options to overthrow their rulers. The American people, however, have that opportunity every four years.
If working and middle-class people will benefit most from the Democratic (rather than Republican) agenda, something I certainly believe is true, why don’t those individuals vote Democrat? Why do they instead choose to be swayed by social issues ““ gun control or religious topics such as same-sex marriage?
Because Democrats haven’t offered anything better.
In the LA Times coverage of the issue, I could not locate the voice of a single working-class American. Instead I found a blog post by Steve Lopez, a columnist and author for The Times. Lopez wrote that what Obama said is true: “It really is a God and Guns America.”
According to Lopez, he is qualified to speak about this because he was once a resident in Philadelphia (he does not mention he was a syndicated columnist while there) and was once paid to travel around “nearly every state in the country” by The Times.
After his post, of course, a bunch of other Los Angeles residents with Internet access and enough leisure time to peruse The Times Web site, completely agreed with him in the comments section.
If the Democrats want to win the working class over, they can start by ceasing to ignore them.
Seen any elitism around UCLA? E-mail Strickland at kstrickland@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.