[lbo-talk] Tea Party: less than meets the eye

[Alan Rudy]

Is your argument, Carrol, that lots of racists didn't vote in 2008 but did
in 2010?
Or is it that many racists voted for Obama in the context of 2008 and now
hate themselves for doing so and hate him all the more as a result?
Or is it that a number of the folks among the not-as-racist 48% of the white
voters who supported Obama in 2008 became racist?
The man won every county in Michigan with anything resembling a major
population center in 2008... Republicans took everything this year, is this
because of racism against Obama?
Are you saying that anti-Republicanism in 2008 trumped racist feelings about
Obama?

Obama is a president who has not fought to defend the expectations - even
the reasonable ones - of the majority of Democrats and the independent
constituencies who elected him.  He's also a president who hasn't generated
an Administration or produced a party apparatus that calls racists on the
carpet.  Doing so would initially enrage people and be very controversial
but, done properly, it wins.  In order to be elected he had to be a calm,
cool and collected man who happened to be black.  In order to govern, he
needed to generate a calm, cool and collected administration that brooked no
racial crap or straight-up policy lies.  His position WAS tenuous, but he
and his administration made it moreso thereby generating weaker legislation,
undefended legislation and rampant mutually reinforcing
racist/classist/liberarian sentiment funded by wealthy individuals and
groups to the point that isolated fury could organize.

On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> I've only sampled this thread, so I'm not sure where the disagreements lie.
> But surely there is no one on this list that doesn't take for granted that
> racism is ALWAYS a major, if not the major, element in u.s. public
>  opinion?
> Of course the Tea Party and much of the rest of the public is racist.
>
> Obama is a bad president, but that is obviously not why so many people hate
> him. They hate him because he is black, not because he is a bad president.
> If there is an argument on this then I'm bewildered.
>
> Carrol
>
> Chip Berlet:
>
> When you ask Tea Party supporters if they are racist, of course they say
> no.
>
> When you ask Tea Party supporters what makes them mad at Obama, of course
> they are going to deny their own racism is one of the factors.
>
> If you sit down with Tea Party supporters and spend 30-40 minutes with an
> in-depth social science survey, their racism leaps out.
>
>
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-- 
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319