Random post-election thoughts:
The liberal media obsessed over potential white racism costing Obama the election. Well, the white vote was almost exactly the same as ever along party lines this election so we can now put to bed the false notion that America is a racist country. Well, check that, white America is no longer racist towards blacks, however American blacks are most certainly racist against whites. The fact that 99% of all blacks voted for Obama proves that one of the biggest challenges of this administration will be to courageously identify and address the silent monster of racism, bigotry and entitlement that festers within the black community.
The fact that Obama could win despite his many nefarious connections, radical positions on infanticide and other social issues, open contempt for those who bitterly cling to their guns and religion, and his lack of experience in political leadership, is a true testimony to his intelligence, demeanor, campaign organization skills, political savvy, and incredible public speaking ability. Equally amazing is the fact that McCain was unable to ever once take advantage of the many opportunities he had to turn the tide on this election. He was as horrible of a candidate in every sense as Obama was spectacular.
Obama gave a tremendous victory speech. His tone offered the appropriate gravitas for both his incredible accomplishment in getting elected and the daunting task that lies ahead. Even though I'm diametrically opposed to most of his positions, as an American I was proud to have a president who projects such intelligence, thoughtfulness, seriousness, and oratory skill after 8 years of George Bush's 4th grade grasp of the English language.
I am sincerely scared about the prospects of Obama's presidency removing the word "free" from the American lexicon and replacing it with "fair", as in "fair" speech as opposed to "free" speech and "fair" trade supplanting "free" trade. Legislation on both these issues, as well as union members' right to private ballots, are going to be on the table at the beginning of his term, and if he follows his liberal voting history this could be trouble.
Sarah Palin carries the star power, devoted following, excitement, energy and national campaign experience to be a force in the future of the GOP, but whether or not she has the intellectual capacity to become viable as a presidential candidate remains in question.
Looking ahead to (gasp) 2012, the early contenders on the GOP side of the ledger will be Palin, Huckabee, Romney, Jindal, and Pawlenty. I'm sure others will pop up over the next couple years, too, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind. Of the these, I think Jindal, Pawlenty and Palin create the most energy and best opportunities to win. Romney will be another older retread and Huckabee is just a little too much the Baptist preacherman for many Americans.
I am less worried about what this means for Israel than I am for what this could mean to America. Israel seems to be in a self-loathing meltdown right now, and Obama being more sympathetic to the arabs will not really affect that direction either way. If anything it could help, because if America is no longer viewed by Israelis as the savior parent nation, who will always take their side over the "Palestinians", maybe they will vote for more nationalist parties as a result.
To summarize my feelings on the election and what lies ahead, I pray for the best but am bracing for the worst. It will be a rough ride for conservatives the next few years, but we need to remember that the times can make the man and shape the movement, so hopefully we will see better days ahead.
-MZ
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
it has always in recent history been blacks against whites. entitlement programs were specifically developed for minorities while whites worked our asses off to fund them - perhaps now we may sit back for awhile?
ReplyDeletei've read a very interesting article this morning on the topic of how this came to be and much of it rings true.
God help u.s., madze.
hosha na Moshiach.
Great article, Nanc. In the changing demographic landscape of a country in which blacks and hispanics combined are a greater voting force than whites the old GOP stategy of traditional American Family Values will simply not resonate.
ReplyDeleteIn order to win we must dig into the pit of the hispanic and black abyss and pull out of it a way of making them understand that the values of accountability, responsibility, and being self-made without the government blocking your path to prosperity is the best path to a meaningful life is critical if the Republican Party is to remain relavent in the America of today.
Wanna know what's really a scary thought, btw? Barack Hussein Obama will still be the world's most rightwing leader. Speaks volumes, doesn't it?
ReplyDeletevolumes, yes - my head's ringing!
ReplyDeletep.s. - i've put up a new post at longrange - who knows how long we'll be able to speak our minds?
ReplyDeleteMadze:
ReplyDeleteIt turns out you're right about the overwhelming turn out of African Americans for Barack Obama. But to see in this a manifestation of black-on-white racism is simply absurd and almost no one will agree with you on this.
White-on-black racism (as well as other white-on-[insert minority here] forms of racism/discrimination) in this country (as well as many others) has always had one simply purpose: to maintain the hegemony of the majority. Every inch of privileges (down to the right to sit on the same bus) was jealously protected and often violently defended because it was believed that if even the minutest amount of territory was given up, then following the proverbial slippery slope, the Black Man would eventually replace the White Man's self-perceived supremacy (and with it of course the material trappings that come with hegemony). As a result Black Africans didn't just have to struggle once (for the abolition of slavery) but once more (for equal civil rights).
A minority of 13.4 % however can never aspire to supremacy, at least not successfully. The miniscule size of pockets of largely past Black Supremacist movements is testimony to this: African Americans on the whole do not aspire to hegemony, an aspiration that is made impossible by their inevitably smaller numbers, instead they aspire to equality.
Obama, careful not to play the race card has managed to galvanise a rainbow of voters, the majority of which still came from the ethnic majority, as well as from other ethnicities.
Racism requires a strong element of negative discrimination, always applied self-servingly to preserve wholly intact the privileges of the hegemony. This is simply not the case here.
Nanc:
"it has always in recent history been blacks against whites. entitlement programs were specifically developed for minorities while whites worked our asses off to fund them"
It's amazing (or perhaps not?) how much you sound like the far-right British Nationalistic parties like the British National Party or the National Front. These linear descendents from the European Fascist movement have always fought tooth and nail to preserve White British supremacy. Today they fight a rear-guard action, along the lines of "they take our jobs" and "they f*ck our women", although clearly (since well before 9/11) Moooslims, Asians, Hindus etc have become the new blacks in their books...
Like you these BNP/FN types are soulless, cultureless buffoons that live in a past that never really existed in the first place and with the historical insight of a boiled potato...
I'm saying this not to offend you but to warn you: do you want to sound like these people who not so long ago (and quite a few still today) were deeply anti-Semitic? After all, in their book, "other" is "other", no matter what "other" actually is and "self" is glorious, no matter what...
I hate to interrupt this discussion but I found this commentary a little queer.
ReplyDelete"Barack Hussein Obama will still be the world's most rightwing leader.
No, he won't. There are people like Sarkozy, Tony Blair's heir apparent (the name escapes me) and soon to be Bibi to name the most natable ones.
Gert, the reality of our country is that the population demographics have dynamically shifted, and the family values whites of yesterday are effectively no longer a voting majority that will carry a general election.
ReplyDeleteWith the incredible influx of hispanics and the growth of the black population, Republicans can no longer expect to win a Rockwell campaign of how we need to return to small town Americana.
If we are to win in the future we are going to need to take conservatism into the black/hispanic abyss and persuade them that they can control their own destiny if they vote Republican.
That they can get out of the hood and the slums if they lead meaningful, hardworking lives based on personal responsibility. That entitlement living is no life. That collecting benefits checks from the government money swiped from the wealthy is no answer to finding prosperity or happiness.
Look, we need to roll up our sleeves, get our hands dirty, go into the bad parts of town, talk to them, shake their hands and recruit them to be the next generation of successful Americans, not the next generation of criminals waiting to get shot or sent to prison. In short, they need to feel that conservative America belongs to them, too. That they are included, wanted and needed.
We want to win future elections? We go to the heart of the monster, the depth of the demon, and rip out the lies that the nanny state is brainwashing and bribing them with to gain their votes, and show them that the path to self-respect goes through the self-sufficiency of conservative ideals.
We must make inroads here, both for our sake and theirs, or this nation will just continue to spiral downard until we are a full blown socialist state.
"If we are to win in the future we are going to need to take conservatism into the black/hispanic abyss and persuade them that they can control their own destiny if they vote Republican."
ReplyDeleteAbyss is a very loaded word and denies how many extremely successful non-white Americans there are. As for voting Republican, the ethnic voting blocs, by and large aren't monolithic. African American voted almost uniformly pro-Obama this time because of the historical significance of a Black nominee and now President-elect.
"Look, we need to roll up our sleeves, get our hands dirty, go into the bad parts of town, talk to them, shake their hands and recruit them to be the next generation of successful Americans, not the next generation of criminals waiting to get shot or sent to prison. In short, they need to feel that conservative America belongs to them, too. That they are included, wanted and needed."
Not accusing them of some far-fetched form of racism might also be a good way to make them feel "included, wanted and needed", otherwise the losers come across as a bunch of spiteful narrow-minds, intent solely on playing down their victory...
With blaming things on Democrat "affirmative action", "Government hand-outs" and such like clearly there is one problem: while Democrat attempts to bridge the [wealth] gap has not been successful, Conservative's "rugged individualism" and emphasis on "personal responsibility" hasn't worked for African Americans either. Otherwise there'd been an African American Republican candidate a long time ago... Right now we seem to be a long way away from that...
Gert, the blacks and hispanics have come to believe that the only party that represents them is the one of government assistance, benefits and entitlement. That redistributing the wealth of largely white America to largely poor black and hispanic America will be the solution to what ails them.
ReplyDeleteThey need to know there is an alternative. Republicans will get down and dirty in the pits with them and make them understand conservative economic and social principles are not simply one of the paths they can follow to rise from misery, but the ONLY path that will rise them up out of poverty, crime, drugs, ignorance and decadence that the left has propagated since the civil rights movement.
Blacks are the victims of corrosive liberal social and economic policy. Conservatism is their only light, their only chance, and if we don't speak to them directly than they will never hope to find this freedom from leftwing socio-economic bondage.
Conservatism died when we stopped saying "get rid of Social Secuirty and welfare programs" and started saying "don't let the illegal immigrants take OUR Social Security and welfare programs."
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin has no national future. It is documented she honestly thought Africa was a country.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if US conservatives, will adopt a Tory program of US out of Iraq and enviromentalism.
Do not try holding your breath, waiting for anyone to admit that blacks are the most racist segment of our society.
ReplyDeleteAmerican Crusader: How can one place African Americans (a highly diverse group in terms of political and social outlook) in such the narrow confines of "the biggest racists in America." I agree with you if you are to make the claim that Blacks seem to carry a dispraportionate weight of racial hatred in America but I think you're generalizing a little too much.
ReplyDeleteEitan-
ReplyDelete"How can one place African Americans (a highly diverse group in terms of political and social outlook) in such the narrow confines of "the biggest racists in America.""
I don't know that I'd agree they are "the biggest racists in America", but I certainly disagree they are a "highly diverse group in terms of political and social outlook".
African Americans are probably the most united voting block in the country. They generally vote 85-90 percent Democratic (well before Obama came into the picture), and for the most part they are economic liberals, and generally they are social liberals as well.
Even on those issues where they might be socially conservative-such as against gay marriage or in favor of school vouchers, for example-they tend to be strongly united.
Unless you are saying they do have some issues where they are conservative, despite the fact that they are liberal on most issues. But hell, that's probably generally true of everybody.
The point is, there are no issues that I know of by which the black community is even slightly divided. Whatever the majority opinion is tends to be a strong majority in almost every case I can think of.
madze - i've put up a special post at curtains if you'd like to have a look.
ReplyDelete