Nathaniel

Shockey

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April 14, 2008

Barack Obama Explains Our Bitterness

People who are proud to point out their certainty about everything generally shouldn’t run for president. Because no one has it all figured out.

Perhaps the worst part of this unfortunate situation is political rallies. A bunch of people crowd around a person running for office who explains to them what their emotions really are and why they are experiencing them. And everyone is supposed to leave saying, “Wow. This guy really gets me. It looks like someone’s finally going to add some zeroes to my bank account and heal this pesky rash on my calf.”

And that’s what was so absurdly irritating about Barack Obama’s most recent comments about “middle America” – the theoretical demographic honored by mic’d up politicians and degraded the rest of the time.

“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.”

The Hillary Clinton and John McCain camps found out about these comments at 10 a.m. on Friday morning. By 10:02 a.m., Friday morning, their spokespeople had written, edited and released statements calling Obama an elitist and out of touch.

He initially responded by defending himself, and saying that if anyone is out of touch, it’s Hillary for still being married, and McCain for being so old. I made that up, but he did respond by pointing fingers, which is exactly what I do when criticized. Of course, I’m not running for president.

Eventually, he realized that his comments were probably a mark shy of presidential. So he pulled a classic, Homer Simpson-like “You know, the word ‘apology’ is tossed around a lot these days”, saying:

“Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois who are bitter. They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through.

(Do we all really know this is true? Do they really feel all those things?) 

"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country or they get frustrated about you know how things are changing.”  

(What does that even mean?) 

“I didn’t say it as well as I should have, because the truth is these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to. And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families.” 

So apparently, all this “God” hoopla is just another way of saying, “Gee, I really wish I had someone to talk to.” 

I point out the back and forth, political posturing only because it is absolutely typical, as Obama said, although he certainly didn’t avoid it. It’s also pretty funny to watch, if you can divorce yourself from the fact that we’ll be electing one of these folks in seven months. 

The thing about Obama’s comments is not that they’re absurd. There probably are a lot of people who are bitter about their economic situation, and some of these poor, bitter people lash out about certain political issues because, as Obama put it, it’s what they “can count on.” Or you might say people gripe about things with which they’re familiar, even when their true gripe might elude even themselves. I think this is what he meant. 

But to pin it all on small town America, and to suggest that this explains a primarily conservative demographic’s viewpoints is presumptuous, smug and, most importantly, inaccurate. 

To suggest that people are merely taking strong stances on immigration, gun control and gay marriage because they’re bitter about their lives is a sharp psychological statement that could only be used on a case-by-case basis. But to use it so broadly is just stupid – both politically and generally speaking. I highly doubt there are many Americans out there screaming bloody murder about gun control because they’re out of work. They’re probably upset because they were robbed while awaiting approval for a license to carry a firearm.  

We ought to be extremely concerned about Obama’s arrogant and inaccurate comments. They reflected a deep-rooted, narrow-minded philosophy that ought to bring severe skepticism to the millions who want to see him elected.  

And as long as we’re all playing psychologist, I’d hate to see the American people cling to an arrogant man simply because they’re bitter about a previous administration. 

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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