What Old, White Conservatives Miss About America

[Benny B]

 
What Old, White Conservatives Miss About America
By Conor Friedersdorf
Their nostalgia isn't necessarily bigoted. The main reason people feel wistful for less racially enlightened times is that everyone romanticizes childhood.

Is the nostalgia white conservatives feel for the America of their youth rooted in racism, as Matthew Yglesias contends? Or is Reihan Salam right to "resist and resent" the notion that American conservatism is rooted in racist sentiment, a view that he says is held by many on the left? Those are the questions at issue in the recent back-and-forth between these two Atlantic alums, both of whom are unusually sharp observers of American politics and culture. Salam kicked things off by writing a column for The Daily that includes this provocative paragraph:

    American conservatives are overwhelmingly white in a country that is increasingly less so. As the number of Latinos and Asian-Americans has increased in coastal states like California, New York and New Jersey, many white Americans from these regions have moved inland or to the South. For at least some whites, particularly those over the age of 50, there is a sense that the country they grew up in is fading away, and that Americans with ancestors from Mexico or, as in my case, Bangladesh don't share their religious, cultural and economic values. These white voters are looking for champions, for people who are unafraid to fight for the America they remember and love. It's unfair to call this sentiment racist.

Yglesias responded as follows:

    This puts me in a mind of House Speaker John Boehner's explicitly expressed view that the problem with President Obama is that he and the 111th Congress were "snuffing out the America that I grew up in." As I said at the time, on its face it's difficult to make sense of that. John Boehner was born in 1949. Does he feel nostalgic for the higher marginal tax rates of the America he grew up in? For the much larger labor union share of the workforce? The threat of global nuclear war?

    It's difficult for me to evade the conclusion that on an emotional level, conservative nostalgists like Boehner are primarily driven by regret at the loss of social privilege by white men. In Boehner's defense, I often hear white male progressives express nostalgia for the lost America of the 1950s and 1960s and think to myself "a black person or a woman wouldn't put it like that." But progressive nostalgics do at least have the high-tax, union-dominated economy and egalitarian income distribution as the things they like. But from a non-bigoted conservative point of view, what is there really to miss about the America John Boehner grew up in? The tax rates were high, but at least they didn't let Jews into the country club?

Thought-provoking arguments on both sides.

What I'd ask Salam is whether he thinks the character Clint Eastwood plays in Grand Turino was racist. He seems like a good test case, in that he was understandably alarmed by a changing cultural landscape that made his neighborhood less safe, but he also erroneously presumed, based on the skin color of his neighbors, a larger gulf in cultural values than was justified by reality. (I'd say that he was a bit racist, but that he wasn't deserving of the full stigma usually attached to the term -- one can be racist without being Bull Connor or David Duke, and the lack of specific term for that is a real obstacle to frank racial conversation in the United States.)

As for Yglesias, I am in concurrence with his strong belief that America is a much better place today than it was in 1949. With few exceptions, to think otherwise signals a lack of cross-racial empathy, at minimum. But I resist the idea that there is nothing save white privilege for John Boehner to wistfully miss. He's a conservative Catholic. As a kid, he lived in a country where religion played a larger role in public life; divorce, premarital sex, and cohabitation were stigmatized; a comparatively larger share of social welfare spending came from private charities; abortion was much less common; and city bureaucrats would never dream of shutting down a kid's lemonade stand. All good things if you're a conservative Catholic, aren't they?

Of course, all this presumes nostalgia is rational.

But almost every older American one encounters is nostalgic for the era of his or her youth. Hasn't it always been so? (For one thing, they were young back then!) One of the magazine pieces I found most rewarding to report concerns a senior center in Harlem, and the elderly black people who frequent it.

Here's the beginning of the piece:

    On West 151st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, an unobtrusive sign in a small park provides one version of neighborhood history: "Convent Garden lies in the heart of the Sugar Hill section of Harlem," it says, "so named because of the 'Sweet Life' of its residents during the first half of the 20th Century." When I read the sign, I wondered whether local elders shared its romantic notions of the past. The lives of older people are almost always more interesting than they imagine, or so I've gathered from countless conversations with senior citizens, and lost youth typically causes them to lament the fading features of a golden past.

    Is that a human trait, I wondered?

    Do black people whose youthful memories include lynching and segregation, and whose children and grandchildren inhabit a more equitable, less bigoted society, nevertheless share the senior citizen's sense of nostalgia?

They do!

In that senior center, I encountered a bit of racism from some residents who complained about the Dominican immigrants who'd moved into the neighborhood over the years. Certainly you can tell a story about immigration, gentrification, and a relative loss of black privilege in West Harlem.

For the most part, however, folks had fond memories of youth, lamented that cultural institutions like the Savoy Ballroom no longer existed, complained about rising crime especially when perpetrated by members of their own racial group, and offered all the standard grandparent complaints too: the kids these days, with their informal dress, lack of respect for elders, affinity for talentless musicians, etc.

Older white conservatives are the same way. Yeah, some are racist in ways that make me uncomfortable. Others aren't racist at all. And among both groups, there are a lot of senior citizens who think the country of their youth is slipping away.

And they're right!

America is radically more socially liberal than it was in 1949. Its television programs are cruder and filled with violence. Its out-of-wedlock birthrate is skyrocketing. Attitudes toward drug use are significantly more permissive. Far fewer businesses shut down to observe the Sabbath. Children are much more likely to be placed in daycare while both parents work outside the home. Gays are allowed in the military. College orientation now includes free condoms. Whatever one thinks of all these changes, it seems to me that Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement were major enough events that, based on them alone, America should be deemed better today, even in the eyes of folks who think other stuff has gone in the wrong direction.

But that doesn't mean that older white people -- or older black people -- must stop being nostalgic about less racially enlightened times, or that their wistfulness is grounded in racism, or that it's even possible for a human being to rationally evaluate the overall system of norms into which he was raised, to rationally compare them to prevailing norms many decades later, and then to judge which period was better and have it alone determine his emotional reaction.

Which brings us back to Boehner. No, Obama isn't snuffing out the America of his youth, but the fact that the House speaker claimed otherwise isn't a reflection of racist nostalgia so much as it is another example of a prominent Republican exaggerating the supposed radicalism of Obama's domestic agenda and economic policy. "Does he feel nostalgic for the higher marginal tax rates of the America he grew up in?" Yglesias asks. "For the much larger labor union share of the workforce?"

Seriously?

What are the chances that Boehner believes his own hyperbolic soundbite? Or that his genuinely felt nostalgia for the America of his childhood is informed by rationally comparing marginal tax rates when he was 9 to public policy today? Do people feel nostalgic for abstract public policy?

They do not.

[wild willie]

i am voting for herman cain.....he is a black conservative.....and a proven leader in the business world....unlike nobama.....who has never done anything except snow people and act like a slimey car salesman.....fuck all that racism bull shit......nobama sucks as a prez......he is all hot air....nothing to do with his skin color.....take the racism card and shove it up your arse.....you libs have been playing that game for over 2 years.....nobama is ineffective.....plain and simple.

[funk51]

dis

[Tre]

The Southern Strategy can still be employed without being overtly racist in one's commentary. 

The only man currently qualified to effectively lead this nation has zero interest in the job: Colin Powell.

We can blame a white man for that, but it won't do any good, because the result is the same - America has no true leaders, so the corporations are doing it for us.

[Soul Crusher]

Mort Zuckerman: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur
The president is well-intentioned but can't walk the walk on the world stage
By Mortimer B. Zuckerman
Posted: June 18, 2010


http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2010/06/18/mort-zuckerman-world-sees-obama-as-incompetent-and-amateur_print.html


 
President Obama came into office as the heir to a great foreign policy legacy enjoyed by every recent U.S. president. Why? Because the United States stands on top of the power ladder, not necessarily as the dominant power, but certainly as the leading one. As such we are the sole nation capable of exercising global leadership on a whole range of international issues from security, trade, and climate to counterterrorism. We also benefit from the fact that most countries distrust the United States far less than they distrust one another, so we uniquely have the power to build coalitions. As a result, most of the world still looks to Washington for help in their region and protection against potential regional threats.

 
Yet, the Iraq war lingers; Afghanistan continues to be immersed in an endless cycle of tribalism, corruption, and Islamist resurgence; Guantánamo remains open; Iran sees how North Korea toys with Obama and continues its programs to develop nuclear weapons and missiles; Cuba spurns America's offers of a greater opening; and the Palestinians and Israelis find that it is U.S. policy positions that defer serious negotiations, the direct opposite of what the Obama administration hoped for.

The reviews of Obama's performance have been disappointing. He has seemed uncomfortable in the role of leading other nations, and often seems to suggest there is nothing special about America's role in the world. The global community was puzzled over the pictures of Obama bowing to some of the world's leaders and surprised by his gratuitous criticisms of and apologies for America's foreign policy under the previous administration of George W. Bush. One Middle East authority, Fouad Ajami, pointed out that Obama seems unaware that it is bad form and even a great moral lapse to speak ill of one's own tribe while in the lands of others.

Even in Britain, for decades our closest ally, the talk in the press—supported by polls—is about the end of the "special relationship" with America. French President Nicolas Sarkozy openly criticized Obama for months, including a direct attack on his policies at the United Nations. Sarkozy cited the need to recognize the real world, not the virtual world, a clear reference to Obama's speech on nuclear weapons. When the French president is seen as tougher than the American president, you have to know that something is awry. Vladimir Putin of Russia has publicly scorned a number of Obama's visions. Relations with the Chinese leadership got off to a bad start with the president's poorly-organized visit to China, where his hosts treated him disdainfully and prevented him from speaking to a national television audience of the Chinese people. The Chinese behavior was unprecedented when compared to visits by other U.S. presidents.

Obama's policy on Afghanistan—supporting a surge in troops, but setting a date next year when they will begin to withdraw—not only gave a mixed signal, but provided an incentive for the Taliban just to wait us out. The withdrawal part of the policy was meant to satisfy a domestic constituency, but succeeded in upsetting all of our allies in the region. Further anxiety was provoked by Obama's severe public criticism of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his coterie of family and friends for their lackluster leadership, followed by a reversal of sorts regarding the same leaders.

Obama clearly wishes to do good and means well. But he is one of those people who believe that the world was born with the word and exists by means of persuasion, such that there is no person or country that you cannot, by means of logical and moral argument, bring around to your side. He speaks as a teacher, as someone imparting values and generalities appropriate for a Sunday morning sermon, not as a tough-minded leader. He urges that things "must be done" and "should be done" and that "it is time" to do them. As the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Les Gelb, put it, there is "the impression that Obama might confuse speeches with policy." Another journalist put it differently when he described Obama as an "NPR [National Public Radio] president who gives wonderful speeches." In other words, he talks the talk but doesn't know how to walk the walk. The Obama presidency has so far been characterized by a well-intentioned but excessive belief in the power of rhetoric with too little appreciation of reality and loyalty.

In his Cairo speech about America and the Muslim world, Obama managed to sway Arab public opinion but was unable to budge any Arab leader. Even the king of Saudi Arabia, a country that depends on America for its survival, reacted with disappointment and dismay. Obama's meeting with the king was widely described as a disaster. This is but one example of an absence of the personal chemistry that characterized the relationships that Presidents Clinton and Bush had with world leaders. This is a serious matter because foreign policy entails an understanding of the personal and political circumstances of the leaders as well as the cultural and historical factors of the countries we deal with.

Les Gelb wrote of Obama, "He is so self-confident that he believes he can make decisions on the most complicated of issues after only hours of discussion." Strategic decisions go well beyond being smart, which Obama certainly is. They must be based on experience that discerns what works, what doesn't—and why. This requires experienced staffing, which Obama and his top appointees simply do not seem to have. Or as one Middle East commentator put it, "There are always two chess games going on. One is on the top of the table, the other is below the table. The latter is the one that counts, but the Americans don't know how to play that game."

Recent U.S. attempts to introduce more meaningful sanctions against Iran produced a U.N. resolution that is way less than the "crippling" sanctions the administration promised. The United States even failed to achieve the political benefit of a unanimous Security Council vote. Turkey, the Muslim anchor of NATO for almost 60 years, and Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, voted against our resolution. Could it be that these long-standing U.S. allies, who gave cover to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's nuclear ambitions, have decided that there is no cost in lining up with America's most serious enemies and no gain in lining up with this administration?

The end result is that a critical mass of influential people in world affairs who once held high hopes for the president have begun to wonder whether they misjudged the man. They are no longer dazzled by his rock star personality and there is a sense that there is something amateurish and even incompetent about how Obama is managing U.S. power. For example, Obama has asserted that America is not at war with the Muslim world. The problem is that parts of the Muslim world are at war with America and the West. Obama feels, fairly enough, that America must be contrite in its dealings with the Muslim world. But he has failed to address the religious intolerance, failing economies, tribalism, and gender apartheid that together contribute to jihadist extremism. This was startling and clear when he chose not to publicly support the Iranians who went to the streets in opposition to their oppressive government, based on a judgment that our support might be counterproductive. Yet, he reaches out instead to the likes of Bashar Assad of Syria, Iran's agent in the Arab world, sending our ambassador back to Syria even as it continues to rearm Hezbollah in Lebanon and expands its role in the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance.

The underlying issue is that the Arab world has different estimates on how to deal with an aggressive, expansionist Iran. The Arabs believe you do not deal with Iran with the open hand of a handshake but with the clenched fist of power. Arab leaders fear an Iran proceeding full steam with its nuclear weapons program on top of its programs to develop intermediate-range ballistic missiles. All the while centrifuges keep spinning in Iran, and Arab leaders ask whether Iran will be emboldened by what they interpret as American weakness and faltering willpower. They did not see Obama or his administration as understanding the region, where naiveté is interpreted as a weakness of character, as amateurism, and as proof of the absence of the tough stuff of which leaders are made. (That's why many Arab leaders were appalled at the decision to have a civilian trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York. After 9/11, many of them had engaged in secret counterterrorism activities under the umbrella of an American promise that these activities would never be made public; now they feared that this would be the exact consequence of an open trial.)

America right now appears to be unreliable to traditional friends, compliant to rivals, and weak to enemies. One renowned Asian leader stated recently at a private dinner in the United States, "We in Asia are convinced that Obama is not strong enough to confront his opponents, but we fear that he is not strong enough to support his friends."

The United States for 60 years has met its responsibilities as the leader and the defender of the democracies of the free world. We have policed the sea lanes, protected the air and space domains, countered terrorism, responded to genocide, and been the bulwark against rogue states engaging in aggression. The world now senses, in the context of the erosion of America's economic power and the pressures of our budget deficits, that we will compress our commitments. But the world needs the vision, idealism, and strong leadership that America brings to international affairs. This can be done and must be done. But we are the only ones who can do it.

[Benny B]

i am voting for herman cain.....he is a black conservative.....and a proven leader in the business world....unlike nobama.....who has never done anything except snow people and act like a slimey car salesman.....fuck all that racism bull shit......nobama sucks as a prez......he is all hot air....nothing to do with his skin color.....take the racism card and shove it up your arse.....you libs have been playing that game for over 2 years.....nobama is ineffective.....plain and simple.

Herman Cain will be out of the campaign in six weeks. Not that you would REALLY vote for him anyway. You've never voted for a presidential candidate who wasn't a white male in your life.

With the current crop of shitty candidates you've got on the repube side, despite the struggling economy, Obama will STILL win, and win comfortably. That's why you are bitter, angry and melting like ice cream on hot summer day. 

KILL YOURSELF

[Benny B]

...

Slow day at Uncle Vito's Pizzeria, PEA BRAIN? 

Posting the same pictures over and over again doesn't negate the fact that you've been melting for two and half years straight now because a Black man occupies the Oval Office.  I hope those meds you're taking keep working so that you don't end up going homicidal. If I hear of a mass killing in Yonkers, NY,  all of us at getbig will know who snapped. 

Pathetic, fat little masturbating turd posting 100+ times a day.