Cranky-D

Updated: Pretty much re-written on April 27

This election season has brought with it the most blatant example of identity politics I can remember seeing. This is mostly due to the fact that the Democratic candidates, Hilary and Barack, are very busy playing the victim and race cards, respectively, whenever they get in a jam of some kind. The difficult situations they manage to get into are usually the result of their own political ineptitude, which I assume is tied to a belief that the press will give them an easy time when they make a mistake, like they did in the past. However, because the media are also divided on which candidate they support, much of it does not get ignored for very long, and if it does get ignored we have the online masses who are willing to lay on a beat-down as appropriate. The media and the liberals are starting to see that the Clintons are serial liars. Many are also realizing that Obama is pretty much an empty suit, spreading the idea of hopey-changiness wherever he goes while remaining something of a cypher on substance when he isn’t outright reversing himself on policy positions he supposedly held dear not that long ago. Some pundits have been calling fellow Democrats racists or misogynists when they don’t want to vote for their indentity candidate of choice.

The schadenfreude can be very tasty.

Right now the utility of all this beyond the entertainment value is minimal, and I am tired of the whole thing. However, it isn’t going away soon, and I see an opportunity to show the average citizen, who cares little for politics, just how ridiculous and destructive identity politics can be. Therefore, I want this behavior to continue right up to the general election, when a lot more people will be paying attention. The only way this can happen now is for McCain to nominate a black man or woman as his vice-presidential candidate.

On the surface, I hope you find the idea of playing identity politics right back at them distasteful. You should. However, there are probably enough qualified candidates that I think McCain could make a good, sound choice of running mate such that the person is appropriate for the position and, oh, by the way, happens to be black. I want the candidate to be a solid conservative, so someone like Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell are right out. I would be thinking a Michael Steele or J.C. Watts here, and I’m sure others have their favorites. A conservative candidate should also help to bring some of the base back to McCain, which is how I would argue it to him (of course, he may not care about that).

The nominee must look as qualified on paper as anyone else, and be more qualified than Obama. This is necessary because the very first salvo would include the charge that the nominee was chosen because he or she is black (ironic but completely expected), and the response must be to show that the nominee is as good a choice as any, and certainly as good as the one the Dems have put forth. The technique should be effective even if Hillary somehow gets the nomination, since Barack will not be forgotten soon even if he gets shunted aside, and Hillary’s qualifications are mostly hinged on being the wife of a former president.

Since a black Republican by definition has left the progressive identity plantation, expect the calls of “Uncle Tom” or the more vulgar “House N..r” to soon follow. The pivot point will be that somehow the Democrat’s black guy is intrinsically better than the Republican’s black guy, and that therefore the charges of racism for not voting for Barack (they will be everywhere) will somehow be justified in sticking in some unhinged minds, even though people would be choosing between pairs of candidates which both include black men. Those deep in the identity politics dungeon can twist their internal logic to follow this kind of reasoning, but most people cannot.

While “Uncle Tom” type charges have been used before with respect to Powell and Rice, they have generally been confined to editorial cartoons and the like, which most people never see. I think this time those patently racist slurs would be much more likely to end up out in the open. I want the light to shine on this stuff, so at least some people will see more clearly that automatically placing everyone into identity groups is an ignorant thing to do. I have no idea how many people would pay attention, but I think some would.

It isn’t likely we’ll have another chance like this any time soon to show identity politics in its truest form. I would like to see McCain take it. That way perhaps something positive could come out of this election.

Obama:

“It’s not surprising then that they [Pennsylvanians] 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.”

Ace responds:

The trouble is, those stupid Bible-thumpin’, shotgun-pumpin’, outhouse-dumpin’, sibling-humpin’ morons [in Indiana and North Carolina] don’t realize yet that Obama was talking about them too, and I’m not sure how to inform these degenerate inbred racist cannibals of that.

I don’t speak their language of grunts, backwoods mumble, genital-itching, and racist spree-killings.

How do I reach them?

If only they could read English, or any language, apart from the crude pictographs of elk-hunting and gang-raping they inscribe on the walls of their bone-littered and Bedazzler-studded caves.

The real reason I posted this is so that I would have my own copy of that great string of words.

However, the fact is that this kind of condescending attitude is exactly what I would expect from any Democrat presidential candidate. They have demonstrated it time and time again. They claim to have the solid cultural and religious values that typify America, but then demonstrate that their only G-d is expedience. They can change their morality as fast as a cuttlefish changes color. They also seem to think that the electorate has the brains of cuttlefish as well.

Look, I am often an intellectual snob, and if you hang around me long enough you’ll see it. However, I also have know some great people, like my late Uncle Don, who were great men and women worth listening to even though they never went to college or had any other kind of “official recognition” of their abilities. Where someone lives and what they do for a living has nothing to do with how smart or well-informed they are. However, the left-liberal mindset would have you believe that this is not true.

The thing is, I really don’t care if a presidential candidate is an elitist. I would vote for an elitist, as long as that person held enough positions close to my own and was going to pretty much take us in the direction I want to go (and more important, not take us in a wrong direction). What I really don’t like is someone who pretends to be and average joe or jane when they are nothing of the kind. You cannot eat a Philly cheese steak sandwich or bowl a bad game or whatever and have that somehow give you street cred with me. I doubt it gets you anywhere with anyone.

Presidential candidates all: no voter thinks you’re one of them, because we know you’re not. Quit pretending otherwise.

I ran into this and this a few months ago, but never got around to pointing to them. They are both from the same author, and are definitely worth reading. High thee hence, or something like that.

Read this. Read it and wonder. Read it and take heed.