On SC
Andrew Sullivan is fast approaching the point past which only dogs will be able to hear him. His latest take: under-30 Carolinian whites voted for Obama; older ones, not so much. Therefore, racism is dying out.
Right. Because the only possible reason not to vote for Obama is racism.
Right. Because the only possible reason not to vote for Obama is racism.
9 Comments:
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David Schraub said...
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- 6:22 PM
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Anonymous said...
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- 8:51 PM
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Anonymous said...
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- 10:06 AM
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Anonymous said...
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- 5:08 PM
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esquiver said...
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- 12:24 AM
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Anonymous said...
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- 5:13 PM
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David Schraub said...
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- 6:11 PM
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Anonymous said...
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- 8:15 PM
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Anonymous said...
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- 8:22 PM
Post a CommentWell, arguably, you could conjecture that older Whites in SC are the ones more likely to let racism influence their votes (being folks who lived in segregationist times), and that the fact that younger voters aren't following them is a sign that those racist beliefs aren't being transmitted.
Of course, the alternative hypothesis is that Obama does better everywhere with the young over the old, and that older SC Whites are not responding to Obama not because of race but simply because old people have never been his forte. But at the very least, the fact that young people in SC are willing to vote for him shows that generation is certainly at least somewhat non-racist.
In other words, you don't have to be racist to vote against Obama, but you do have to be at least somewhat non-racist to vote for him.
No. I don't even know who Andrew Sullivan is, but drawing any conclusions about rascism from the South Carolina primary is just plain bats.
Let me go off on another rant about numbers. The Big Bam Obama (okay--so it doesn't exactly rhyme) is now like a steamroller, having won 55% of the Democratic vote. Wowsers! Almost. South Carolina has 2,495,750 registered voters, who don't register by political party: On primary day, any voter can choose to go Republican or Democrat. Mr. Barack's 55% of the Democratic vote was 295,091 votes--or 11.8% of the **Registered Voters**. BFD, as they say where I come from.
Senator Clinton pulled in 141,128 votes, which is 5.7% of the registered voters, and Edwards polled at 3.7%.
McCain kicked ass and took names in South Carolina with 33% of the Republican vote. Not really. He had 147,283 votes, or 5.9%--so the run away winner of the GOP had slightly more votes than the Democratic 'loser.' The raw numbers are all at CNN, but breaking down the results by percentages, Huckabee polled 5.3%, Thompson 2.8%, 'Bubbles' Romney 2.7%, The Dr. Ron Paul .6%, and Rude Rudy is pipped at the post with .4%.
In short, my personal opinion is the only statistical significant conclusion to be taken from the South Carolina primary is that an overwhelming majority of the population does not see the government representing their interests enough to even go vote.
You want anecdotal evidence--I have heard at least half a dozen self-identified Republicans who voted for Bush, and say they are wholly impressed and inspired by Mr. Barack. What the hell kind of Republican could possibly find anything appealing about Mr. Barack?
But for what it's worth, The Rude Man, Amerika's Mayor, is dropping like a rock in Florida--latest polls have him hitting fourth place.......But I still miss Gopher Thompson.
"Bubbles" Romney? Nope, I have it on good authority that Mitt stands for "Mittens" (where "good authority" equals "something I say because the thought amuses me"). -Shani
Shani--
I have never met you, but have always been impressed by your postings on the Esquivalience--especially at your ability to be concise & to the point (you can guess why that shocks & awes me).
I call the Mitt 'Bubbles,' because I have said elsewhere that Mr. Romney tries harder to be all things to all men, better than anyone with 'Bubbles' in front of their name.
And I'm not the only one to notice. At a SC debate, Romney went off on some rant about 'change,' saying 'change' about ten times in three sentences. McCain spoke next, and said 'Governor Romney really is the 'Candidate of Change.'' Because I'm slow, it took me thirty seconds to get the joke, then I almost crashed my car from laughing.
David,
No, no, and no.
My original point -- which, granted, was stated by omission, which is never a terribly reliable means of communication -- was that there's a glaringly obvious confound in the attempted age/racism formula, which is...um, age. Stop your multiple regression right there; most of the variance is accounted for.
People significantly under 46 seem to assume Obama is age- and experience-qualified by virtue of the fact that he's not in their age ingroup. For people within 10 years, or, god forbid, older, that single quality emerges out of the background as an issue, starting with skepticism at the younger end and progressing upward into abject terror. I suspect us elders are also less susceptible to the whole demagoguery of charisma thing, too, but I'll save that for another post.
Furthermore, I reject utterly the claim that someone has to be non-racist to vote for Obama, and hope, not for the first time since reading your blog, that you plan to further explore the social psychological literature and perspectives relevant to the issues you often discuss.
The mind doesn't give up stereotypes easily; it prefers to subcategorize disconfirming exemplars. (Surely, you can't endorse the corollary that voters for Thatcher had to be nonsexist?) The pro-Obama racist has a number of options available, ranging from the more overt denial of "he's half-white," to the more typical form that this cognitive strategy takes: he's not a real black man; or, unpacked a bit, "he's not the kind of black man that I mean when I express [racist sentiment x]." Call it the Biden response, if you like.
Incidentally, one of the least productive things you can do to induce attitude shift in a subcategorizer is to insist on keeping category membership in the foreground -- say, as happened in the media coverage following SC. Forced to choose between abandoning an elaborately associative belief structure or turning on the exemplar, the exemplar usually doesn't fare too well.
At this point, let me throw in the standard disclaimer for casual readers: I did not invent this cognitive process. I do not endorse this cognitive process, nor racist voters, nor the use of campaign tactics designed to appeal to such voters.
That said, I do think SC was an accidental test of this cognitive model. Though the conventional wisdom would suggest a bump up from the momentum, I think he's actually going to have to recover from it, including from within his own presumptive base. (Indeed, the numbers from Florida -- which, granted, is an unusual case -- suggest he didn't pick up the younger voters in the same way.)
For what it's worth, I think it's an interesting question -- and a damn good research project -- whether one has to be nonsexist to vote for Clinton. It's pretty hard to escape the salience of her sex; socioeconomic class doesn't interact with the category the way it arguably does with race. In that case, her numbers might already be "preshrunk," if you will, which I find encouraging. (I'm in a pretty doggedly optimistic mood tonight.)
Bill,
Thanks.
-Shani
Esq: That's why I said you have to be "somewhat non-racist" in order to vote for Obama. I agree with you entirely that it is possible for a person who still harbors racist sentiments to vote for Obama. But the more foregrounded one's racist ideology is, the less likely one will be able to play the cognitive games in order to justify the vote -- i.e., a George Wallace clone would be hard pressed to self-justify an Obama vote. So, we could say, the amount of racism has at least receded in the voting patterns of the young insofar as they might be less likely to be past that "threshold of racism" at which point they'd be unwilling to vote for Obama.
To the Editor:
I have to say that I disagree with Mr. Schraub's even mild assessment that a body would have to be even 'somewhat non-racist' to vote for Mr. Obama for President. I would argue that voting for and/or against Mr. Obama and personal racist sentiments are wholly independent of one another.
Perhaps (cough cough) I am considerably older than Mr. Schraub (and YES, Editor: fatter and balder too. Happy now?), but there was the time when 'The Cosby Show' (Bill Cosby as OB/GYN married to Phylicia Rashad the lawyer) was the most popular television show in apartheid South Africa. Moreover, there was a very popular novel in the early 1800s about a African 'prince' who was caught in a slave trader's trap--and this African stood out from all the other 'proper' slaves, because of the Prince's regal bearing and 'western' nose. Despite the popularity of those works, both societies (by any measure) were 'racist.'
I have two points. First, racism thrives not on hating all of 'them.' Rather, racism justifies itself by selecting out the few who are not 'like them.' For example, the guy who insists he's not racist, because his favorite boxer in Ali and his favorite NFL player is Vince Young.
Second, in my view, true 'racism' is not the moron who says 'Man, I really hate all those darkies, beaners, wops, heebs, Bohunks, WASPS et al.' Racism, as a harmful institution manifests itself, in the economic, education, and health gap between races. In other words, racism is an institutional manifestation, as opposed to an individual subjective phenomena.
And yes, no one invites me to parties. How did you know?
I remain:
Bill Abendroth
billaben@teleport.com
To the Editor:
Re: Your comment 'People significantly under 46 seem to assume Obama is age-and experience-qualified...', SHUT UP!
I remain:
A 47 year old who thinks that Mr. Obama is not age and experience experience qualified to be President, yet insists he is not THAT old.
Bill Abendroth
PS And if you say 'But what about bald and fat?', you think you're funny, but you're not.
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