The distraction du jour: Obama's comments on alienation
Barack Obama said this yesterday:
"In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. ... The jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. 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 predictable maelstrom of outrage and pearl-clutching began with the McCain and Clinton campaigns, both of which described Obama as "elitist," apparently with straight faces. It's especially ironic to hear Republicans criticizing Obama's observations, since their party has been the major factor in both the destruction of those good jobs and the pandering of simplistic, binary world views as a salve in response. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Although his words may have been chosen inelegantly, he was nevertheless absolutely correct. People whose lives have been upended by the loss of good-paying jobs crave some kind of anchoring principle to make it all make sense; they seek any enduring truth or absolute that can give them focus and clarity. History is filled with examples of populations turning to religious fundamentalism and/or nativist chauvinism in times of turmoil. The temptation to rationalize a complex situation (such as the destruction of America's manufacturing industry) with simple answers is an ordinary human trait, and it's no great mystery. It is also nowhere close to "elitist" to acknowledge the fact that people whose jobs have been shuffled off to Mexico or China will be left behind wondering why, and they'll be looking for something solid in their lives to give meaning and context to such an upheaval. Fundamentalist religion, nativism, xenophobia, and any other balms that promise to simplify one's understanding of the problem are strong attractors for those facing uncertainty.
Obama quickly backpedaled with equal predictability:
As Obama acknowledged this morning, his mistake was to suggest that many small-town values are formed by cynicism. "You know the truth. It is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us," he told the Muncie audience.
But he added, "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. You know this in your own lives and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream."
The media focus on this non-story is all too distressingly familiar; meanwhile, the Pentagon is ramping up its use of spy satellites to spy on Americans on US soil.