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News & ArtsTuesday, August 31, 2010
History The Hitchens on Beck: A Waterworld of White Self-Pity
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 8:40 AM
[S]o strong is the moral stature of the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement that even the white right prefers to pretend to emulate it. (This smarmy tactic long predates Glenn Beck, by the way: I remember Ralph Reed trying it when he ran the Christian Coalition more than 10 years ago and announced that he wanted to remodel the organization along the lines of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.) Thus, it is really quite rare to hear slurs against President Barack Obama that are based purely on the color of his skin. Even Beck himself has tried to back away from the smears of that kind that he has spread in the past. But it is increasingly common to hear allegations that Obama is either foreign-born or a Muslim. And these insinuations are perfectly emblematic of the two main fears of the old majority: that it will be submerged by an influx from beyond the borders and that it will be challenged in its traditional ways and faiths by an alien and largely Third World religion.What I love most? The expression: "the old majority." That's what they are, that's what America is dealing with, and they are the reason why all of my pre-Obama predictions about the future of GOP need little to no adjustment. Posted on Oct 15, 2008:
The real rupture in American politics is in the area of the Republican party. The exact location of this break is between its working-class base and the top layer of its professional/business elites. The break is not an isolated event but a part of the larger transformation of American politics—its current Europeanization. Obama’s rise to power is also a consequence of this process. The result of Obama’s presidency will be an increase of the government’s role in the management of civil society; as for the break in the GOP, the result will be an American political system that has three parts: the Dems, the Republicans, and the far right. Or put another way: Obama, McCain, and Palin.
1
Is this a case of "If you can't beat them, join them"? They are so racist that it's convenient to pretend some connection to MLK but the reality is they are terrified of change. Especially change with dark skin and middle east names. When they say "take back our country" they clearly mean from the dark races. It fits with their clamoring for shut borders and "no amnesty" which would allow people of color who are here in desperation for work, and yes, illegally, to have a path to citizenship. And the same goes with their demands that the constitution be overturned with regard to naturally born citizens. And it fits with their hate of healthcare reform. They believe they will get the bill for poor blacks and hispanics when the truth is they are already getting a much larger bill to pay for emergency room care. We cannot and must not allow this blind ideology to strip us of the progress that has been made. We must fight, even as nasty as they are, bfore they can make any gains. We must not accept out-of-hand that they will gain seats in November.
3
Well at this point there is no light between the McCain and Palin branches. Anyone who wants to stay viable as a Republican has moved even farther to the right.
4
It doesn't work like that, Charles. It works like this: either the Democratic or the Republican elite swings the populist middle class their way. What's happening now is the Republicans swinging them their way, for two reasons: one is the emotional appeal of guys like Beck and Palin, and the other is the abandonment of the middle class by Obama. I'm not talking about policies so much as the feeling they're on their side. Obama has clearly aligned himself with Wall Street against Main Street, and the forgotten people are keenly aware of it.
Beck's followers don't mean a thing in terms of policy, only emotion. They're going with him because he cares about them. It doesn't matter in the slightest if he's a hypocrite or a liar or faking it. And while Beck's people don't constitute enough to matter, they represent the vanguard of a much larger group that does.
That group was Obama's in 2008, and could be again, but he's forsaken them. Or they feel that he has, which is the same thing.
What Obama needs to do is go after Wall Street HARD. He needs to fire Tim Geithner and the rest of his Wall Street crew, and attack the banks relentlessly. But he won't.
Beck's followers don't mean a thing in terms of policy, only emotion. They're going with him because he cares about them. It doesn't matter in the slightest if he's a hypocrite or a liar or faking it. And while Beck's people don't constitute enough to matter, they represent the vanguard of a much larger group that does.
That group was Obama's in 2008, and could be again, but he's forsaken them. Or they feel that he has, which is the same thing.
What Obama needs to do is go after Wall Street HARD. He needs to fire Tim Geithner and the rest of his Wall Street crew, and attack the banks relentlessly. But he won't.
5
@3, that's just not true. Rossi isn't moving to the right; he explicitly rejected the right (Didier) to keep the forgotten middle. Scott Brown isn't on the right. McCain is pandering, which is endemic, but there's still a rump of old-line non-insane Republicans who are currently making inroads against Democrats, largely because Democrats don't know how to fight and don't know what the real issues are.
6
I don't agree with this at all. The Far Right, as you call them, is succeeding in bringing the Democratic Party further to the right. For whatever reasons, I believe Obama supports this movement! Perhaps he's looking to 2012 and will appreciate a campaign against a crazy Republican majority, but his opposition to the right in 2010 is platitudinous at best. Perhaps the Democrats of today are basically the Republicans of 1972.
7
@5: The old-line principled conservatives could prove to be allies to some degree against the pseudo-populist quasi-anarchism that is the Tea Party movement. There are a few on the right who would rather compromise with the Democrats than let this country shred apart.
8
@7, not too many. Old-line conservatives want power, too. What they want is the same thing they've always wanted, and usually gotten -- to ride the populist dissatisfaction into office, and then abandon those people once there. Same thing the Democrats do, to be honest.
9
"The two main fears of the old majority" statement is so true. Americans don't understand that the third world lifestyle is really in fact wonderful - poverty, disease, totalitarian regimes, herbal witchdoctors. Such facets, which their cultures have admirably maintained, would benefit a more 'advanced' society. Also, in the third world they probably don't cultivate ugly grass lawns.
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