THE PLANK AUGUST 13, 2009
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Ed Kilgore is managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, and a frequent contributor to a variety of political journals.
TNR published my article yesterday suggesting parallels between the absurd public rationales typically offered by opponents of gay marriage, and the absurd public rationales offered by some opponents of President Obama’s agenda, most recently on health care reform. Jamie Kirchick responded on The Plank, basically arguing that (1) I didn’t offer enough evidence for tarring health reform opponents with concealed and invidious attitudes, and (2) there is in any event no moral equivalence between homophobia and hostility to poor and minority people.
On the first point, I was reasonably clear that I wasn’t talking about all opponents of health care reform (such as those Kirchick cites, who just prefer the status quo), but those who have embraced bizarre arguments about death panels or the abolition of private medicine or Nazi Germany (or, to cite the latest example from Chuck Norris, home invasion and the suppression of religion). Since my hypothesis is that these talking points may disguise different motives, I cannot, of course, prove it in every case. And that’s why I pointed to a pattern we’ve seen in the more emotional Obama opponents--the angry people at McCain-Palin rallies last year demanding more talk about the ACORN/Fannie Mae conspiracy to destroy the housing market though cheap mortgages for shiftless poor and minority people; the Tea Party stalwarts threatening to “go Galt” and posing as victims of confiscatory taxes; and the persistent treatment of Obama supporters as eager supporters of totalitarianism--that suggests self-righteous disdain for fellow citizens. So long as this pattern continues to manifest itself, I don’t think it’s terribly unfair to speculate about its origins, since it certainly exceeds in intensity anything I’ve personally seen since my childhood in the Jim Crow South.
As for Kirchick’s unhappiness about my willingness to compare homophobia to hostility to poor and minority people: Well, I personally think that they are equally despicable attitudes (on religious grounds, as it happens), but I was actually making an analytical point, not making judgments. Self-righteous disdain for gay people and for poor and minority people is, fortunately, a lot less reputable than it used to be. So those who have those feelings tend to come up with other public rationales for political positions on issues like gay marriage, progressive taxation, or providing health insurance for everyone. It’s actually a sign of social progress. But it also leads to a lot of displaced emotion and absurd arguments.
Kirchick, along with several of the commenters to my original post, seems to think I’m slandering some Obama critics with a terrible insult. (One commenter, who probably had no reason to be aware of my Crackro-American background, asserted that I could not have possibly spent any time around “regular conservative folk.”)
What’s the bigger insult? Thinking that some of these protesters are having dark feelings they’re half-ashamed of and thus don’t often articulate, or thinking they really believe that Obama is Hitler, Democrats are Nazis, and we’re on the brink of a totalitarian revolution if health reform or the stimulus bill or a slightly higher top income tax rate is enacted? Maybe I’m wrong in arguing for the former possibility, but we should all hope I’m right.
UPDATE: Since several commenters and a couple of emails have noted my self-description as a "Crackro-American," I should make it clear I didn't invent the term. Roy Blount Jr. used it extensively in his hilarious 1980 book about Jimmy Carter and Georgians, Crackers.
--Ed Kilgore
10 comments
"Crackro-American"! I'm putting that down when I get my census form!
- phatkarp
August 13, 2009 at 2:04pm
If nothing else I plan to borrow the linguistic formulation "Crackro-American" liberally.
- cspencef
August 13, 2009 at 2:11pm
Ed,
Not only was your observation reasonable, you could have gone further. Among the scorching deadenders opposing health care reform are elements of LaRouchites, Birchers, separatists, miltia types, libertarian extremists, conspiratorialists, birthers, black helicopter zanies, and Sasquatchers. (Ok, everybody but the last mentioned.) Essentially everyone that wants out of the 21st century.
The health-reform hysteria is reminiscent of the post-Vietnam War conspiracy theories about POWs having been left behind. Multiple committees and commissions looked into it, concluding that there was no evidence, but the theories nonetheless flourished in certain quarters. Among those decrying the conspiracy theories was John McCain, and he came in for a great deal of abuse as a result. As did, as I recall, House Veterans Committee stalwart Sonny Montgomery (D-MS).
Dan
- dbuck
August 13, 2009 at 2:21pm
In honor of Chris Rock, I'm going to start designating myself as a Crackro-ass Crackro-American.
- Geoff G
August 13, 2009 at 2:23pm
"What’s the bigger insult? Thinking that some of these protesters are having dark feelings they’re half-ashamed of and thus don’t often articulate, or thinking they really believe that Obama is Hitler, Democrats are Nazis, and we’re on the brink of a totalitarian revolution if health reform or the stimulus bill or a slightly higher top income tax rate is enacted? Maybe I’m wrong in arguing for the former possibility, but we should all hope I’m right."
I'm not sure the extreme-style protester set cares much about cultivated and sensitive psychological insights into their unconscious mind. It is possible they may be sublimating their suppressed feelings of antipathy toward minorities in their vitrialic outbursts against BHO's health care reform agenda. The protesters did not appear to be half-ashamed about anything they did or said to me.
The "Democrats equal Nazis" or "Democrats equal Socialists" is more disturbing because there is a pseudo-sophisticated lierature, with the imprimatur of established Conservative thinkers, that is adding strong support to this trend. Jonah Goldberg's best selling book, "Liberal Fascism" comes to mind. Goldberg is a white-shoe conservative movement intellectual. This line of contorted and false reasoning is not only being expoused by Sarah Palin, the RNC and John McCain. It has penetrated the well educated upper strata of conservative thought. Adding to an already anxiety riddled, economically insecure public a "Big Lie" and you have an extremely combustible mixure, as we have learned from history.
I would like to share your optimism, but the ferocious antagonism s toward "Big Government" and "Liberalism" reveiled by the town-meetings may just be the beginning of a sustained battle for America's soul.
- LawrenceGulotta
August 13, 2009 at 2:33pm
Ehh, I knew I shoulda read more Roy Blount.
- cspencef
August 13, 2009 at 4:01pm
Given that many of the posters and slogans being used by the anti-reform demonstrators and agitators are taken directly from the Lyndon Larouche and his gang, I think it's fair to score this round to Kilgore. And to remember in future whenever Kirchick trots out his tired old attacks on the Nation for printing someone who used to be associated with the Larouchies that in this instance Kirchick himself is overtly taking Larouche's side and defending Larouchie political agitation.
- rhubarbs
August 13, 2009 at 4:10pm
Ed Kilgore is mischaracterizing what I wrote yesterday when I criticized his postulation that it is racism
- Anonymous
August 13, 2009 at 5:45pm
Ed Kilgore is mischaracterizing what I wrote yesterday when I criticized his postulation that it is racism
- Anonymous
August 13, 2009 at 6:16pm
Speaking of the "displaced emotion" of those protesters whose "bizarre arguments ... may disguise different motives", Pollster.com had an interesting blog post up the other day. It highlighted some polls that suggest "Birther" beliefs about Obama are much stronger among white Republicans in the South / states with a high black population than in the West / states with a small black population.
www.pollster.com/.../more_gop_birthers_in_heavily_b.php
- jobeek2
August 13, 2009 at 10:48pm