I probably should not post yet another horserace piece today, but Rachel Maddow, on Air America, just said something so compelling that it deserves to be recorded in cyber-ink.
Why was John Edwards so beloved of hard lefties? Because he was the only Democrat in the race allowed to sound angry, and his populist outrage reflected the fury felt by all opponents of BushCo.
What do I mean by "allowed"?
Maddow claims that, when we confront an expression of anger, our unconscious minds react to it in terms derived from racial and sexual stereotypes. An angry white man is tough. An angry white woman is a shrew. An angry black man is scary. An angry black woman is crazy.
Intellectually, we know better than to accept these ludicrous stereotypes. But the forces at work here do not operate on an intellectual level. In American political life, the Id makes the rules, and those rules are not fair.
Neither Clinton nor Obama will ever give voice to your anger. They can't. For that reason, they will always feel like sell-outs, regardless of their actual voting records and stated positions on the issues.
12 comments:
My initial gut reaction was to dismiss this ridiculous argument without hesitation. But I did hesitate...
... and then I had to admit that there is probably something to that. Because if I'm going to be REALLY HONEST with myself, the responses described most likely would form a component of my own response to each of those scenarios.
I'm not proud of it. It does not reflect who I really am, spiritually or intellectually. But it does form a portion of the basic foundation upon which those two pillars were constructed, I am sorry to say.
I think it's a crock. America is ready for a woman or a person of colorful heritage, but not a POTUS in stonewashed denims.
H, you misunderstood. I did not address the issue of whether or not the American public is ready to accept a black or female president.
I am addressing the quality of anger -- or rather, how we react to expressions of anger.
When I get angry, people compare me to a grizzly bear. That's not such a bad thing. I kind of like the image, to tell you the truth.
But when a woman gets angry, she's a bitch. She's throwing a hissy-fit.
A man roars. A woman shrieks. The culture respects the roar and derides the shriek.
Is this characterization fair? Of course not. But does the stereotype play a role in our unconscious assessments of the people we encounter? I think so.
I'm afraid Joseph is onto something here; something ugly, but it must be confronted if we're ever to escape this vortex.
Without commenting on the respective positions of the Dem candidates -- I promised I wouldn't ;) -- what I believe Joe is describing is white privilege and the socially-ingrained sexist branding of our heritage as a settler-colonial society.
Reflect for a moment on the original settlers. Religiously extreme Puritan fanatics who believed they were on a mission from God to conqueror the continent for Christ. The result? Land theft and genocide.
It didn't stop there. Even after the Revolution when the Brits were shown the door, these attitudes remained, indeed the compromise for the Southern states ratifying the Constitution was that slavery remained. Paine was an abolitionist and an economic radical; Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton were not.
There was a brief period after the Civil War, when Northern and some (very few) Southern Radical Reconstructionists attempted to forge an alliance amongst white sharecroppers and newly-freed slaves (who derived no economic benefit from slavery) but who by and large, flocked to the Ku Klux Klan. Why? Because their ideological and religious orientation held that whites were superior to blacks. White privilege served to maintain the privileges of the former Southern aristocrats, but poor whites were made to feel they had privileges, even though every rational view of objective reality said otherwise.
Hence Joe's allusion to the Id.
Look at the 9/11 wing-nuts (ok, don't!) What's their favorite argument that "9/11 was an inside job"? Always the allusion to "cave dwelling Arabs" and other such nonsense. In other words, they rely on a racist discourse to bolster their case.
The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu? They "couldn't imagine" that Gen. Giap's troops could surround and then, take them out.
You know, I'm really, really angry. I've been non-stop angry since at least the Vietnam War, and Bush is way worse than that. And yet I like Obama. You know why? Because he's going to beat the crap out of these bastards. In the nicest possible way, of course.
Women can express shared anger with complete
social support. It is one of their most powerful political roles. Think of labor organizers from the late ninteenth and early twentieth century. Or Marianne on the barricades. Imagine your mother denouncing your enemies. Do you hear her voice as shrill ?
But whatever Hillary's manner I 'd be happy to hear her say the same things Edwards is saying.
It'd give hope that she might govern better than her record. Just as it does with Edwards.
AF, it's weird that you use the Civil War's aftermath for the historical framing because I thought about that period of US history when I was reading your most recent post about Pakistan. Actually, I first thought about the 1929 'St. Valentine's Day Massacre' in Chicago, when rival gangs were killing each other during the last days of manifest destiny's crumbs, gobbled up by immigrants and their progeny. Still reaching and stretching, I'd say the US has always had its versions of war lords, who have been called other things, just like those more exotic places have. (Remember the song "Rock Island Line" and the toll booth?) Anyway, I don't know anything about the Id except as an abstraction. The stereotypes at issue here seem valid enough, but that doesn't attach validity to the main point, which is that Edwards was 'allowed' to act angry while Obama (being a black man) and Clinton (being a woman) are not allowed. That's the crock. Every time I've seen them they've expressed anger, they've tried to galvanize their 'base's' frustrations and anxieties, and sometimes it's believable.
Grizz, I didn't misunderstand. Maybe I don't understand what Rachel Maddow means by 'anger'. Did she relate anger to fear, the usual culprit for anger?
Is it Edwards's anger (and the others' lack of showing it), or his tapping into other people's anger, that we're supposed to be discussing? Whatever he's angry about would have to be on behalf of others. Some might call it noblesse oblige, others might call it compassion, and others would recognize it as political representation. The narrowly-defined group that Edwards banked on have much to be angry and frightened about. I'd say his stump speeches have blended anger and fear. Sometimes (and I like John a lot) I thought he was kvetching too much about how privileged his opponents are, owing to their Faustian coffers. Maybe Rachel notices his anger there? Nonetheless, as I've just pointed out, Obama and Clinton have come across plenty angry, which is why I think Rachel is out to brunch. And a minor point: Edwards stumped outdoors a lot and had to yell. Also, Hillary and Barry never twisted their mouths up into that snarl the way John always twisted his. Is it possible that the lovely Rachel Maddow watches John Edwards with her Id vibrating?
OT: Has anyone in NYC seen David Mamet's "November"? Tell us! (It won't be released as a text until June, darn it.)
so out of the 4 candidates left we have :
- a guy old enough to be reagan. (mccain)
- a guy who wants to be reagan. (romney)
- a guy who likes reagan. (obama)
- and hillary clinton.
Joseph:
While I agree with your observations about who's "allowed" to express "anger," my own feeling is that John Edwards didn't express *enough* anger. Every time I saw Wolf Blitzer or some other on-air talking head raise the issue of Edwards' alleged anger, the candidate would always beam that beatific smile and then deliver his policy planks in the most mellow tone of voice. Presumably so as not to scare the women and children in the viewing audience.
I wish that Edwards had taken the opposite tack, and said "Wolf, as I look around at the poverty, hunger, homelessness and lack of health care and education available to my fellow citizens - as I see our nation's blood and purse squandered on needless foreign wars - OF COURSE I'M ANGRY! What THINKING person wouldn't be? And because this nation is made up of THINKING people, I'm appealing to them, each and every one of them, to join me by channelling our collective anger to accomplish the constructive changes our society needs in order to survive."
By soft-soaping his candidacy, Edwards failed to emphasize his unique role in this campaign, failed to carve out a distinct position, and made it appear he was selling a candidacy that was different only by degrees, rather than different in kind. Which is a bloody shame, because he was the only one saying things that desperately need to be said. [I'm far too cynical to believe he would actually do what he promised, but that's MY problem, not his.]
Now, the race on the so-called left is between a woman whose record - like her husband's - leaves far too much to be desired in a leader, and a man who has mastered bumpersticker sloganeering but refuses to address the central fact that power will not voluntarily relinquish or acquiesce. Neither candidate will deliver any substantive change, because one is wed to old-school politics-as-usual and the other seems to think that holding hands and singing Kumbaya will make things different. Puh-leeeze!
Quite true. Hillary's alleged 'shrieking' voice when she speaks loudly at rallies is constantly played by the right wing radio guys as an example of what they, and they claim the country, could not take for 4 years. Shrill, they say.
...sofla
I sat though most of the Repug debate last night. Two things stood out. One was in response to the question of "would you have nominated O'Connor to the SC if you'd been pres?" All candidates said, "No, I luv Alito and Roberts." Scary.
Other question near the end was "How would Ronnie Reagan see you as a candidate?" And they were falling all over themselves to kiss his dead ass. Sheesh. Perhaps they wanted to impress Nancy, who was in the VIP seats.
On Hillary's shrillity, maybe its just politics, I mean she has to sound serious, committed, angry. Knowing her history, past performance, and some rumors, I'd say she's just playacting as best she can.
Obama on the other hand, is really good at it. He can draw the emotion right up front. Spellbinding when he is in good form. Unfortunately he is not likely to be allowed to take the top seat.
Nor was Edwards going to be allowed. I think he knows that, especially after his experience with Kerry conceding (no balls, prior arrangement) in 04. Somehow I doubt that Edwards considered himself a serious contender this time around; he just wanted to get into the race and be heard, which is admirable IMO.
With hundreds of thousands of ballots cast across the country, for the first time in MoveOn's history, we've voted together to endorse a presidential candidate in the primary. That candidate is Barack Obama.
Something big is clearly happening. A few weeks ago, MoveOn members we surveyed were split. But with John Edwards bowing out, progressives are coming together. Obama won over 70% of the vote yesterday, and he's moving up in polls nationwide.
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