Driving home today, SiriusXM 70’s on 7 played Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow”, Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign theme song. I was a foot soldier in that campaign and it brought back memories, hence the title of this diary.
It felt so good after 12 years of Reaganism to fight back. To be with comrades from all walks of life, from blue collar workers to University professors. I registered as a Democrat for the first time. In the Chicago suburbs your best bet to affect policy was to register as a Republican and vote in the Republican primary. But as the title song says:
“Baby, baby, where did our love go? Ooh, don’t you want me? Don’t you want me no more?”
We were betrayed by the Centrists who just wanted our votes but stripped away the last vestiges of the New Deal in their infatuation with Wall Street and it’s money and power.
“Baby, baby, where did our love go?
And all your promises of a love forevermore!
I’ve got this burning, burning, yearning feelin’ inside me
Ooh, deep inside me, and it hurts so bad!”
Howard Dean and his incendiary San Francisco speech picked me up from the floor, raised our hopes again and I gladly became an acolyte, shaking his hand at a scorching hot Navy Pier campaign rally. I wonder what happened to the black lady that shepherded me through the crowd. “You want to shake his hand? Follow me!” and she started pushing people aside as I followed in her wake. Barack Obama was starting his Senatorial run and I saw several placards in the crowd. I was surprised when the black lady told me she didn’t trust him. She didn’t like his record in the Illinois Senate. I went to the meet ups and contributed to the campaign. I had wanted to go Iowa but my wife dissuaded me stating she needed me at home to help her with the three grandsons that were suddenly in our care. Then after he lost, it seemed that he sold out to Wall Street and the Centrists as well.
Before you won my heart (baby, baby)
You were a perfect guy
But now that you got me
You wanna leave me behind (baby, baby)
Then I joined a group that was trying to establish an independent Democratic presence in the Suburbs. Independent of Chicago, that is. Rahm Emanuel squelched that, running ex-Republicans against us in the primaries, using DNC money to do it. I’ll hand it to him, he knew how to run a professional campaign with paid petition takers and canvassers. Requiem in Pacem, hopes for a suburban voice.
What can I say about the horrors that followed? Barack Obama’s fellation of Jamie Dimon and the other Wall street moguls, ignoring the outright fraud that stripped millions from their homes. His enthusiastic embrace of the Forever War. His thirst to cheat retirees of their earned Social Security benefits. But the Party had decided that “Demographics is Destiny” and started open race hatred of “old white men”. You’re old! You’re white! You’re a man! You’re the scum of the earth and the embodiment of everything evil. Besides, you live in flyover country,Hicksville, and the beautiful people live on the Coasts. Bringing us to the present day and the official disdain of “old white men”.
You came into my heart (baby, baby) so tenderly
With a burning love (baby, baby)
That stings like a bee (baby, baby)
Now that I surrender (baby, baby) so helplessly
You now want to leave (baby, baby)
Ooh, you wanna leave me (baby, baby)
“What becomes of the brokenhearted who had love that’s now departed?” asked Jimmy Ruffin. The Republican Party is no answer. That’s just leaving a two-timing bitch for a syphilitic whore. The Green Party seems to be a bunch of dilettantes who want to play at running for office with no real strategy, just like the Libertarian Party is.
Baby, baby, baby don’t leave me
Ooh, please don’t leave me all by myself!
I guess the answer is celibacy, joining the majority that don’t vote at all. If you don’t vote, you won’t be betrayed. If you don’t love, you won’t be hurt.
At best, you’re (and not for the first time) abstracting exclusively from your own perch. (That’s narcissistic.)
How does “deplorables” and “white working class” or “non-college whites” (stated targets of disdain) get transformed into “old white men?” The GOP has been using that against Democrats, in the same way as they use racism, for decades.
In the 2016 campaign disdain was expressed for “BernieBros” (presumed to refer to young white men that supported Sanders), women (“a special place in hell for those that don’t support a woman candidate” – presumably only leveled at white women because this was stated in New Hampshire), and young white women that want to hook up with “BernieBros.”
They didn’t dare express disdain for AAs and old white women because they needed all the AA Obama voters and more of the latter than Obama had received. Based on Roper’s 2008 and 2016, Clinton did worse with those two groups. But where she fell off the cliff was with men (includes non-white) down by eight percentage points and men made up a higher percentage of voters in ’16. Obama lost the white vote to McCain (43% to 55%) but it was worse for Clinton (37% to 58%). So, whites voters are a problem for Democratic Party and one that they don’t have a good answer for.
Yes I am. Of course. It’s a personal narrative.
Haven’t you been reading the front pages of this blog? Or (if you have a strong stomach) DailyKos? “Old white men” is used interminably in the same sense that the GOP uses “hoodie gansta’s”.
And I’m not talking about Campaign 2016. I’m talking about the last 25 years.
You’re going to have to back up that second allegation with quotes.
Don’t know and don’t care what’s been on DKos for the past five years, but prior to that, I have no recollection of expressed disdain for “old white men” as differentiated from white voters in the aggregate and in general. As an old white woman, I don’t take that personally because white people, particularly as they age, are and for a long time have been a problem.
The more they vote their racism, faux christianity, and slavishness to the US military and war (some misogyny is in the mix) over economic/equity matters, peace, and environmental issues (including waste and toxins), the more the DP has restricted its counter-argument to multi-cultural and non-racist (with the exception of the instances when one of the Clintons has used the race card). So, we end up with a racist party and a non-(or aspirationally non-) racist party with both favoring the wealthy and the latter supporting minimal safety nets for the non-wealthy.
At this point is difficult to determine if the ignorance is more endemic among voters or the politicians in both parties. And both parties are fighting for that small sliver of swing voters with what has devolved into the only tool their willing to use: race. So, the GOP claims that the DP takes the AA vote for granted and that it denigrates white people and Democrats beats up the GOP and white voters because they’re racist (which is true) but isn’t effective in getting their vote.
Not going to bother looking up and citing all the instances. One quote that has disappeared along with the whole troll-rated thread was Marduk’s classic “Fuck the white working man” in response to Booman’s front page about how can Democrats bring back the white working man. I feel Marduk spoke for a majority of Democrats. Over the last few years I’ve read so much about “white privilege” that I almost puked. Everything I have I worked or fought for. No one gave me anything that wasn’t free to everyone else. i.e. public school education. I inherited nothing except survivor’s genes. Individuals have been kind to me over the years and I recognize that I wouldn’t have made it without that kindness. Many, quite probably a majority, have been non-white – Latino, Asian, and African-American. AA especially in the Postal Service where I received the most help and assistance from my AA union brothers and sisters. I feel it is racist to accuse me or racism on the basis of my skin color.
Recc’d the rest of your post. Spot on.
Girls and women (and all POC) are forced to develop a thick skin at an early age because they are subjected to so much derogatory speech lumping all girls/women are X. Expressing irritation leads to “oh, she must be on the rag.” Object and it’s “stop being so defensive” or “well, maybe not you, but …”
Years ago I looked up from my desk as the men had gathered across the aisle from me and were sharing sexist jokes. I gave them a dirty look which must have been intense because my boss said, “Come on — you need to get a sense of humor.” I responded with, “My sense of humor is just fine; it’s your sexist jokes that aren’t. Never is a white man the butt of your jokes.” I was heard in that moment. And it improved the joking around between that boss and me.
Women and minorities learn if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it, but life is too short to personalize and make a big deal out of one-size-for-all shoes that are flung around. Currently, you’re not seeing leftish bloggers dumping on white women (even though Trump, Romney, McCain, and Republicans all the way back to 1948 (with the possible exception of 1964) carried the white female vote) because that’s not in sync with the 2016 Democratic campaign. If someone on the left said “white women are problem,” I would understand who they’re referring to, wouldn’t put myself in that group, and wouldn’t defend those white women.
Here’s the thing about privilege — the recipients minimize the extent of it because they can’t see it; for them, it’s just the way things have been and are and therefore, are supposed to be. Acknowledging it doesn’t make it disappear. Why did US workers let “them” steal well-paying jobs and job security?
Well, “they” didn’t steal them. The corporate bosses did. I can’t blame them (the H1-B’s) for doing what I would if I were them. I’ve mentored several Indian and Chinese immigrants. Not in any formal program but because they asked for my help and advice. I’m humbled that they came to me with intimate family problems (probably out of desperation). The usual problem is that their kids are no longer Asian. They are American. They’re kids and absorb the surrounding culture readily. I’m reminded of what Jeff Smith, the Frugal Gourmet on PBS said about the assimilation process. “What the son wants to forget, the grandson wants to remember.” I’ve encountered immigrants that I didn’t like, too. Like the Indian jerk who loudly hated America, particularly the bold braassy women that didn’t know their place. He told us how when he made his pile he was going back to India and buy a big house with servants to lord over (may God or Vishnu help them!). No one called him out but I know at least one other thought what I thought, “I hope he makes his pile quick and gets the Hell out of here.”
What many don’t understand is that I oppose the program, not the immigrants. I have my own ideas for immigration reform but neither Democrats nor Republicans agree with me.
“They” are the corporate bosses and the politicians the corporate bosses fund to let them do whatever.
Agree that it’s mostly the programs that “they” shove through that are the problem. However, there’s always a grain of truth to the problem “they” want to fix — often “they” also played a role in creating the problem, but they don’t want anything to do with unwinding their prior fix. (Racism as is filters into schools and housing plays a large role in this example.) “Too few STEM graduates available for hiring” — ta da H1B. Get ten times as many needed slots and no more shortage and reduces wages at the entry level. Rinse, repeat at the next level up. reduces the wages for all in the earliest stages of their careers. Job insecurity works like magic in holding down wage demands (particularly when the decimation of labor unions is initiated in the prior years).
A Chinese friend told me this story about when he was working on his PhD in Texas. His daughter (born in China but brought here at age two or three) was telling him about her kindergarten class. “There are X black kids and the rest of us are white.” He told her, “You are not a little white kid. You are a little yellow kid.” Apparently the only one in the class. When I met her she was 14 and sounded like any other 14 year old Illinois kid. She also spoke Cantonese. I know zero Cantonese but it sounded real authentic to me! I once told him that if he didn’t have mixed race grandkids he surely would have mixed race great-grandkids. He was horrified. He told me that in China he was taught that white, yellow, and black people were separate species that evolved separately from a base hominid. With the recent discovery of the Denisovan hominids, they might be right, or close to it. No matter. I like mongrel dogs best so why not mongrel humans? After all, I’m a mongrel European and my Sicilian grandmother never let me forget it. So what? Like my dogs, I’m a robust survivor, not given to inbreeding weaknesses.
Still telling that lie, huh?
White privilege is a thing. Heterosexual privilege also, and male privilege. And all else equal, in most settings in the western world, being a white, heterosexual man gives an advantage. Not a get-rich card or anything, just an advantage.
Of course, one should remember that these privileges divide and comes at a cost for all:
Ted Allen, Can White Workers Radicals be Radicalized p. 175, by way of Richard Moser at Counterpunch
Of course all else isn’t equal, and this biggest privilege is wealth.
Never read all 290 comments, hopefully I didn’t “contribute” to the vileness … the Pond has never recovered.
Symbolic for the DP as a whole. How divisive can one get … harsh words would fit well in any central committee gathering.
○ Sanders’ Frustrating Wins
In searching for the white working class men …
Young man, i hope you grow up to be an adult at some point in your life that understands how disrespectful “That’s just leaving a two-timing bitch for a syphilitic whore” sounds to both women and sex workers.
I know its all cool with the kids these days to talk that way, but that doesnt make it ok. I believe you are better than this, and i hope you can be more respectful in the future.
He’s working on it (slowly), but old habits for older people are hard to break.
Sorry that you are offended, but surely you know some women that “two-timing bitch” is an apt description of.
As for the b-word, I have heard it often from my older sister, a career woman and feminist. You must distinguish from characterizing all women as such and calling out particular women.
And I apologize for denigrating sex workers, many of whom were and are forced into the trade as little more than slaves. Still, no man in his right mind would marry a diseased sex worker, to put it in less stark terms.
There is a wide-open field in local area–progressive Democrats in stereotyped white male Republican areas, providing they have or can build a rep on their full-time, not their political life.
We got there in Virginia with a democratic socialist Democrat in a stereotypical affluent white Republican district. You don’t have to limit oneself to hardscrabble working class, union-mourning, or rural Republican districts.
It does help to be a veterans though. No fight gets read as no fight no matter how off it might be.
Wave elections happen when people start winning in unexpected places. Most recent one of those was Scott Walker in Wisconsin. And the 2010 “complete shellacking”.