Obama Talked So Good It Made Mediocre White Men Go Fascist!
Thanks, Obama!
While you might have enjoyed Barack Obama's campaign speeches in Michigan and Wisconsin this weekend, some killjoys couldn't resist spoiling the party. Maybe you weren't suitably supportive of Obama as president so you don't deserve his mic drop moments (just like that Will Smith meme)? And did you even consider that Obama's personal excellence directly led to the nation's downfall?
Republicans were already blaming Obama for Donald Trump during the 2016 primary (before they realized they'd always been the caretaker of Trumpism). However, self-proclaimed "big Obama fan" Nicky Frank tweeted the liberal version of these sentiments: "I'm a big Obama fan, but people forget that his intelligence and way of speaking made a lot of low-education, working-class white folks feel stupid and inferior and came across as smug and dismissive of them, and that's what we're paying for today."
“I'm a big Obama fan, but people forget that his intelligence and way of speaking made a lot of low-education, working-class white folks feel stupid and inferior and came across as smug and dismissive of them, and that's what we're paying for today.”
— Nicky Frank (@Nicky Frank) 1667088920
PREVIOUSLY: Silver Fox Obama Has Some Hot Fire For Republican Fools
So much to examine here! This guy refers to "Obama's intelligence and way of speaking," as if it's somehow contrived and not simply how an intelligent person communicates. The white-hooded elephant in the room is why Obama made non-college-educated working-class Black people feel proud while non-college-educated, working-class white people felt "stupid and inferior."
Obama didn't enjoy tremendous Black support across every possible demographic simply because of his race. Tim Scott and Herschel Walker both demonstrate that it takes a little bit more than just skin tone to win over Black voters. Despite Fox News going on about "Professor Obama," Black folks don't appreciate "smug and dismissive" people. We wouldn't have embraced him for so long if he wasn't the real deal.
Presidential success didn't spoil Obama. He didn't dramatically change after he was elected. When he won re-election, he maintained his record high margins with Black voters while improving among Asian and Hispanic voters. He did lose ground with white voters, but that was after four years of a rightwing disinformation campaign. The Birther conspiracy in particular was designed to "other" Obama, an otherwise normal, charming, moderate family guy. In retrospect, Obama was always mature and grounded for his years. It's why he seems not that different at 61 than he did at 47.
Some white liberals might latch onto the narrative that Democrats forgot how to "talk" to working-class white people during the Obama years because that's more comforting than admitting that racism had anything to do with the Tea Party rallies where Obama was burned in effigy.
Obama twice carried Iowa and Ohio, both states that Joe Biden lost decisively. However, Nicky Frank points out that Obama performed "worse in much of Appalachia than [2004 nominee] John Kerry and tanked with these voters in his first term, bleeding them through his entire presidency. THIS was a major reason why." "THIS" apparently refers to his uppity speech patterns. It's more than a little absurd, though, to suggest Obama is more of an out-of-touch elite than John Kerry.
Republican Sen. John Kennedy from Louisiana was still a Democrat in 2004. He even endorsed Kerry, but I don't think his hard-Right turn was because Obama talked down to him. Republicans love to invoke that single line from Dr. Martin Luther King, yet it's clear that they are more often guilty of judging Obama by the color of his skin rather than the content of his character. Yes, it's fair and reasonable to have major political differences with Obama (from the Right or Left) but when you're obsessing over arugula and tan suits, maybe you're just looking for a reason to hate the Black guy.
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I watched him-- I was so mad-- his method was to say with his wiggly head as if sorry to have to say it-- 'Some people blame our nation for having so many people in the prisons... etc and not the people themselves' It was something that started like that but at the end I wondered 'then how does he figure that there are so many more black men in prison than whites?' But he seemed to believe he was so lovable so no questions would be asked! But he wasn't..
Here's a really good article from someone who watched Reagan's rise to power in California, when he didn't need to pretend to be a genial grandfather. Spoilers, Reagan was a terrible human being with not a single positive impulse to be seen.
http://exiledonline.com/rea...