Obama’s “Bitter” Remarks
Senator Barack Obama has recently made comments that have proved controversial.
Below are the comments in question ( I’ve added two paragraphs from Senator Obama’s remarks for some context. The paragraph in the middle is what we have been hearing about–But there was more. Click here for the full remarks) —
“But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What is the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is so we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — to close tax loopholes, uh you know uh roll back the tax cuts for the top 1%, Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to uh middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide health care for every American.
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing.”
Here are my thoughts on these comments—
1. Everyone has a crutch in life. We all turn to some type of distraction. Most are harmless. At times, when personal discipline and self-respect fail, some turn to making light of others. It is a mistake to say this is done only by people having what we call “hard times.” Life is hard for most people.
2. The comments sting for being painfully true. We’ve all encountered people who often seem bitter. One could ask why remind folks of the obvious? Though these were comments not intended for a mass-audience.
3. The comments miss the mark because they are generalizations. Americans have liked guns since day one. Many are religious because they simply believe–Not for any other reason. Whenever you generalize about many people, you are inevitably wrong.
4. Can anyone deny that some working class whites over the last 40 years have voted for George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the Bushes out of racial and economic bitterness? Maybe what some are bitter about today is having voted for George W. Bush over John Kerry and seeing what a mistake that was.
