This at least will be easier than defending Obama on the use of
his phrasing, because my astral projection skills tell me he wasn't
quite aiming for the following interpretation. But consider:
"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."
Imagine Joe Pennsyltucky. He's
forty-five. He's white. His job's been packed off to China. Over
what feels like the past two weeks, the lake where he's spent
summer days with his family has experienced a tremendous influx of
Mexican and other immigrants, people with whom he has little in
common, and who seem to be doing well enough to set up lives of
their own, with children, in a part of the world that seems
increasingly inhospitable to him -- his own home. Thanks to both
parties, it seems; Democrats want to keep the poor from ever
getting rich and Republicans want to keep the rich from ever
getting poor. Where's that leave him? Feeling the gloom that all
those older movement conservatives are feeling, or perhaps
something with a little more bite.
What's Joe Pennsyltucky got to lean on?
Family, if he's got it -- if he can afford it, in the event he's
got eldery parents or other relatives he's caring for. Probably
he's got his faith, and there's a pretty healthy chance he does
have a gun because he, like the other men in his lineage, have
hunted regularly for years. He can still track a deer and pray to
God, even though he has to figure out how to learn a new trade and
figure out how to deal with close communities of recent foreigners
that aren't exactly lining up to shake his
hand.
This strikes me as a plausible, not
very outlandish account of a plausible, not very outlandish sort of
American. Any American liberal or conservative or libertarian (or
socialist or...) worth his or her salt should be able, I think, to
readily recognize this character as close or very close to
representing a real constituent and riff accordingly on his plight
and who's to blame. So it seems to me Obama's done. Reading a
pejorative posture into his remarks is totally fair game, but it
seems right and important to me to point out how the content, taken
at face value, cuts in several directions, not a few of which are
accomodating to conservative postures, too.
topics:
Trade, Religion
About the Author
James Poulos is a doctoral student at Georgetown and the former Political Editor of Culture11. His writing has been published by The American Conservative, The National Interest, The New Atlantis, Partnership for a Secure America, and The Weekly Standard. In addition to AmSpecBlog, he has blogged at The American Scene, Doublethink, and Postmodern Conservative, which he founded. With degrees in political science and law from Duke and USC, he is currently at work on a dissertation about life after Napoleon. In his spare time he anti-blogs at Pish Tosh.
