Do These People Still Matter?

Ross Douthat, it seems, does not share my enthusiasm for Obama’s speech yesterday on race.

Andrew argues that the dismissive reactions to Obama’s speech from the right are “palpably fueled by fear and racism.” That’s unfair and unfounded: As I suggested yesterday in detailing my own qualms about the speech, they’re palpably fueled by the fact that Obama is a liberal. The conservative idea of a candidate who’s “transformational” on race is someone who sounds like Bill Cosby and works with Ward Connerly, and that just isn’t what Obama’s doing; hence the Right’s disappointment, which in many cases is curdling into dismissiveness and outright dislike.

Ward Connerly, in case anyone is curious, is an African-American political activist who led the charge against affirmative action in California. And Douthat’s Bill Cosby link goes to a post by Michael Goldfarb, in which he pouts over Obama’s failure to take up Cosby’s claim that black Americans can “no longer blame white people.” So allow me translate this into very simple terms. Ross Douthat, the Corner, and the rest of the conservatives who have dismissed Obama’s speech, are unhappy because what they wanted to hear from Obama was this: “Black America, you should be ashamed of yourself. Sure, things were a bit rough before the 1960s, but this country has just been so darned nice to you since then. How can you still be putzing around? Get your act together for God’s sake! White America, you guys are fine. You’re beautiful. Carry on.”

Unfortunately for them, Obama would have none of that. He insisted that the material injustices passed down by slavery and segregation still matter enormously, and not only did he call upon black Americans to reclaim their agency, but he also suggested that white Americans bare as yet unfulfilled obligations as well. Does this make him a liberal? Well, certainly. It also, incidentally, makes him right. If you are looking for evidence that, in the arena of race, conservative politics are founded on white petulance and self-pity, the Right’s reaction to Obama’s latest oratory is Exhibit A.

To Douthat’s credit, I suspect he is correct about the underlying strategy here. Obama is betting that support for conservative politicians over the past few decades has been due more to the style of conservatism than its substance. And he’s betting that his new style can crack that particular lock, thus bringing a new and decisive batch of voters into his substantively liberal corner. His call for unity is not a commitment to a big tent campaign, as most have assumed, but rather a challenge to Americans to come together around what they know down in their gut is morally upright. In short, Obama believes ideological conservatives are on the verge of irrelevancy in American politics.

My fingers are, needless to say, very tightly crossed.

~ by Jeff on March 19, 2008.