What Propelled Obama to Victory and Sent the Plutocrats and Racists...

[Brewman_Jax]

What Propelled Obama to Victory and Sent the Plutocrats and Racists to a Brutal Defeat

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/wh...tal-defeat

From the article:

Quote:On Tuesday night Barack Obama – who had led Mitt Romney in most Electoral College projections every single day of this race – won the election that he was supposed to. But that win represented so much more than a victory for a moderate Democrat. We hear that every election is the most important election of our lives -- it's a cliché. This year, it may well prove to be true.

The diverse, creative, younger coalition that propelled the first black president – a guy whose middle name is Hussein – to the presidency, beat back what may well have been the last stand of Ronald Reagan's coalition of plutocrats, white working-class men and religious conservatives. The Republican party, with its deep-pocketed donors and extensive network of supportive media and think-tanks remains viable for the immediate future – thanks in part to some dramatic gerrymandering in 2010 – but the demographic head winds it faces will soon be too powerful to overcome. The GOP's most reliable supporters remain white, married couples who identify themselves as Christians , a group that continues its sharp decline in numbers.

Women, especially unmarried women, delivered a sharp blow to those “limited government” conservative men who feel entitled to regulate their reproductive choices and are intent on making them miserable – with waiting periods and vaginal probes and the forced consumption of anti-abortion propaganda – if they make a choice that conflicts with the beliefs of the religious right.

A fifth hard-right justice won't be seated on the Supreme Court for the next four years -- a lost opportunity for the Chamber of Commerce and a potential victory for Roe v Wade, the Voting Rights Act and a slew of other key precedents.


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As noted on NPR this morning, Obama did not do well with older white voters and males. Like most of the GOP base, that group is dwindling in numbers. They may be powerful at the state level (I live in the metro Atlanta area, GA will be red and mostly GOP for years to come) but they've so alienated most potential supporters they'll be a political footnote in a few years. The poll numbers showed that the demographic shift is happening now; Obama got 93% of the black vote, which is 13% of the electorate, 74% of the Hispanic vote, which is 10% of the electorate, the largest minority voting demographic groups.

If McConnell's statement is any indication, the white people that will never vote for Obama or a democrat in general have made themselves a moot point. They'll get assistance because PBO will work for the 99%, whether they like him or not. The problem of a future is now the GOP's. They can't keep catering to the teabaggers or batshit crazy non-whites, like the Allan Wests, Alan Keyes, Herman Cains, and Michael Steeles, because there aren't that many of them, either.

[Brewman_Jax]

The next thing is--will they quit voting against their interests? I've read articles of how they've seen the light--when it becomes personal. One example is from activist Tim Wise, who tells the story of his grandmother, from Nashville, fell in love with the man who would become his grandfather, a Russian Jewish immigrant. Her father was a leading KKK member, and was against it. She stood her ground and demanded that he leave the KKK and accept her new fiancee. She won.

I enjoy that story for the conversion of a former racist to turn away from the darkness, but it is a sad story, also. It is sad in that there are people so brainwashed and vested in their negative interests that they will not do the right thing UNTIL it becomes personal. Logic hasn't worked, facts don't work, higher education doesn't work, news reports don't work, following alternate philosophies doesn't work, attending non-traditional churches doesn't work. On my facebook page are people that are of some of the above listing that did not vote for Obama, probably won't vote for any democrat, whine about the fact that we're "headed down the road to socialism", but likely didn't mind that GWBush* allowed tax cuts on the Top 1% and let them ship jobs to China and Mexico, drove the country into the ditch and they enjoyed the ride. They're mad that "Obamacare" is in place and that black people got their "Obamaphones" for voting, immigrants are taking their jobs, and a black man is still President and is coming to take their guns.

Some time ago, on another board, a poster started a thread suggesting that in order to end racism, everyone enter into interracial marriages, then there will be no black or white, everyone will be brown, end of problem. I hope that the thread was meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek. Silliness aside, and with some annoyance, I responded that it is sad that the only way these people would do the right thing is because it was personal and not because it was the right thing to do. Other than that "course of action" being a theme for adult films, it's not factually possible. The first major point of fact is that the vast majority of relationships are between members of the same demographic group, but I digress.

What will work? What would make it personal with these people so that they quit thinking that they're just a level below the Top 1% and vote for the 99% of which they actually a part? A suggestion put forth on the Laura Flanders Show discussing Affirmative Action with guests Kimberly Crenshaw and Luke Harris (http://vimeo.com/52663574) is to tell the personal stories of how Affirmative Action, and other programs, have helped. Make it personal to us and through us. Rather than let the political right have all of the spotlight of how Affirmative Action "hurt" the white women that filed the lawsuits against their preferred universities, tell how it helped someone that would not get an athletic scholarship and was on the outside of the system and didn't have the extra-extra assistance of a high school with extras available, like advanced level or AP courses or a exchange program with the local community college. Let them and everyone know how it gave, not simply letting them whine how it took.

Ever notice how there's not so much crying and gnashing of teeth over scholarships for athletes that will help win championships?

By the way, all of the plaintiffs did graduate college, so what did they REALLY lose?

In short, will the angry members of the political right to stop voting against their interests? Like the answer to the riddle: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb has to really want to change. All we can do is tell our stories and not let them hog the stage. Maybe some of them will change. Only time will tell.