And the corollary: Clinton supporters are sensible realists.
Now that it’s finally sinking in that the crazy Obama supporters are probably going to get their way, something of a backlash is hitting all over the web: Horrors. Is there time yet to save the republic from the ravages of Obamamania?
It was interesting, also, to hear the theme explored on Warren Olney’s show, To the Point, earlier today. He invited as a guest L.A. Times columnist Joel Stein, who wrote a column about it last week:
What the Cult of Obama doesn’t realize is that he’s a politician. Not a
brave one taking risky positions like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, but
a mainstream one. He has not been firing up the Senate with stirring
Cross-of-Gold-type speeches to end the war. He’s a politician so soft
and safe, Oprah likes him. There’s talk about his charisma and good
looks, but I know a nerd when I see one. The dude is Urkel with a
better tailor.All
of this is clear to me, and yet I have fallen victim. I was at an Obama
rally in Las Vegas last month, hanging at the rope line afterward in
the cold night desert air, just to see him up close, to make sure he
was real. I’d never heard a politician talk so bluntly, calling U.S.
immigration policy "scapegoating" and "demagoguery." I’d never had even
a history teacher argue that our nation’s history is a series of brave
people changing others’ minds when things were on the verge of
collapse. I want the man to hope all over me.Still, I can’t
help but feel incredibly embarrassed about my feelings.
Later in the column, he brings his Mom into it:
My mom, a passionate Hillary Clinton supporter, immediately attacked
Obamamania. "Some part of me wants to say, ‘People wake up. He has no
plans.’ I get frustrated listening to his speeches after awhile," she
said. She also said that the new vacation house in Key West is really
great and her vertigo hasn’t been acting up.I started to feel
a little more grounded again. Did I want to be some dreamer hippie
loser, or a person who understands that change emerges from hard work
and conflict? "People are projecting an awful lot onto him," Mom said.
Well, both Stein and his Mom were on Olney’s show. And the Clinton-supporting Mom, a therapist in New Jersey, did seem very sensible and grounded while the Obama-supporting son seemed the conflicted, Los Angeles flake. She argued that we don’t know enough about Obama, and that we don’t have any reason to believe that he will deliver on what he promises. With Hilary, she argued, you know what you’re getting, and she is much more likely to deliver. People are projecting too much onto Obama, and they are going to be disappointed when they discover their idea of him isn’t real. Or words to that effect.
Other guests said their pieces, and one of them made the argument
that Obama, in fact, was more likely to deliver on his promises because
he would probably have bigger coattails and with it a larger majority
to work with to get his programs through. Olney asked Mom what she
thought of that. She said she thought it was a possibility. Olney asked
her if she were convinced that Obama would bring in larger Democratic
congressional majorities, would she change her support to Obama? She
said emphatically not. That she had to follow her heart. All of a
sudden she wasn’t sounding so grounded and sensible anymore. Her other
remarks made it clear that her woman’s heart wanted a woman in the
White House. Is that any less emotion-driven than her son’s support for
Obama?
My point isn’t to pick on her or people like her; it’s simply to
point out that most people’s preferences are grounded in the
irrational, no matter how sensible they seem. But some irrationality is
stupider than other kinds. And the emotions driving identity voting are
among the stupider kinds of irrationality. I’m not saying we don’t all
have those feelings, but they should be pretty low on the list of
reasons, even among the spectrum of irrational reasons.
And so to argue that one candidate’s supporters are more irrational
than the other’s is just silly if it’s to make the point that any
support for that candidate is irrational. As I argued in my post
earlier today, Obama’s appeal lies largely in what I hope will be his
ability to call out from the American people a more grownup imagination
of what it means to be an American citizen.
I think that a big part of Obama’s appeal lies in that he awakens a
desire latent in all normal people to be more than or better than the
docile, easily intimidated children the Republicans make us want to be.
If the longing to become political adults is among the many things
people are projecting onto Obama, let’s have more of it.
Leave a Reply