on failing to dodge the entitlement trap

It is astonishing to me that this year of all years the Republicans could win big. But Republicans are the ones with the general public on their side on the issue that is coming to dominate the narratives - entitlement.

Eugene Robinson* is a perfect argument for entitlement. Reality is racist, and therefore must not be allowed to vote:

As a rationale for why Democratic Party superdelegates should pick her over Obama, it's a slap in the face to the party's most loyal constituency -- African-Americans -- and a repudiation of principles the party claims to stand for. Here's what she's really saying to party leaders: There's no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you'll be sorry.

How silly of me. I thought the Democratic Party believed in a colorblind America.

By using (wasting) his big guns** on Clinton, there will be nothing left to aim at Republicans if they really do make it all about race. If Obama tries to whine, they'll laugh at him. They're already laughing. To them, the words "swing states" already sounds like a punchline.

But Obama has done more than just waste a weapon - he has handed that weapon to the Republicans:

...because under the politically correct rules of engagement preferred by the Obama camp, only the Illinois senator gets to make ex cathedra observations about such ticklish matters as race and class, which must be treated as infallible. Pundits like Herbert and The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson have been chattering about the so-called “Bradley effect” ever since New Hampshire, but the Clinton camp must not. Why not ? Because contrary to conventional wisdom, it wasn’t the Clintons who “racialized” the campaign at all.

From the same op-ed:

Screaming “racist” at people—I’ve received a grand total of two e-mails from Obama supporters that didn’t—only makes things worse. Real bigots don’t care, while Clinton supporters increasingly resent the accusation. (My skin’s thicker than most. ) Most also think it’s a foolhardy way to avoid discussing the realities of the Electoral College, which is what Clinton was trying to do. Regardless of why working-class white voters don’t support Obama, no Democrat can win without them.

(emphasis mine)

There is one issue that is absolutely nonnegotiable to most working class white voters. That is the issue of whether or not they exist, whether they matter, whether they can or should be written off the map. And Obama has done nothing but insult them. Repeatedly. It's almost as if he is trying to throw the election to the Republicans (and in fact the conspiracy theories have already begun whispering just that).

Instead of seriously considering why the working class dislikes Obama, everyone just keeps screaming racist, racist, racist. Entire states are being thrown out by Democrats making such confused statements about race that I can't tell if they are arguing that Obama must be the nominee because whites aren't really racist, or whether he must be the nominee because whites really are racist. I almost wonder if they are trying to imply that white Democrats are racist but white Republicans won't be?

Whatever it is they are saying, they seem to be falling into the trap liberals always fall into - arguing about the way things should be and forgetting to look at the way things really are.

Consider the reaction to what Pat Buchanan said:

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

It's like watching a magician pull Democratic disunity out of a hat.

Misdirection: Dems fall to arguing about why that is an immoral claim to make, missing the fact that what is really relevant is political, not moral.

Misdirection: Dems react to the exaggerated either-or in that "grievances vs. gratitude". Not fair-minded or gracious enough to acknowledge where credit is due, liberals make the huge strategic blunder of discounting the efforts and sacrifices that have already been made.

This is how Republicans keep control. It's called know your opposition. And Republicans are good at it, but Democrats, as always, are absolutely bewildered at thought processes that fail to conform with how everything should be.

While Democrats are arguing about what people should feel, Republicans are going to use this issue to not only defeat Obama, but also to put to rest (hopefully forever) the very idea of affirmative action, which is going to be in tatters after this***.

And no, I am not saying there is no racism in America anymore. If this were an argument about affirmative action I would say its flaw is that it doesn't work and it has unintended consequences and that it also has ethical problems, in that the whites who are punished are not the same whites who are guilty of the sin. But the real point is, we know that affirmative action is unpopular. That is why Obama started out as a "post-racial" candidate. That is presumably why it was viewed as "playing the race card" for Bill Clinton to mention Jesse Jackson - and incidentally, I think that's a real insult to Jesse Jackson, who unlike Obama has the courage to own what he says and to run on what he really believes.

The Democratic party has not been updating its reality regularly. Their fussbudget hostility toward anything that sounds politically incorrect has made them unable to accept feedback, and now they are living in a world that bears no resemblance to life outside the lilywhite (or its mirror, the antiwhite - both locked in a black-or-white world).

We don't realize how bad this disconnect is because we have fallen into using race words as a code for social class. As in "Stuff White People Like" (a site that really should be labeled "Stuff Upper Middle Class People Like"). Or arguments over whether expecting kids to pull up their pants or speak English are racist demands (even as we blame white parents for not wanting their kids in the same classroom). Both blacks and whites who fail to conform to expectations are banished - blacks are excommunicated from their skin color, while the op-ed writers at the New York Times and the Washington Post erase people using the Orwellian absence of words, freely equating "white" with "rich" until there just aren't any whites outside of the ones you meet at the country club. They use the same strategy Barack Obama lives on: when poorer whites absolutely must exist, it's with loud sniffing noises and in-your-face insults.

It is a perverse sort of logic that says that if Appalachia won't vote for the Democrat, it becomes a top priority to figure out how to win without Appalachia.

Democrats have refused to stand up for principles of equality and it's coming back to them now. I expect certain rich men will whine and sob into their beautifully manicured hands about how nobody likes them because everyone is racist. The truth is, we don't like you because you have treated other people badly, and we do not agree that our white skin makes us dirty enough to justify your bigotry.

Ultimately, the Democratic party will fail because Pat Buchanan has a point: the Democrats have set themselves up as the fair ones - but they have not been fair.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

The important thing to understand here is not that Pat Buchanan is right but that there's no reason why Pat Buchanan should not be allowed to argue his point.

Republicans don't share Democratic party assumptions. The most important assumption that is not shared is the one about personal responsibility. Democrats believe that people are all about being shaped by their environment - but Republicans don't. They believe in choice. They reject entitlement.

On this particular issue, more Americans agree with the Republicans. Democrats are therefore in trouble if Obama gets the nomination - seeing, as we do now, that he is a flawed candidate, but that we must give him the nomination because he is "entitled" to it.
__________________________
*That piece is called, beautifully enough, "Desperate Clinton is Danger to the Party". They did not, however, include the illustration - you know, with the pickaxe. I think the bits of flesh falling from her face might have scared young children or something.

**Another big problem with Robinson's argument: it's demonstrably untrue. Eugene Robinson never believed in a colorblind America and he never believed anyone else did, either.

***Those who still deny that there is something wrong with affirmative action would do well to quit preaching bigotry against poor and conspicuously uneducated white folk & go find out why they're so angry. One issue that could come up might involve how tough it is to get financial aid to finish college - when there isn't enough need-based aid to go around, and minorities get preference.