So That’s Where I Left My Racism!

Things aren’t looking so great for our president.  His approval rating is just above 50%, in some polls.  American citizens are rallying against his spending, energy, and health care plans, with many expressing anger and frustration to their representatives at town hall meetings, and with phone calls and emails.  Some politicians have taken the gloves off, with one congressman even daring to shout, “You lie!” at the president, during his health care sales pitch to Congress.  What is going on?  Thankfully, we have brilliant and dedicated servants of the public like Maureen Dowd and former president Jimmy Carter to solve the mystery for us:  Racism!  All of us who are opposed to the presidents actions and proposals?  Well, we’re just racists.  At least that’s most of the issue (the “overwhelming part” of it, according to President Carter).

The funny thing is, I was under the (apparently false) impression that racists are racists — not part-time, but all the time.  Wasn’t it less than a year ago that Barack Obama was elected president with more votes than any president had ever received?  Didn’t he receive support from across the political and societal spectrum — even from “disillusioned conservatives?”  Wasn’t it less than 8 months ago that the president’s approval rating was around 70%?  So, did millions of racists just forget their hate, for a while?  Does that make any sense at all?  Apparently, it makes perfect sense to Carter and Dowd.  President Obama still hasn’t sunk to the approval depths that Bill Clinton reached or at which George W. Bush spent most of his 2nd term.  He still doesn’t suffer the same kinds of vitriolic attacks on who he is as a human being that either of those previous two presidents did.  Heck, his personal favorability rating is still in the 60s.  But he’s the poor victim of cruel, despicable racism.

Obama ran as something new, an agent of “hope” and “change” that would rise above the petty partisanship of the past, respect the ideas and concerns of people across the political spectrum, and be cautious, pragmatic, and above all else “serious,” in tackling the nation’s problems.  He has not followed through.  He has farmed out the writing of his big, important policies to the more radical members of his party.  He has cut the Republican Party out at nearly every turn, and accuses them of partisanship and bad faith whenever they express their opposition to his plans.  He has expanded the role of government, dramatically, and plans to do so even more.  And he expects all of his plans to be past hastily, regardless of how radical they may be.  He has misinterpreted the public hunger for a change in how political business is conducted as a desire for fundamental change in the foundations of our country.  This is why public opinion has started to swing against him.  This is why the frustration of his political opponents has begun to bubble over.  Not because of some rediscovered racism.

I even held out slight hope that President Obama would really be something different.  That he’d be able to inspire the nation to have a respectful, serious discussion about how to address some of the big problems we face.  I didn’t really believe it, based on the positions he’d taken in the past, and the outrageous (and uncritically reported) promises he made during the campaign.  But I did believe that he was a decent man, and that he just might be able to change our politics for the better, even though I might not agree with his political philosophy.  I know now that I was wrong to hope.  Either that… or maybe I’m just a racist.