by Teh Nutroots | Via Glenn Greenwald at Salon: Jonah Goldberg thinks if Democrats nominate Obama , and Obama doesn't win, "certain segments" of "American political life" will become "completely unhinged." (NRO)
Imagine the Democrats do rally around Obama. Imagine the media invests as heavily in him as I think we all know they will if he's the nominee — and then imagine he loses. I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. Forget Hillary's inevitability. Obama has a rendezvous with destiny, or so we will be told. And if he's denied it, teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid." (NRO)
What in the which now? "Teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid...."? I've read that sentence six times now, and with each reading it makes even less sense; but maybe it's just me. (Having had a rendezvous with destiny myself last night, I'm still a bit hung over.)
Even so, the self-styled "Instapundit," Glenn Reynolds, concurs. I wonder which "segment of American political life" they mean? Glenn Greenwald has a theory.
Goldberg, of course, doesn't have the courage to say explicitly who he means -- he just implies it with ugly innuendo -- but Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds helpfully fills in the gap, approvingly quoting and praising Goldberg's warning ("He's right"), and then adding that if Hillary "outmaneuvers" Obama to win, "that'll probably alienate a lot of people and cause them to stay home in November." Just to make sure the meaning is clear, he then links to one of his own prior posts warning that a Hillary win might anger "black voters" and cause them to abandon the Democrats. (Salon)
Ah yes, that "segment of American political life." This one discussed right here in The New York Times.
Greenwald notes that the last time we saw any unhinged segments of American political life was back in 2000, when Republicans sent their shills and minions to Florida. He reminds us that in 2000, a Republican mob, instigated by a congressman to shut down the vote recount in Miami, "pounded on doors and windows at elections headquarters. The canvassing board, which had already found a net Al Gore gain of 168 votes, reversed a decision it had made....to begin a tally of the undervote. The mob gang-rushed a local Democrat carrying a blank sample ballot. They threatened that a thousand Cubans were on their way to the headquarters to stop the count. Several people were "trampled, punched, or kicked"....The canvassing board chair at first conceded that mob pressures played a role in the shutdown...." (Greenwald, quoting The Village Voice).
Greenwald has a photo of the raging mob: mostly dorky young pink guys. By comparison, he points out, the protests of that other certain segment of the population was a model of peaceful restraint.
As he says, an Obama nomination rather than a Hillary one is merely a guarantee that we will see some particularly ugly (if veiled) racial hate speech in the media. We can't expect civility from "the segment of American political life" that went batshit crazy over John Kerry.
There's a prevailing sense that Obama is not as offensive to the right-wing GOP faction as other Democratic and liberal candidates in the past have been, or that he's less "divisive" among them than Hillary. And that's true: for now, while he tries to take down the individual who has long provoked the most intense hatred -- literally -- among the Right. But anyone who doesn't think that that's all going to change instantaneously if Obama is the nominee hasn't been watching how this faction operates over the last 20 years.
Right. But I have to disagree with Greenwald when he says this:
Hatred is their fuel. (Salon)
No, it's not hatred, but fear. There is a certain segment of American political life that feeds on fear of the other in all its manifestations: fear of not being able to hang on to everything it has acquired, fear of seeing some of the goodies go to someone else; fear of those whose culture or cultural references is unfamiliar; fear of dying badly. The hatred is just a reaction to the fear. It's an anticipatory breach of the social bond. "Get them before they get you." The red state vote is often really just the yellow state vote. "What will happen to me if----?" One reason the thought of a Hillary presidency sends them into a panic is because of course they never dreamed they hadn't forever disgraced and forever finished off Bill Clinton at the time he left office. Wouldn't a Hillary presidency be a vindication of the previous Clinton presidency, the presidency they feared (and therefore hated) more than any other in recent times?
One reason that I support Obama is that I think he might be the candidate who is most capable of neutralizing both the fear and the hatred---not, naturally, from pundits and pinheads and other wingnut pricks (take your pick) who make a living out of stirring up the "base," but among real people, real voters.
As for hatred and fear from the wingnut segment of the population, I think he is fully equal to dealing with it. He's been contending against it---and winning it over---his whole life.
Memeorandum buzz on the Greenwald piece is here. In particular, check out John Cole:
If Obama wins the nomination for the Democrats...[w]e will be regaled with long tales of madrassas, Obama’s first name will become Hussein, and everyone’s pets will be running around frothing from all the dog whistles. Obama is getting a free ride at the moment because of the intense, nutty, and 15 year old hate for the Clagina (in all honesty, I was a hater up until a few years ago when I realized cold and calculating competence is better than willful dishonesty and feckless incompetence). But if and when the queen is vanquished, all that venom will need a target, and that target will be Obama. (Balloon Juice)
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I hate to sound catty, but why does anybody still listen to Jonah Goldberg? His columns tend to be either trite or mindblowingly dumb. Or involve conversations with the shadows in his head. I put him on my mental "ignore" filter long ago.
Posted by: Sean Aqui | January 08, 2008 at 11:27 PM