This could be the final hurrah for what became known as Nixon\’s southern strategy in what is shaping up to be the most racially polarised election ever.
That\’s a ludicrous assertion.
They had a civil war at least partially about the \”peculiar institution\”. They had elections almost wholly about race, whether that institution should be permitted in newer states. Hell, post WWII they still had people running for office on segregationist grounds.
Seriously, someone wants to claim that Romney v Obama is more racially polarised than when Strom Thurmond was on the stump? Than when MLK was fighting, rightly, for the most basic civil liberties for those of a duskier hue?
Get a sense of proportion would you?
Anything but the debt and deficit. Anything.
CHF
Exactly. Make the populace feel guilty about something that the election will not resolve but that is tremendously emotive and paint the other as a devil of the worst kind.
Anything but our failures
To be fair to Mr Younge he does explain what he means by “most polarised”.
It’s not that racial issues are going to play a particularly significant part in the campaign but that voting patterns will be significantly racially divided.
As he points out a recent Wall Street Journal poll had 0% of African-Americas saying they would vote for Romney.
That’s unprecedented for a Republican Presidential candidate and, hence, we get the most “racially polarised” election.
By “racially polarised” he means if you oppose Obama you’re a racist
Bilbaoboy, the use of guilt over things is a major weapon for the left. After all no reasonable person wants to be seen as a racist and so the Left plays on that.
Lets call their bluff on this rubbish permanently.
I can’t stand Obama not because he is black but because he is useless.
BTW Tim – good point re: the civil war, civil rights etc. What do Americans have to do to prove they’re not a bunch of backwoods racists? They’ve already elected a black president but that doesn’t seem to have helped – do they now need to make him their king or something?
F211
here in Spain, I am apparently guilty of wanting – babies to die of hunger
– everybody to lose their job
– bankers to have all the money in the world
– babies to be born with all sorts of horrible deformities
– and so on
Just because I question the leftie wisdom of their policies
Guilty as charged.
Younge is saying that the black vote may divide more extremely than ever before. There’s nothing absurd about that.
I am reluctant to make accusations of racism. But I do find it difficult to understand the extreme hostility directed at Obama, who has shown himself to be both conservative (compare his policies with Cameron’s) and highly competent.
not sure you’re being fair to Gary Younge here, he’s only pointing out that the republicans are making zero effort to entice african-american voters.
your critiques are often about asking the right question given a particular set of data. Well, what do Romney/Ryan policies tell us?
PaulB – ” I am reluctant to make accusations of racism.”
But not reluctant to heavily imply racism. Racism-finding being the best card in leftie status-seeking top trumps.
NB – the black vote isn’t likely to “divide more extremely than before”. Obama will win the black vote by North Korean proportions. If white voters were supporting Romney as a racial bloc vote we’d never hear the end of it.
I am reluctant to make accusations of racism, but why all the hate directed at the white candidate?
Why even bother with Gary Younge? – a vicious Marxist peddler of sub-Toynbee drivel. You could just as easily accuse the Democrats of scaremongering to get the Black vote out, and indeed anyone willing to Follow the #tcot tag on Twitter will find articles from say, Thomas Sowell or Larry Elder (for example) accusing them of doing just that.
The Republicans’ reliance on a mythical ‘White Racist’ vote is presented as a scandal, but an equal scandal is how the Democrats are heavily reliant on a Black vote which in many cases, outside the bizarre world of the politically correct (with their curious insistence ‘Only Whites can be racist’) could be characterised as ‘Black racist’ and which depends on policies which keep many African Americans in a state of dependency which is in the long-term disastrous.
Roym – ” that the republicans are making zero effort to entice african-american voters.”
That’s racist talk. Are you saying black American voters have no interest in the economy, bringing government spending under control, reducing taxes?
Van_Patten – the not so hidden subtext to these leftie discussions of the “southern strategy” is that courting white voters – particularly white, southern, Christian conservative voters – is somehow illegitimate.
Appealing to ethnic minority voters by promising welfare goodies and special entitlements is to be on the side of the angels.
Four legs good, two legs bad.
Getting my user name right this time!
They’re setting up the “Racism!” excuse in the event the Sun God loses.
” who has shown himself to be…highly competent.”
Paul, please.
“more racially polarised than when Strom Thurmond was on the stump”
Ah, but remember that Strom was a good old Democrat when he was at his most racist (such as his 24-hour filibuster speech against the Civil Rights Act).
Since we obviously can’t have racist Democrats, that whole era has to be excised from their memories.
Younge is merely pointing out that black Americans are terribly racist. He’s allowed to, I suppose.
PaulB ‘ ‘conservative and highly competent.’ You use those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
45% of white Americans don’t vote for Obama – raaaacissssts! 95% of black Americans vote for Obama – sober consideration of policy issues.
roym:“…he’s only pointing out that the republicans are making zero effort to entice african-american voters..”
And that’s as it should be. He should be looking to entice voters, full stop.
Steve: “Obama will win the black vote by North Korean proportions”. So you agree with Younge.
Chris: “conservative and highly competent”. I agree with Andrew Sullivan, the ardent Thatcherite, on this one.
PaulB – I agree with all the other American conservatives that Obama isn’t up to the job.
Andrew Sullivan is compromised with his AIDS dementia and his dodgy dropped pot possession case. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/12/dismissed_marijuana_charge_raises_judges_ire/
It rather depends on your semantic parsing of “may divide more extremely than ever before”. A hypothetical 100% / 0% (or a more likely 90% / 10%) division is extreme in Gary and your sense but you can understand why people may see it as practically monolithic and, therefore, not particularly split at all.
But you can understand, economics and politics irrelevant, why many blacks would vote for Obama just because he is black. Just as many women voted for “that evil witch” Thatcher, casting aside the eons of toil and socialist indoctrination, just because she was female.
On Obama the “conservative.”
There is one way in which he is much more conservative (in the US sense) than Bush (W). Under him, the number of state and federal employees has gone down, while the number of private employees has gone up. The reverse is true of Bush. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/employment-in-two-administrations/
So judging by results, if you want a smaller government, vote Democrat. I suspect that the same is true of deficits, but don’t have a handy chart to illustrate.
Please tell me which of Obama’s policies would be too left-wing for David Cameron. And give me one example of his alleged incompetence that comes within an order of magnitude of his predecessor’s cock-ups.
SE: sorry, I can’t think of any sense in which a 100-0 split would not be the “most polarised ever”.
And give me one example of his alleged incompetence that comes within an order of magnitude of his predecessor’s cock-ups.
His putting unions before creditors in the Chrysler bailout, his introducing political risk to capital for the first time in the US during the Macondo spill, and his inept handling of the Keystone XL pipeline have all done far greater long-term damage to the US than anything Bush did. If Obamacare becomes a reality, you can add that as well. Bush fucked stuff up, but it is hard to say he did so to a greater degree than Obama. Of course, a lot depends on whether you opposed the Iraq war and consider it to have been a major disaster, but if not, Bush was no more incompetent than Obama and a lot less of an egotistical arse about it.
Tim N, or “big oil ” as you should really be called, congrats for having a serious attempt at answering Paul B’s question.
Unions before creditors at Chrysler? GE can borrow at 1.54% for 4 yrs, 4.66% until 2039. No obvious sign of creditor flight.
Macondo and political risk? I’ve some sympathy with you there ,but large countries with high earning populations and abundant natural resources can afford to fuck foreign investors. What happened to BP is nothing to what happened to Lloyd’s of London, but they (Lloyd’s) are happily back in US.
Don’t really know about your other points. Liked your post on engineers – pay them.
That’s what Gary said. That’s not what you said (#8). I do realise we are arguing about semantics here …
Tim N: thanks for the reply.
Policy decisions involve a trade-off between costs and benefits. Incompetence means more than that you disagree with the chosen trade-off: it means that the costs and or benefits have been badly misevaluated, or the execution has been hopeless bungled.
In the case of the Iraq war, Bush got the benefits completely wrong, because there were no WMDs. And the cost in lives and money has been huge. That’s gross incompetence.
Compare that to your examples. The cost in corporate bond yields of the Chrysler bailout has been indetectable. Likewise the costs of stiffing BP. And I can’t see where a question of competence arises in the pipeline and healthcare debates, other than that Obama showed a high level of competence in getting universal healthcare implemented where his predecessors had failed.
SE: sorry again, I can’t think of any sense in which a 100-0 split would not be divided “more extremely than ever before” either.
In the case of the Iraq war, Bush got the benefits completely wrong, because there were no WMDs. And the cost in lives and money has been huge. That’s gross incompetence.
No, the war revealed that there were no WMDs: that was a considerable benefit, as beforehand nobody knew. It also removed a conventional military threat to the Saudi and Kuwait oilfelds, again a considerable benefit. And it allowed the US military to demobilise Saudi Arabia, which was the primary gripe of Osama bin Laden. IMO long term, it will have been worth it, as the pre-2003 situation had gone on for a decade, had already cost significant lives and money, and looked set to continue indefinitely with few options for an eventual happy outcome.
Likewise the costs of stiffing BP.
The costs will be at the margin. Just as oil companies continue to invest in Russia, it does not follow that there were no costs to Putin’s seizure of Sakhalin Energy and Yukos. I have it heard it said first-hand by the strategy director of a supermajor that the Macondo incident demonstrated that such an event can prove to be an existential threat to a major oil company (whereas previously this was not considered). Neither the response nor the monetary cost was the problem for BP, it was the political reaction. Let’s see how much investment the supermajors actually make in the GOM over the next 10 years. And let’s see what other countries do in following the US lead in demanding an enormous, random number from an oil company following a spill whilst threatening nationalisation, despite a textbook technical response from BP.
And let’s not also forget Obama’s ignoring a Lousiana court order which ruled the drilling moratorium illegal (believing himself to be above the law in such matters), the contradictory nature of the moratorium (in that the incident could not be both a result of rogue actions on BP’s part and industry-wide at the same time), his refusal to suspend the Jones Act during the cleanup, the cack-handedness of the federal authorities who refused to allow sand-berms and skimming vessels to be used on environmental grounds…the list goes on.
And I can’t see where a question of competence arises in the pipeline and healthcare debates
Well, he appears to be either completely ignorant of the benefits and economics of the pipeline and the US oil situation, or in the pocket of environmentalists. Take your pick.
other than that Obama showed a high level of competence in getting universal healthcare implemented where his predecessors had failed.
If ramming through unwise legislation is considered an achievement, then shouldn’t you be praising Bush on his ability to get Congress to approve the Iraq War?
So there’s an answer for me. The Iraq war has cost the US over a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives lost (the cost to Iraqis has been much much higher). And that shows that Bush is competent, because the war succeeded in showing that the Weapons of Mass Destruction it was supposed to eliminate did not in fact exist. Whereas the US sanctions against BP have made it a few billion, with the cost being that future oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico may tend to be by domestic rather than foreign companies. Oh, and then there’s the cost of not suspending the Jones Act, which was zero because it was irrelevant. Which all shows that Obama is incompetent.
Wow.
Well done PaulB, you failed to actually deal with any of TN’s points. The Iraq war cost a lot in money and lives, but in the end a genocidal dictator was hung and Iraq was freed. Actually it was a better result than WW2 where we went to war to free Poland. One outcome of the Iraq war was the discovery of the export of nuclear technology by Pakistan. An incidental result but still rather useful.
Because it isn’t divided at all. If every member of a union voted for a strike, would you say that was a divided vote? Or a unanimous one? What we are agreeing on is that the black vote will be solidly behind Obama.
Does this mean that overall vote is divided? Yes – between black and white although that is a hideous simplification).
Does this mean that American society is politically divided? Possibly – even more of a hideous simplification. Probably easier to say “still racially divided which is currently very politically significant”, pace #12 & 18.
Does this mean that black vote is divided? No, it doesn’t. It is monolithic. If not actually unanimous, overwhelmingly behind the black candidate. For reasons good and bad.
But as I said in #27, we are talking semantics here – about the precise meaning of divided and what is being considered divided.
PaulB,
To asses the wisdom of the Iraq war, you need to consider the cost of not going to war. Was the alternative to keep up sanctions etc. for another decade or more? What would the cost of that have been, both in lives and dollars?
As the Chinese say, I think it’s simply too soon to tell if it was worth the war. It could be another decade or two before it’s any clearer.
Eddy: had the object of the war been to remove Saddam (who was indeed brutally unpleasant) and replace him with a clusterfuck, then, yes, it would have been achieved. But in fact the object was to deprive Saddam of his WMDs. Really, you can look it up.
DM: if we’re to evaluate all decisions on the basis of whether they may have some beneficial consequences 20 years down the line then everything is a good idea.
This is a wind up isn’t it? You guys don’t really mean what you’re saying.
But in fact the object was to deprive Saddam of his WMDs. Really, you can look it up.
No, the objective was “regime change”. Bush was pretty explicit on this point.
Paul,
You seem to be, in your wholly justified intent to show that George W was a git, confusing what politicians say and what they meant.
The objective was regime change. The excuse was WMD. Note that we _knew_ Saddam had had WMD – apart the overwhelming evidence from Fallujah, Cheney had kept the receipts.
The objective was regime change, it was never an intent – both stated and as executed – to disarm Saddam Hussein and leave him in power. Indeed, the legality of the regime change objective was one of the main thrusts of the anti-war arguments.
“we will lead a coalition to disarm him”. That means the objective was “to disarm him”. Of course Bush intended to depose Saddam, but that wasn’t the justification for going to war.
What happened is that the stated objectives changed retrospectively, to fit the actual outcome. Your memory has failed you.
“we will lead a coalition to disarm him”. That means the objective was “to disarm him”.
No, you’re quoting only one sentence from one speech said at one time, and making out this was all that was ever said.
This is what he said during a press conference with Chirac in May 2002:
“Let me start with the Iraqi regime. The stated policy of my government is that we have a regime change. And as I told President Chirac, I have no war plans on my desk. And I will continue to consult closely with him. We do view Saddam Hussein as a serious, significant — serious threat to stability and peace.”
In September 2002 with Blair:
“”Well, as you know, our government in 1998 — action that my administration has embraced — decided that this regime was not going to honor its commitments to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton administration supported regime change. Many members of the United States Senate supported regime change. My administration still supports regime change. There’s all kinds of ways to change regimes.
Fortunately, I don’t need to rely on memory when I have the internet.
It wasn’t just a speech, it was the State of the Union address.
You’re confusing policy aims with justifications for going to war. The justification for going to war was WMDs.
It wasn’t just a speech, it was the State of the Union address.
Right, but this does not render all other speeches null and void, does it?
You’re confusing policy aims with justifications for going to war. The justification for going to war was WMDs.
The objective was regime change, the justification was WMDs. ‘Tis not I who is confused.
OK, I’ve just spotted that I’m spending my time debating with people who assert, apparently in earnest, that Bush knew what he was doing, that the Iraq war was a good idea, and that in contrast an auto bail-out which leaves bondholders wearing their losses is a serious problem. There views are, with all disrespect, insane, and I have no reason to debate them. I’ll leave you to them.
That would have carried a lot more weight had you said it at comment 25 instead of after painting yourself into a corner.
Yes you’re quite right, I should have realised long since that fact and reason were the wrong tools for this thread. Sorry.
Err, yes, actually. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Whether he had any concern for the consequences – a more than subtly different question.
You are right – it was utterly insane.
Which brings us back to the big problem with the UK bank bail out. My RBS shares are still worth something. Why? Political cowardice, I expect. There is no reason why the investors in any PLC shouldn’t take the hit if the PLC goes bluuurgh.