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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy the GOP's Really Afraid of a "Cool" Obama
http://www.alternet.org/story/155221/why_the_gop's_really_afraid_of_a_%22cool%22_obama/The Nation / By Leslie Savan
Why the GOP's Really Afraid of a "Cool" Obama
Lately Obama has been raising the ante, asking which candidate would you like to share a song with, and the GOP considers this to be some kind of dirty trick.
May 1, 2012 |
Republicans used to exult in fielding candidates that voters would like to have a beer with. This year, of course, their candidate doesnt drink beerin fact, Mitt Romneys so socially challenged that his advance team is wary about letting him share cookies with voters. But lately Obama has been raising the ante on social comfort, asking which candidate would you like to share a song or nod to a pulsing beat with, and the GOP clearly considers this to be some kind of dirty trick. snip
But as you watch the two ads above, it becomes clear that its not only Obama acting like a celebrity that has the GOPs nose out of joint. Hes also acting black--in fact, hes rubbing their faces in it, just like he did when he sympathized with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for getting arrested in his own home. And that gleams like troll gold to Republican strategists. snip
At some level, much of the GOP base still believes that Obamas race is somehow disqualifying for the Oval Office, and they can barely keep themselves from overtly attacking him for it. But the demographics are daunting, and their professionals know it. To see a white guy like Jimmy Fallon acting blackdoing a silly Barry White impression with Obama and Roots vocalist Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter behind himreinforces the fear among some on the right that the hip youth culture is increasingly a black culture and that its inexorably taking over. Obama, half-black/half-white himself, is at the center of this race jam, which is as impure as topical comedy itself--a mélange of news and clips of political speech marbled with rap, R&B, tech-talk and global kid culture. (Lets hope we see more of that Saturday night when Jimmy Kimmel hosts the White House Correspondents Dinner.)
It's all that mixing that sparks miscegenation imaginations, creating GOP fears about cool whites leaving them behind in electoral limbo, forever.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)President Obama has been clearly demonstrating one needn't be an uptight asshole to be successful in politics.
In fact, this last one is a fine example of using "coolness" to bring an issue to the people. It has left the R's sitting & crying in their own poop.
Julie
colorado_ufo
(5,743 posts)Everyone (probably even the Repugs, secretly!) loved it when Bill Cliniton played the sax. Makes them human, cool, seem full of life and fun and also at ease and competent.
FailureToCommunicate
(14,031 posts)Good thing they turned Obama's mic on!
madokie
(51,076 posts)I like having a cool President. I know he won't be going off on a killing spree like the dick and w did and I get great comfort in knowing that
loudsue
(14,087 posts)I'd never seen any of them!
BeyondGeography
(39,393 posts)Which makes them even crazier.
Who knows how it ends for them, but the GOP is going to have to change. There's no political future in narrowcasting to self-destructive white males.
siligut
(12,272 posts)They have used every means possible to continue their reign.
meow2u3
(24,776 posts)If it weren't for paranoid fear, the GOP would cease to exist as a party.
Alcibiades
(5,061 posts)overlap. Nothing new, and these same people--the George Wallace people--have been decrying these cultural developments since the swing era.
The fact is that black culture is "mainstream" in American life, and has been for a long time. The real divide is IRONY.
Conservatives don't do irony.
TahitiNut
(71,611 posts)That's irony. In "the day" he was a white man doing "black" music. Every tight-assed conservofreak on the planet was appalled that "black" music was infecting our lily-white precious children. Blechh.
Alcibiades
(5,061 posts)The thing is, though, we today make fun of the Lester Maddoxes and George Wallaces. The decline in overt officially sanctioned racism has meant that these same people are now more invisible, except when they slip up.
But they are the same people. The very same people. Most of the Tea Baggers of today are of an age to have cast their first presidential vote for George Wallace.
http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/misc/maddox.htm
Same ideas, certainly, but in many case the same people, and they never get called on their bullshit.
pnwmom
(109,024 posts)Or one who's cool in their little minds, anyway.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)loudsue
(14,087 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Not sure where I first saw this ... It's been making the rounds.