Al Giordano's response to Naomi Klein's 'A Lexicon of Disappointment' article [View All]

[Jackeens]

Adelante mentioned the Giordano article in this thread -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8353819&mesg_id=8354020

- but I thought it was worth highlighting in a thread of its own, it's pretty strong stuff - whether you agree with it or not.

The Naomi Klein article is here: http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/04/lexicon-disappointment


You and What Movement?
A Response to Naomi Klein

By Al Giordano
An Opinion Column

April 18, 2009

Naomi Klein is suffering, along with some other sectors of the academic North American left, an existential crisis.

In a recent column she published in The Nation and in The Huffington Post, she complained about “the awkward in-between space in which many US progressive movements find themselves” now that Barack Obama is president of the United States.

Revealing a bizarre contempt and college-educated condescension toward a vast multi-racial swathe of progressive supporters and sympathizers of Obama and his movement, Klein seeks to explain us away as dupes. We (I use the first person plural proudly and without hesitation) are, according to Klein, part of a “superfan culture,” that, she says, believes we can “save the world if we all just hope really hard,” and that suffers from the following psychological ailments: “Hopeover… hoper coaster… hope fiend… hopebreak… and hopelash.”

Her theory, that progressive Obama supporters are now inflicted by buyer’s remorse, flies contrary to all objective measurement. The pollster.com aggregate of all recent public opinion surveys finds that 61.8 percent of Americans view Obama (less than 100 days into his presidency) favorably, compared to 32.9 percent that view him unfavorably. As Gallup notes, President Obama’s first-quarter average favorability of 63 percent exceeds that of the first three months of his eight immediate predecessors: Presidents Bush II, Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon or Johnson.

Ah, but Klein is talking about “progressives,” so let’s take a look at the hard data that is available. Separate out the crosstabs, and those numbers are even sky higher among progressive demographic groups. Among Democrats, according to an early April Pew survey, 88 percent view the young president favorably, so it’s not really clear who Klein is talking about, imagining or inventing out of thin air when she devotes an entire column to claim a non-existent demographic trend.

The rest here: http://www.narconews.com/Issue57/article3498.html


Info on Giordano here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Giordano