…and I’ll show you a black man working black men aren’t likely to vote for.
In 2008, when Barack Obama ran for president, almost no one knew he rode side-saddle.
Now almost everyone does.
You could understand better what I’m about to say here if Obama had been named Harold instead of Barack. He’s just like the Harold I grew up with and who went on to be a university professor in the French department. An only child, he was doted on by mother, the school librarian, and to the eternal embarrassment of his father, who spent the whole of his married life saying “Yes, dear.”
So Harold was a momma’s boy, and I’m not sure if he ever married. Or found the desire to. But his path led in one of two directions, the other one being some woman-just-like-mother’s henpecked husband.
Now, one of the secrets of Jimmy Carter’s defeat in 1980 had little to do with the economy and double-digit inflation or Iran, or even his liberal policies, but the general perception that it was not Jimmy who wore the pants in the family.
Why this is important is that it was before internet, and no newspaper or television journalist ever hinted at Carter as being a Casper Milquetoast. Still, it was evident across the nation, in the barbershops and salon parlors of fly-over America that Jimmy Carter was not the he-bull in his own barn.
There was a genuine embarrassment about him among a broad swath of the American population.
There was this visual image of Jimmy washing dishes after dinner, wearing an apron, while Rosalynn plopped down on the sofa in her silk Ja-pan robe, lighting up a filter-tipped Kent and fiddling with the TV remote. She carried that almost endless look of disapproval, silently barking out orders, nag-fashion; “Now don’t forget to wipe those dishes down before putting them in the dishwasher. And take out the trash before you go back to the Oval Office. And please lose that dark tie. Try the purple power tie Amy gave you. Makes you look like more of a man. Straighten up.”
Yeah, Jimmy’ll show those Iranians.
Man-speaking, Ronald Reagan was a shoo-in in 1980, and everyone knew it. Only no pollster ever dared try to calculate it. Feminism had been in charge for four solid years by then.
A lot has changed since 1988, when RR stepped down, and much of it regressed. Feminists will swear that with Jimmy Carter they had earned a fait accompli in emasculating not only the American male, but American government, especially its foreign policy. Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton have helped cement that notion, much to America’s loss. Today, with Barack Obama, after a foreign policy managed out of the White House instead of Foggy Bottoms for eight years, the Fems once again sing that happy days are here again…
…as the name of America, a virile, strong America, like its flag, is once again dragged through the streets and spit upon, around the world.
So naturally the similarities, and images, persists today, only they can be found in African-American barbershops and salons as well as middle white America.
Barack Obama made it clear a long while ago that he had no interest in the white, male working class vote. But in fact, he has no interest in the male working class vote, period. He just always assumed the black working man would still be in there pulling for him anyway.
No they ain’t. They’ve taken a 15% hit from Barack. And many of them are on the public dole for the first time, while others are back, with nightmare memories of how it used to be. They don’t intend to stay.
Obama isn’t interested in any male vote, except maybe the academia-vote, men like him, the student-vote, and of course, the Obamaphone, can-always-make-a-midday-political-rally-cause-I-ain’t-got-no-better-place-to-be-(for $20) vote .
Obama wants two votes, voters of class (his class), and voters of classlessness, i.e., the client sector. The problem is, he sees class as a kid raised in a third world country, so the American idea of “middle class” is not native to his experiences. Check out Indonesia’s middle class and see what I mean…petit bourgeosie and the civil servant class.
The American middle class is as alien to Barack Obama as fried dog is to me.
Working class black males mean no more to Barack Obama, and never have, than that woman who comes in and makes his bed each day. The drunk derelicts, the drugged-out rappers, the stupids, anyone he can bribe, now that’s his base. Mitt Romney was merely off by a few percentage points. It’s more like 25% instead of 47%, but for that 25%, even God couldn’t drive a wedge between Barack, his stash, and the “gimme free stuff” voter of Obama’s base.
What Barack Obama misunderestimated is that those working black men, and many of their missus’ (yes, a lot of them have stayed married, Harold, more than you know) go to barbershops and salons too. Not to mention church.
And they talk of real men and of men who ride side-saddle.
In late August, oddsmakers called it a toss-up but gave the edge to Romney. Call it instinct. Check in again Oct 15, then 25 as the margin widens, so get your bets down early. Betting men have their finger on the pulse of the working black man, too.
