>>> Michael Pollak
[Or as he sums it up: social issues are the opiate of the elites.] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/opinion/17bartels.html The New York Times April 17, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor Whos Bitter Now? By LARRY M. BARTELS Princeton, N.J. DURING Wednesday night's Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia, Barack Obama once more tried to explain ( once more made plain -CB) what he meant when he suggested earlier this month that small-town people of modest means "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" out of frustration with their place in a changing American economy. Mr. Obama acknowledged that his wording offended some voters, but he also reiterated his impression that "wedge issues take prominence" when voters are frustrated by "difficult times." -clip For the sake of concreteness, let's define the people Mr. Obama had in mind as people whose family incomes are less than $60,000 (an amount that divides the electorate roughly in half), ( ahh yes, more and more society is breaking up into just two great classes) who do not have college degrees and who live in small towns or rural areas. For the sake of convenience, let's call these people the small-town working class, though that term is inevitably imprecise. In 2004, they were about 18 percent of the population and about 16 percent of voters. For purposes of comparison, consider the people who are their demographic opposites: people whose family incomes are $60,000 or more who are college graduates and who live in cities or suburbs. These (again, conveniently labeled) cosmopolitan voter s were about 11 percent of the population in 2004 and about 13 percent of voters. While admittedly crude, these definitions provide a systematic basis for assessing the accuracy of Mr. Obama's view of contemporary class politics. Small-town, working-class people are more likely than their cosmopolitan counterparts, not less, to say they trust the government to do what's right. In the 2004 National Election Study conducted by the University of Michigan ( Go Blue !) 54 percent of these people said that the government in Washington can be trusted to do what is right most of the time or just about always. ^^^^^ CB: So far this is the same thing O seems to have gotten at roughly. What I hear commentated here is Barry O is saying they trusted the government and the government didn't come through ( See Chuck Grimes discussion at http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20080414/006892.html ) Although the "debate" has conspired to confine O to making this claim only about rural folks, I don't think O is not saying that urban , large town folk are bitter and frustrated and opiating literally and figuratively , too; Obama could have listed drugging , along with the other cultural escapes he threw out off the cuff. It's large swaths of most of the working class, rural, urban, suburban that are bitter. And those who are not bitter themselves have sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sisters , brothers, friends and comrades who are bitter, sad, alienated and immiserated. The ennui is generalized. Many people lead lives of quiet desperation still. ^^^^ Only 38 percent of cosmopolitan people expressed a similar level of trust in the federal government. ^^^^ CB: "cosmopolitans", cosmopolitans, cosmopolitans where have I heard that term used as a code word before ? are they rootless ? Universal citizens ? Anyway, there are large %'s of metropolitans, and submetropolitans as well as ruralpolitans, city mice and country mice, who are bitter and alienated about economic immiseration, and exploitation, who cling to their religion and guns, and identity politics prejudices to escape their material blues. Some even turn to the blues and country music to escape. Bruce Springsteen is rich off of metropolitan/suburban rock and blues cryin' to assuage bitterness and sadness inflicted by the Invisible Hand of the Free Market in the context of the Feds failing to Promote the General Welfare. ^^^^^ Do small-town, working-class voters cast ballots on the basis of social issues? Yes, but less than other voters do. ^^^^ CB: O didn't say that metropolitan and suburban weren't bitter and not casting votes based on the same bitterness that rural voters do . Obama's claim is very general not limited to "small town" folks. He didn't say his generalization at the level of the bitterness observation doesn't apply to Black folk. Black folk are bitter, and they go to church (smile). Remember Rev. Wright ? ^^^ ^^^^ Among these voters, those who are anti-abortion were only 6 percentage points more likely than those who favor abortion rights to vote fo r President Bush in 2004. The corresponding difference for the rest of the electorate was 27 points, and for cosmopolitan voters it was a remarkable 58 points. Similarly, the votes cast by the cosmopolitan crowd in 2004 were much more likely to reflect voters' positions on gun control and gay marriage. Small-town, working-class voters were also less likely to connect religion and politics. ^^^^ CB: That's one of Obama's implied points, no ? Religion is an escape from politics ? And what is the psychic function of gun sports. Is it not an escape from the cares of the world. And then some people escape to guns to remedy their economic distress ( in both the city and the country) ^^^^ Support for President Bush was only 5 percentage points higher among the 39 percent of small-town voters who said they attended religious services every week or almost every week than among those who seldom or never attended religious services. The corresponding difference among cosmopolitan voters (34 percent of whom said they attended religious services regularly) was 29 percentage points. It is true that American voters attach significantly more weight to social issues than they did 20 years ago. It is also true that church attendance has become a stronger predictor of voting behavior. But both of those changes are concentrated primarily among people who are affluent and well educated, not among the working class. ^^^^^ CB: If they are affluent, how are they economically distressed ? Obama's observation is concerning the economically distressed, made bitter and suspicious, angry and leading lives of quiet desparation due to the ups and downs of the capitalist business cycle and the secular capitalist trend of mass immiseration, "permanent" poverty. ^^^^^ Mr. Obama's comments are supposed to be significant because of the popular perception that rural, working-class voters have abandoned the Democratic Party in recent decades and that the only way for Democrats to win them back is to cater to their cultural concerns. The reality is that John Kerry received a slender plurality of their votes in 2004, while John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, in the close elections of 1960 and 1968, lost them narrowly. Mr. Obama should do as well or better among these voters if he is the Democratic candidate in November. If he doesn't, it won't be because he has offended the tender sensitivities of small-town Americans. It will be because he has embraced a misleading stereotype of who they are and what they care about. Larry M. Bartels, the director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton, is the author of Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. ^^^^^ CB: As Oscar Wilde said , some professors' ignorance is the result of years of study. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
