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There's a kind of cultural racism and elitism that the boomer Clintonistas carry around with them. It comes out in moments like this.
"If you have a social need, you're with Hillary," the aide said. "If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool."
This is a twin attack on African-Americans and young people. While Josh Marshall is right that there are thousands of people that consider themselves Clinton advisors, at least part of it comes from the top. Remember this quip from Hillary to the Chamber of Commerce?
We have a lot of kids who don't know what works means. They think work is a four-letter word.
It's just how Clintonistas think.
Once again, I miss the time we argued about electability.
Update: I'm not so much condemning Clinton or her generation's elite for their tribal attitudes. It's not like Joe Biden, with his clean and articulate comment, was turning firehoses on civil rights marches. I'm pointing out how there's a set of cultural assumptions which includes different roles for minorities, women, and sexuality among Clinton types, and that this set of assumptions comes out all the time. A good deal of the whining in the comments simply ignored Clinton's nasty and unequivocal slur at young people, for which she late apologized. But these assumptions are there in the form of Terry McAuliffe and the white boys, who have very different ideas about American culture. And I actually don't see how you can look at the war on drugs, for instance, which these people supported and consider it as anything but a state-sponsored attack on young people and minorities.
And yes, I think it's time for a generational shift. For some reason, the boomer generation picked a bunch of people to lead it who didn't do very well. At the same time, it also created the internet, marched during the civil rights movement, women's rights, etc. In other words, it's a complicated story, and one can both point out that people have certain tribal attitudes while acknowledging that this is not a blanket condemnation of their character but a reflection of their upbringing and social context.
Update again: This is really ridiculous. HRC campaign chair Terry McAuliffe is on record attacking immigrants for coming in and taking 'our jobs', Andrew Cuomo said that Obama can't 'suck and jive' at a press conference, Bob Kerrey made a Madrassa smear, Billy Shaheen brought up Obama's cocaine use, and a Clinton Iowa county coordinator forwarded right-wing hate emails about Obama being a Muslim. Does that make Clinton a racist? No. Does it mean that at least some of her generational cohorts carry around with them prejudice? Yes. It's not even possible to dispute this. Does any of this mean that Obama is perfect? No.
I originally wrote this post because I was kind of bored and trying to point out how irritating it is to deal with coded racist and sexist attacks instead of substance. It was a minor post that I didn't think really said anything that controversial. As a society we should be making plans to evacuate the Eastern seaboard in the next forty years while trying to run a crash course off fossil fuels and rebuild ecosystems that can act as carbon sinks. Instead we get stupid tax cuts and a war without end. Neither Obama or Clinton has bothered to distinguish themselves in any way shape or form to Democrats, which means that the argument is entirely about identity.
And so now I point out that Clinton's elite backers are marbled with a sort of cultural zeitgeist that is clearly situated with those who came to power from the 1960s and 1970s generation, and a bunch of people in the comments flip out. To those people, here's my message. Grow up. Seriously. People have weird attitudes about race and youth and age and gender. They do. It doesn't make anyone bad or good or a villain or a hero. All of us have each of those strands within ourselves, and we work through them as best we can. Race is obviously a huge deal. So is gender. The next nine months, and hopefully the next nine years, will see us with a President who is not a white guy. That's going to bring this stuff out in very odd ways. So get used to holding more than one thought in your head.
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