We have become vultures
over the carcass of intelligent discourse. Once again, Hillary has swept down on the words of Obama, this time
labeling him an “elitist” while regaling us with tales of her youth shooting a
gun with her father. The traditional
rules of campaign engagement forces us to substitute substantive discussion
with fingerpointing and selective listening. Oddly enough, Obama was repeating
an analysis that has circulated throughout the Democratic Party including by
the Clintons themselves for the last few years. (From the white labor movement’s advocacy of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act to the 1990’s beating of Chinese American Vincent Chin by two white autoworkers who blamed the loss of their jobs on Japan, history has shown us that Asian Americans/ Pacific Islanders cannot dismiss Obama’s comments as "elitist" but something that resonates close to our experiences and warrants real discussion).

Since a number of Rust Belt
states have fallen into the column of “red” states in the last several
presidential elections, stalwarts and activists in the Democratic Party circles
have debated its causes. The most widely
discussed was Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter With Kansas. Frank asserted that the Democratic Party had
moved away from economic issues, which originally differentiated them from the
Republican Party, leaving cultural issues on the table for the white working
class. Obama made a similar assessment
when he observed that working people became embittered and “clung” to their
traditions when both Republican (Bush) and Democratic (Clinton) administrations
oversaw the “taking away” of their jobs. In no way would working people allow government the chance to now take
away their right to bear arms or right to their faith. Obama’s statements were
not an attempt to stereotype white working families but to clarify the
narrowing options left for them. Remember, it was Obama who clearly and accurately articulated the
feelings of white working families in his historic speech on race:  “most working and middle class white Americans
don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their
experience is the immigrant experience—as far as they’re concerned, no one’s
handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch.”

Obama raised a concern that
needs to be discussed since Frank’s theories are not without flaws. As MacArthur Genius Award recipient Mike
Davis noted, class consciousness did not so much as decline amongst white
working families in the Rust Belt states as much as they have become more acutely aware of the rightward shift of the Democratic Party and many chose to “drop out” of
the political process or support the candidate who seemingly supported their financial interests. He cites  West Viriginia as an example. During the last presidential election, Kerry,
promised tax breaks for corporations that kept jobs at home and talked about
his war record while Bush imposed a 30% temporary tariff on imported
steel. West Virginia, predictably, went for Bush
while seating a Democrat as governor who, despite warning voters of no tax
breaks, ran on high-wage employment creation. The Clinton
era left the Democrats, the “party of the new economy,” nationally with nothing
to show their defense of industrial jobs. With deindustrialization in the Rust Belt states, the CIO unions, who
have been the agitators and mobilizers of the Democratic vote, shrunk. Writer and union organizer James Straub
observed that the evangelical churches have become the “new Steelworker and
Autoworkers unions.” (Side Note: Pennsylvania has
recently witnessed an increase in union density to become the 4^th
most unionized state. The primary may be more of a contest between the
public sector AFL-CIO unions such as AFSCME who endorsed Clinton
prior to the Iowa caucus and the Change the Win unions such as SEIU who have backed Obama in the last 1-2 months). 

What has also held
perennially true, is the role of fear and divisiveness in turning working
people against their own interests. Turn
the dial to any right-wing radio talkshow host and listen to how economic
populism and social conservatism come together in one coherent worldview—“keep
government out of our lives and pockets.” As Mike Davis reminds us, the image of “latte-drinking liberal elite”
does have real material basis in the erosion of workers wages and the devaluation
of labor. Cultural rage gains momentum
when linked to real economic concerns. Hillary
uses the same tools of division as many have used on working people in the past
when she parses Obama’s statements to justify calling him an “elitist.” [The
past actions of her surrogates who have attributed both Obama’s success (a la
Ferraro) and inelectability (a la Rendell) solely to his “race” is only further
proof of her campaign’s divisive tactics].

Hillary publicly dismissed
Obama’s assessment of the bitterness of working families and declared, “Well, that is not my experience. As I travel around  Pennsylvania I meet people who are resilient, optimistic, positive."  With
unequal wealth concentration reaching the same levels prior to the Great
Depression, it is hard to wonder who really is “out of touch.” Personally, I doubt Hillary really thinks
working families have not been embittered by the loss of jobs but she is
perpetuating the illusion of idyllic American life in order to hit Obama.  Working
people should worry about the divisiveness of the Hillary campaign and the
replacement of real critical thinking with cheap shots. In the end, only working families will
suffer.