Appreciate your thoughtful response, as always. You're a good dude, and I really do respect your perspective. I'm just telling you what my gut tells me. I voted for Obama. I thought he'd be a transformational leader, perhaps one of the most consequential leaders in American history. Maybe I was expecting too much. The birther crap was aggravated by Obama not simply providing proof, when we know he had it. Obama slow played it to make Trump look like an idiot. That's my belief anyways. But that's not what concerns me. Obama had a golden opportunity to heal the historic wound of racism. Think about this - a majority of Americans voted for a black man with limited experience and a Middle Eastern sounding name. That in and of itself was an amazingly positive thing. I believe it showed conclusively that America had indeed grown to the point to where that it was judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Sounds sappy, but I cried the night Obama got elected. It felt like such a seminal moment for America. In hindsight I feel like I was duped.
Obama had a great opportunity to heal the sins of racism in America. Instead, he doubled down on the belief that Americans were hopelessly racist. In controversy after controversy, Obama defaulted to the belief that white Americans were acting with hatred in their heart. Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Henry Louis Gates, Freddy Gray - just about anything related to police brutality - Obama always believed the worst - that white Americans were racist at their core. He did this despite evidence to the contrary, and he was wrong each and every time. Instead of learning from it, he doubled down on it. And look - he was dead wrong on each of these four issues, and the evidence proved it. He showed his true colors, and unfortunately the only thing I can call it is what the data points to - Obama had racist biases. I don't know how anyone can dispute this given the facts. It was such a gut-punch to people like me who believed in a post-racial America. We have to evaluate Obama fairly here. In issues of racial conflict he sided with black grievances on all four issues, and he was wrong each time. That's not an accident. That is a failing of one being able to evaluate things fairly. History will show that this failing of Obama had terrible consequences. It led to an idiot like Trump being elected, and the fundamental abandonment of truth. I honestly believe that if Obama had fairly evaluated those issues the country would be in a far better place today.
I've said this before and I'll say it again - I don't believe Conservatives have hatred in their hearts toward minorities or gays. I really don't. I talk to these people every day. They are fair. What they don't want is reverse discrimination - paying for past racial sins by giving blacks a leg up. They believe in fairness - in evaluating people based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. They reject identity politics because it flies in the face of this principle. And for that they are called racists. And that's where the hate begins. When you assume hateful intent, people will live up to your expectations.
Conservatives are no angels. I always say this, but in the 80's I was a Liberal because I hated the narrow views expressed by the Religious Right. I have gotten into one violent altercation in my life. In my Freshman year at Penn I was at a frat party and talking to one of the bothers. We were talking about Reagan and at some point in the conversation the drunken idiot yelled out "F*&% the poor!" I was from a lower Middle Class background, and that statement flew I the face of everything I believed in. So I confronted him on it - basically calling him an ignorant SOB. Before I knew it I was going at it with about 5 frat boys. Got my ### kicked, but I also got in a couple of good shots on the ignorant mf-er.
I believe Conservatives today are much more aligned with my belief system, which mostly consists of personal freedom. I don't like big Government. I don't trust it. Like Ronald Reagan said, I believe in the goodness of the American people. I can't believe that I hold Ronald Reagan in such high esteem, but I do. The older I get, the more I appreciate what a great man and a great leader he was. In my opinion, he and Teddy Roosevelt were the 2 best Presidents of the 20th century.
Anyways, that's where I'm at. Of course I could be completely full of ####. I acknowledge that.
Interesting - thanks for that reply. I might have to continue thoughts later in the day, so apologies in advance if this is only 1/2 of what is floating through my head currently.
It is going to sound like a cop out or a link cop response, but do you have examples of the type of language and speak that Obama was using that brought you to those conclusions during his term? I don't doubt it at all, I was just curious. I didn't vote for him, and his first term came at a time of being way more busy and stressed than I am now - new jobs, helping the family business, first kid born, etc.. I have never followed political figures that much - no speeches, campaign trails. Mostly during that time I was just reading about topics and digging into my 3rd party views and voting. I missed a ton.
That said, our experiences seem to be a bit different when it comes to the general voting public, conservatives, and religion. It's interesting to me, as I think at our cores we seem to agree way more than we disagree, but it seems like those life experiences and encounters gave us some fairly different outlooks on certain data points. Again, I come from WI - mostly conservative, just outside of Madison - which is quite liberal. What I experienced was surprising amount of sentiment like: "ugh - people just voting for somebody because he was black" or an general idea like because we voted in a black POTUS it proves how non-racist we are as a country, so we got to our goal - why are you bringing up this other race stuff??!! Stuff like that. I want to be crystal clear - this is not a lot of people, just grumblings, comments, and sentiments that I picked up on. My personal belief is (and I could be very wrong on this) I fully don't believe that represents all the people who think like that - it is just the people who are willing to say it out loud. Like I hinted at in my post you responded to, what I believe happened is that explosion of SM and internet in our pockets created a perfect storm with all those sentiments (and like you are saying Obama himself with his talk probably fueled some further negativity), and now those people could find other like minded people online. I still get prejudice rumblings towards the Latin people we hire and other groups around here. Also comments about Native Americans and the casinos (there is a bit of Native American culture and themes around here with town names, history, etc.. ) Now, I think it's inaccurate to say that I think our country is racist at it's core, especially when you are talking about people and their beliefs - but my experience is that there is still an uncomfortable number of people have have these types of beliefs and thoughts. I brought up where I was from also to put in perspective when I think about this, I put this in context that I am way up north, not in an area where we would both probably expect there to be more of those types of people and beliefs. Again, SM just let's these people find each other and gives them group/family that might be missing for other reasons.
Largely what I am saying with this part is I believe that you represent a certain demo of voters. But I also saw a fair amount of people who were not so happy from day 1 about Obama being elected. It was still only 53% of the vote, and IMO what the 15 or so years have shown me is that we farther from healing from those types of racial divides and thoughts than we probably thought in 2008. There is still a lot of bubbling resentment on both sides of the equation that needs to be talked about and addressed.
As far as the bolded section, I wanted to quickly address that too. NO - I don't believe conservatives have hatred in their hearts as you say. But I think way too many people still do (notice I didn't bring up party here). I honestly don't think you are accurate with all that section either. I think if we sat down and hammered out some things you and many conservatives would agree that SOME things needed to be corrected from our past, or maybe still do. So I don't think the idea of anti-reverse discrimination applies. We discriminate for all sorts of things and reasons. What I think is going on is through all the identity politics and demands from others, a harder line has been drawn in the sand and there is a feeling that we have either gone too far, or are right there. IMO that is where I disagree with that side of the aisle - I look around and think we still have work and healing to do. Unfortunately the only way to get there is by continuing to talk about it, which largely gets met with frustration and anger from opposing people because of sentiments like "why does EVERYTHING have to be about race!!!??" .
Gotta run to work...
