Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Why an Obama presidency must mean the end of white America

Here's something that struck me a few days ago about Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Conservatives have realized for years now that in our society, there's a general assumption that once a prominent position has been occupied by a minority or a woman, it "belongs" to minorities and it would be morally unjust for it to revert to being occupied by a white man. For example, we haven't had a white male Secretary of State for over ten years now.

While this view causes problems, it has not so far proven devastating to our society. But the presidency is sui generis, and the problem of electing a minority president goes far beyond creating the view that we must always have a minority president from then on. In the minds of the public, the president represents or symbolizes all of America. So with a black president, America will be seen as a truly and legitimately non-white country. In the minds of a great many people, if only subconsciously, there will have ceased to be anything distinctly white about America, anything defining of America having to do with a historic white majority. Obviously, this will not comport with the reality that for the time being, America will still have a white majority, and even though that majority is at only 66% and falling, it is one that, being "top-loaded" in the older end of the population, still holds most of the positions of power and influence, thus making America still seem like a basically white country.

Now, this is so inconsistent with the reality of a non-white America as symbolized by President Obama, that it will be seen as morally illegitimate for America to have a white majority. It will be seen as a grave and dire problem, one that must be rectified as soon as possible. The attacks on whites and on white society--both physical, and in terms of social policies like school curricula which deemphasize and demonize our historical figures, and immigration laws which are already reducing whites to a minority in America--by both nonwhites, and by the white liberal elite who love Barack Obama and hate ordinary white Americans--will increase and intensify. Life for white people in America will become difficult, much sooner than the predicted end of the white majority in 2042.

This is why, as much as I loathe the idea of a McCain presidency, I cannot hope for Barack Obama to be elected this November.

8 comments:

Call Me Mom said...

I don't think I agree that having an Obama presidency would result in an unspoken requirement that the position be forever after filled by minorities or women. I'm hoping that "We the People" are better than that. I do agree that it would have a measurable impact on the way our children will perceive America.

I won't be voting for either party's candidate in this election as I cannot do so with a clean conscience. But I certainly hope that, were a qualified party candidate available to vote for,(By which I mean someone for whom I could vote with a clean conscience because they have the qualifications, experience and strength of character necessary to do the job.), I would not refuse to vote for that candidate on the basis of their sex or race.

Religion is a serious consideration for me as is culture, because those have an effect on one's character. I found it very disconcerting the other evening to tune into CNN (or was it C-Span) to see an Islamic woman, Ingrid Mattson, lecturing the DNC on the value of honesty and trustworthiness. I find that difficult to swallow from someone whose religion unapologetically endorses lying and deceit as acceptable practices to advance their cause.

This was my first visit to your blog. (My thanks to Mr. Morris at Webster's and VA.) The post on hiring practices was an eye opener and I found your writing style on the twenty somethings getting married very amusing. Given time I may visit again.

Laurel Loflund said...

Howdy!

Call me mom:

I believe that to imagine that gender should be irrelevant in selecting national and church leaders is to deny God's created order for men and women.

So far I haven't seen the Madeleine Albrights and Condoleeza Rices showing real success in statecraft; not to mention the Mt. Carmel fiasco and Randy Weaver case, the ongoing misery in Serbia/Kosovo. I truly wish for a strong, White male leader in the State position.

To say race makes no difference in leadership is to say that a leader should not reflect the dominant ethnicity of his nation. That always encourages trust among the populace!

Hermes: good article, as always.

God bless,
Laurel

Call Me Mom said...

laurel,
I respect your opinion. However, I did not say that I thought gender was irrelevant. I said I wouldn't discount a qualified candidate due to their race or gender. If the best candidate is a woman, that may be a sign of God's impending judgment of America, but that does not relieve me of my responsibility to vote for the most qualified, experienced candidate who shows evidence of having the best character.

I agree that it would be a significant challenge for any leader to attempt to lead a nation that does not share his/her cultural biases, but that is not the same as saying it can't be done.

Vanishing American said...

Hermes - good post, well-articulated.
I agree with you; I've been saying that Obama's election would be a symbolic defeat or dispossession for the White majority, and I think you have spelled out something of what I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get at. The 'worse is better' argument for supporting Obama is a bad idea for many reasons, but the importance of the Presidency and the White House as symbols is one reason not to abdicate our position willingly, in other words, to pre-emptively dispossess ourselves supposedly to 'wake people up.'

Symbolism is important; it has an effect, I think, on a subliminal level if not on a level that is conscious for most people.

The loss of the Presidency would be a real psychic defeat for us.
-VA

Anonymous said...

This is what I was trying to explain to some of my more liberal relatives (except not nearly as well). Things have been going steadily downhill over the last 40 years, but this is a true crossroads. Obama would just be the Trojan horse of minority presidents- the articulate Harvard minority with the white grandma. I wouldn't be surprised if Snoop Dogg(sic?) was elected president in the future.

Anonymous said...

Obama was born in 1961. He represents the cusp of the wave of immigration. His hippy dippy mom was knocked up an african student in america on largess organised by the kennedys. And of course then the floodgates were opened after 1965. He is the first of new generations that could technically be president. And for this reprsentative of the new type of american to have achieved it so quickly.

Dan Kurt said...

re: "His hippy dippy mom was knocked up an african student in america on largess organised by the kennedys." anonymous [coward] said...August 27, 2008 1:44 AM

Not So.

The money came from the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. Check the time line on his birth date and his mother being impregnated nine months before. JFK was not even President then.
Obama was born August 4 1961. He was conceived during the last months of Eisenhower's term of President.

Dan Kurt

Anonymous said...

As his son Senator Obama has said, "The Kennedys decided: 'We're going to do an airlift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is. This young man named Barack Obama [Sr.] got one of those tickets and came over to this country."

Dan [smug] - i took obama at face value. Apparently the kennedys got involved in 1960. But did the Eisenhower administration provide funds - or was it private individuals and organizations?

But sanctimonious nitpicking aside the point remains. He is the very first of a new cohort that starts in the 1960's. A group that is neither the traditional american black or white but something else. And obama is the very first of them - and looks like to win the presidency. It's a sea change.