An Obama Presidency Will Set Race Relations Back Decades
By Warner Todd Huston (05/30/08)
I know some conservative Republicans who almost wouldn't mind if Barack Obama does win the White House in November. Their theory is that once we as a nation elect a black man to the White House, that election will forever eliminate the claim that Americans are racist because we won't elect a black man to that office. On its face, it seems a logical theory. In practice, however, it will not work. Not with this black man, not with Barack Obama. If Obama becomes president of the United States, his disastrous time in office will set race relations back 50 years.
First of all -- and there is just no other way to way this -- the man is a liar. He claims to want to solve our partisan strife, doesn't he? He claims he wants to work with Congress instead of against the other party. He is supposedly the man of "change" and "hope." If you do a web search for "Obama reach across the aisle" you'll get thousands upon thousands of hits. The general perception that Obama has succeeded in fostering is that he does, indeed, want to "reach across the aisle."
Unfortunately for all of us, it is all a giant lie.
As a legislator, Barack Obama has absolutely no history of working with anyone "across the aisle." There are instances when he has occasionally made statements that have seemed to auger support for an idea that is supported by the Republicans, but when ever it has come down to actual votes, his is always a straight up, far left, liberal vote. He has never worked with anyone on the other side of the aisle on anything. And there is no reason to suspect he'll suddenly start such a practice upon stepping into the White House, either.
Worse, we have seen the sort of people he's surrounded himself with and none of them are folks on the other side of the aisle. He is close friends with racists (Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan), he has the support of aging hippies who were domestic terrorists in their youth (William Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn), he has even invited a young fellow who was mentioned as a communist while at Harvard to be his official campaign blogger (Sam Graham-Felsen). Then we get to his wife who is famous for having said that she was never "proud of America" until her hubby ran for president. She has also said things to disparage capitalism and called the country "mean." But does Obama have any close associates and supporters who are Republicans, even moderate ones? No. Not a single one. And further more, he never has.
Then we add this little fact: Obama has rarely stood up to be counted on much of anything in his whole political career. He has never been a major activist for any cause. He has never led a movement or pushed an organized, identifiable agenda. He has no past of true leadership. His past is almost a blank slate.
So, what sort of president will he make? And why do I say he will set race relations back 50 years?
A Barack Obama presidency will be one filled with one extreme left idea after another. He will strengthen our enemies, most likely try to gut our military, undermine the economy, raise taxes, and inflate government spending on pointless give-aways and welfare programs. He will find mounting resistance from Republicans and moderates because of it. He will repeatedly stumble with foreign policy making himself look the fool. God help us if a terror attack happens during his presidency, because his response will be a fiasco.
And what will be the result? The right will eviscerate him. And his response will be to continue the whining that he has done thus far in the campaign. He will moan that he is being "attacked" and will lament that everyone is so mean to him. With that, his supporters will point fingers at everyone else and claim racism with every attack on their demi-god, Barack.
We already have a parallel by which to gauge what will happen in this country should Barack Obama get elected: O.J. Simpson. The so-called trial of the century is a perfect template by which to measure what will happen between black and white in this country after Obama takes the White House.
You'll recall that guilt and innocence closely followed the racial divide between black and white while the O.J. trial was on going. Blacks by and large assumed he was innocent of the charges of murder. Oh, they didn't necessarily know what the evidence against him was, nor did they care. The assumptions of innocence that many blacks evinced for O.J. was built on their feelings that whites are racists and that, therefore, O.J. must be being railroaded by the white establishment. Worse, there were many blacks that didn't even care if O.J. was guilty. they wanted him free just to get even with the white justice system that they so despised. By and large, blacks in America gave O.J. a pass and his case was used as a way to attack the legal system quite regardless of the merits and evidence of the case.
Many whites, on the other hand, felt he was guilty based on the evidence they heard. There was little if any bias against O.J.'s race mentioned among whites. In fact, few people even thought of O.J. as a typical black man at all. He'd been around so long that he was thought of as just O.J. not as "that black guy O.J." But, every white person who said O.J. was guilty was deemed a racist in the view of the nation's black population.
You'll find that this will happen with Barack Obama. Every time he makes a fool of himself in front of a foreign leader, whites will be called racists for pointing it out. Every time his wife is heard to confirm how much she hates this country, it will be the fault of whites for asking her why she is so filled with hate. With every legislative failure and internal scandal, whites will be attacked as being mean to Barack.
It will get very tiresome. It will get so tiresome that whites who would never have a racist thought in their minds will begin to have unkind thoughts of Barack's racemongering supporters. And this will be reflected upon every black person in the country. Blacks will have their hate-whitey feelings further entrenched (just as they did during the O.J. trial) and whites will find frustration with the foolish, blind support of a president that is obviously a failure. And for those who truly are racists, the debacle of an Obama presidency will give them the excuse to say that they have proof that blacks are not up to the pressures of being president.
After the last days of a Barack Obama presidency, we will see race relations taking a giant step backward. So, I say to my Republican readers who think that an Obama presidency might be helpful for race relations in America; it isn't going to happen. Sadly, just the opposite will occur.
A President Barack Obama will nearly ruin race relations in America.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Warner Todd Huston
