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Why "Bitter" Was Condescending
Dahlia, I think there's one important difference between Rush and Barack (well, one difference relevant to this conversation): location, location, location. Rush Limbaugh might be a kajillionaire immune to any economic downturn, but he's gotten that way by understanding his audience. He's in his listeners' living room or driving down the street with them, albeit virtually, listening to what they have to say and commiserating with them. Obama was talking at, and talking down to, working-class voters, from a room full of rich people in San Francisco.
Can you picture Obama uttering those same words while speaking to the monthly meeting of the Rotary Club, or at smoke-filled VFW hall? The thing is, what Obama said last week was not altogether different from a point that he made in his speech on race, when he said that "resentment builds over time" when whites "are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed." But in that speech, he was talking to all of us at the same time, and he was trying to mend our differences. In San Francisco, he came across as making assumptions about a group of people that probably almost no one in attendance could relate to.
Of course people should be able to, and should be encouraged to, weigh in on issues they haven't experienced. But if we're going to stop talking past one another, like you say, well, first we have to start talking to one another. I don't think there were too many union laborers or laid-off factory workers at that San Francisco fundraiser.
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