David Brooks has an intriguing editorial in this morning's New York Times on the question of the racist nature of the opposition to Obama and his policies. Brooks thinks that Jimmy Carter is wrong; that the driving force behind the opposition is not race, but rather an old, traditional brand of populism that could be traced to Jefferson and Jackson. Sometimes that populism takes a conservative bent, sometimes more progressive, but it resurfaces frequently.
I think Brooks may be on to something - but we shouldn't dismiss the racial/ethnic component in such populism, and it's not just about African Americans. Consider Jeff. and Jax. themselves - two slaveholders, and Jackson a great slayer of Indians, the source of much of his early popularity. The Ku Klux Klan is an obvious example of racist populism, both in its original Reconstruction-era incarnation and its periodic rebirths in the 1920s and 1950s-60s. The 1920s Klan talked about "100% Americanism" - a reaction against the influx of southern and eastern Europeans, considered not quite white enough - and lots of its members came from northern and plains states. A great popular swell fed anti-Chinese prejudice and demanded the 1882 Exclusion Act. The Populist movement of the 1890s was mostly fueled by economic troubles and the slipping status of the small farmer, but white southern populists often shared the same virulent racism of their mainstream neighbors (with important exceptions like Tom Watson).
The problem with this whole discussion is what I like to call the American Disease - the either/or syndrome, the all or nothing mentality. Is the opposition to Obama ALL about race? Of course not. Is NONE of it about race? Equally wrong, or we wouldn't be seeing some of the viciously racist signs and language that appear at SOME rallies, carried by SOME people - like this one here, from the Huffington Post, credited to Jesse Russell of Madison, Wisconsin.
A friend of mine in my Navy squadron used to get into lots of arguments with other officers. Our commanding officer finally told him, "You're a black and white guy - gray out."
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