Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

An Elitist Victim

In a letter addressed to potential donors for Barack Obama’s campaign for President, campaign manager David Plouffe, takes advantage of the recent verbal flop of his candidate. Plouffe asks donors to consider that the real "elitists" are Clinton and McCain because their dollar support is coming from PACs and special interests whereas Obama’s funding is coming from the little people . . . in increments as little as $5. "There’s nothing elitist about a movement of more than a million people standing up for a different kind of politics," says Plouffe. Well, to be fair, no one said that the broad base of Obama’s support was elitist. They’ve said that Obama himself is the elitist. Perhaps all those $5 donors may reconsider their support in light of his regard for them.

Not satisfied with this lame rebuttal, Plouffe goes on to assert that Obama is not an elitist because, "[h]e was raised by a single mother with help from his grandparents." Now I have a question. Why is it that liberals only view single motherhood as problematic and disadvantageous when one of their candidates can "boast" of being victimized by it? Of course, Obama would certainly answer (and no doubt answer beautifully) that he was not "victimized" by the fact that he was raised by a single mother. But here again, his own words (in Dreams From My Father among other places) would belie him. Indeed, if we believe his words, it seems that his whole life story has been one big existential crisis confronting his attempt to overcome his feelings of abandonment at the hands of his father and his confusion with respect to the meaning of race when it comes to his mother. But Barack Obama is a clever man. He’s aware of the special status victims can be accorded in certain circles. And he’s done a fairly decent job (until now) of sticking close to those circles.

The problem for him now is that he’s had to step away from those circles. In stepping away, he’s also stepped in it. He dared to trade on that victim status and he’s questioned the decision of people (who probably have a better claim to it) not to so trade. So in a certain sense, Obama is right to suggest that people who "cling" to their guns and their God are a bit backward. After all, they don’t realize how powerful one can become when he whines about being a victim. What’s wrong with these people, anyway? They have dared to put their trust in something higher than government . . . God and liberty? Those fools!

Discussions - No Comments Yet

Leave a Comment

* denotes a required field
 

No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: https://nlt.ashbrook.org/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/12181


Warning: include(/srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/sd/nlt-blog/_includes/promo-main.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/2008/04/an-elitist-victim.php on line 383

Warning: include(): Failed opening '/srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/sd/nlt-blog/_includes/promo-main.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/sp/php7.2/lib/php') in /srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/2008/04/an-elitist-victim.php on line 383