The New Civil War Among Whites

Posted 10-08-10 on Huffington Post by E.O. Hutchinson

The recent AP-Gfk poll reconfirmed that whites again are at political war wit
h each other. The war this is time is not over slavery, secession, or Lincoln. T
he war is over President Obama. The division is fueled by the same race, class,
and governance issues that sparked the Civil War. The poll found these glaring c
ontrasts. White workers are older, less educated and staunchly conservative. The
y overwhelming loathe Obama's policies, and have a strong visceral dislike of hi
m. Many openly and passionately say that Obama is shoving the country to sociali
sm. All assail the federal government for giving the company store away to the p
oor. The poor in this case are blacks, and all at the expense of white workers.
A TV ad by Wisconsin House GOP candidate Sean Duffey rammed that point home.
The ad shows a blue-collar, hardhat worker getting dumped from a rolling log
into the drink. A grave voice intones the point and the punchline, "Our working
folks have been tossed aside." It's brash, bold, in your face, and crudely calcu
lated to prick the deepest fears among white workers that Obama, the Democrats a
nd the federal government is one big ATM machine giving free everything to undes
erving minorities which equals money snatched from the pockets of hardworking wh
ites. That race lurks sneakily just beneath the surface in the GOP and Tea-Party
-leaning candidates' appeals to white, working-class voters is beyond dispute. T
he code word drips appeal and imagery in the ads and the campaign stump shouts f
rom the candidates is a surefire sell for a bitter reason.
They never liked Obama anyway. In the 2008 presidential primary they backed Hill
ary Clinton by overwhelming margins in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and every Southern st
ate. This had less to do with any rapture with Hillary, or of her stance on the
issues, but simply she was the white, and the only ballot alternative to Obama.
In the general election, they backed GOP presidential rival John McCain by a who
pping twenty percent bulge over Obama. By contrast, Obama could not have won wit
hout the massive support from younger, college-educated, middle-class whites. Th
ey gave him a double-digit bulge in vote numbers over McCain. The bulge carries
over to GOP candidates in general. They give current GOP congressional candidate
s a double-digit vote margin over the support they gave GOP congressional candid
ates in 2006 and 2008. The Democrats sole hope for staving off major losses in t
he House and possibly Senate is to rekindle the fire among white supporters that
proved the margin of victory in 2008. The choice of a massive rally kick off ra
lly at the University of Wisconsin was the first attempt to rev up the Democrat'
s white support base. The crowd that turned out -- overwhelming white, young, an
d college attending or educated -- was the exact prototype of Obama's white supp
ort base.
The rally was also tacit recognition that the split between white voters acro
ss class, income, and age, lines is real and potentially a make-or-break point f
or the Democrats. Their political fate in November rests squarely on how effecti
vely they can exploit that division. The GOP already has their answer, and they
have tailored their entire election strategy to exploiting the white division fo
r their purposes. It's hardly the first time for that.
Nixon stoked the fury of blue-collar, white, ethnic, rural voters with his sl
am of the Democrats for coddling criminals, welfare cheats, and fostering a cult
ure of anything-goes permissiveness, and of course, big government Great Society
pandering to the poor. The crude, thinly disguised code words and racial cues w
orked. Nixon eked out a narrow victory over Democratic presidential opponent Hub
ert Humphrey. The tag of law and order and permissiveness became a staple in the
GOP attack playbook for the next four decades. With tweaks and refinements, Rea
gan, Bush Sr. and George W. Bush used it to ease their path to the White House.
In the mid 1990s, Newt Gingrich and ultraconservatives recycled the strategy to
seize Congress, and pound out an agenda that made big government, tax and spend
Democrats, and soft on crime liberals the fall guys for everything wrong with Am
erica. It touched the familiar nerve with white males.
Hate groups, anti-Obama Web sites and bloggers, and radio talk jocks can craf
t this as the prime reason for the anger and alienation that many white males fe
el toward health care and, by extension, Obama, while loudly denying that this h
as nothing to do with race.
GOP strategists are again giddy at the prospect, as one GOP pollster put it: "Pe
ople who have been part of our majority coalition are looking to come back to us
." That's a neat phrase to say white workers are firmly back in the GOP fold aga
in. It's the classic white versus white political battle with an election again
riding on the outcome.
E.O. Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadc
ast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.