It’s not that bad, guys.
As a liberal, I admit to taking perverse pleasure—the German word is “schadenfreude”—in watching the FOX News Network turn into Jonestown when President Obama was projected the winner of the presidential election. After Ohio and Virginia went blue, it seemed plausible that Karl Rove, whose super-PAC was on the hook for $300 million, might start throwing his own feces at the cameras.
However, while I was giggling into my sleeve and watching to see if Brit Hume’s hair would actually move, history was happening in my home state of New Hampshire.
On Tuesday, Nov. 6, with the Democratic governor-elect Maggie Hassan defeating the GOP candidate Ovid Lamontagne—no known relation to the singer—and the newly elected Congresswomen Anne Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter, both Democrats, beating the Republican incumbents Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta, respectively, New Hampshire became the first state in this country’s history to have a female governor and all female representatives in Congress—Democrat Jean Shaheen and Republican Kelly Ayotte are the senators.
It’s worth noting that for much of 20th century, New Hampshire was the only red state stronghold on the liberal east coast. It is a state that still has one of the most conservative newspapers in the country, the painfully written and egregiously edited Union Leader, and had someone written an editorial for that rag twenty years ago stating that in 2012 New Hampshire would enjoy all-female congressional representation, the gun-toting good ole’ boys with their pick-up trucks and obdurate white politics would have laughed that person all the way back to the Massachusetts border. It would have seemed the stuff that a campy 50s sci-fi movie was based on.
But sorry, boys, all barbecues must come to an end.
Elections in a democracy are typically good indicators of the public’s pulse, and they seldom occur in a vacuum. Much has already been remarked in the media about why the epic flip-flopper and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney fell significantly short of making Obama a one-term president. However, I’m not interested in punditry and analysis from the talking heads.
What became clear, not only in New Hampshire, but nationally—except in the South where they’re still fighting The Civil War—is that the heyday of the far-right conservative white guy is in a decline, and unless they’re willing to part with some of their archaic 50s social paradigms and stop exalting Reagan and trickle-down economic theories that cater to the rich conservative white guys they hope to become, this species will soon be extinct.
This will be a tough pill for the far-right conservative white guy to swallow. If there’s one demographic that embodies stubbornness and resistance to a changing dynamic, it’s the tone-deaf and paranoid far-right conservative white guy, who wants his wife to serve him, the gays to stay away, and the minorities to quit picking his pockets.
Unfortunate as it is for him—and we’re seeing this in New Hampshire, a one-time bastion for the far-right conservative white guy—most women no longer have time to bake cookies for his kids after school and give him a hand-job at night while he is smoking his pipe and watching the news in the den. The gay community is here to stay and, hopefully, soon will have the same right to be miserable in their marriages as the far-right conservative white guy, and no one is picking their pockets by making them pay taxes.
To the far-right conservative white guy: look ahead, and you will see that you have one of three options. You can get with the times and accept the fact that demographics in America are changing, and stop with the pouting and paranoia. Newsflash: the nostalgia you’re chasing never really existed.
You could also try rallying the South to secede from the Union for a second time and move there. It’ll be a far-right conservative white guy utopia—guns and no taxes or gays getting married. Perhaps you can even readopt the Confederate Constitution, and President Obama will be considered a mere three-fifths of person.
Or you can join Jonestown and drink the Kool-Aid with the rest of the FOX News crew. In the meantime, watch out for errant Karl Rove poop.
Read more:
Trust Me, I’m Lying: Interview With Ryan Holiday: Chuck Ross interviews a self-admitted media manipulator.
Images from White People Mourning Romney/Tumblr
About Nathan Graziano
And the picture or the room full of elderly “white-guys…” You see the VFW hats they are wearing? Its fkg VETERANS DAY, and this header picture pisses on them.
I challenge you Nathan: Explain to me how this abuse of heros helps you to integrate anyone worth having on your side!
VERY bad form all around here.
Plenty of veterans are not white men. Plenty of veterans are not conservative. Plenty of veterans support gay marriage, women’s rights, and other progressive social policies. Nathan is not abusing veterans, he’s explaining to the GOP what they currently seem incapable of admitting to themselves: that it’s time to get with the program.
By the way, I am a military veteran (9 years flying search-and-rescue helicopters in the Navy, with two combat-time deployments aboard aircraft carriers) and I was in no way offended by the article.
Well said. Way to push back on that clap trap from Rob.
“clap trap”
Such deep substance!
Well, he could have said “malarkey”…
I must admit that I take a certain amount glee from watching this election backfire in Republican and conservatives faces. They spent four years campaigning against President Obama, calling him everything but the one word too politically volatile to call him, yet despite their best efforts he not only won re-election, but he ironically won by the very margin Republicans swore Romney would win by. How can you not enjoy that?
However, what I enjoy most is the delicious irony (if I may use that phrase) of watching liberals relish the marginalization of a group of people. Here we have progressive liberals, people supposedly oh so concerned with preventing marginalization, tripping over themselves in masturbatory ecstasy at the thought that white people, particularly poor, working-class white men, will no longer have an active, viable voice in the political debate. For the last week the liberal refrain has been, “Yay! Those poor white men votes won’t matter anymore!”
How fortunate that I am not allied to either political movements. I get to enjoy the stupidity of both sides.
White men are the new witches.
Agree,
White men are a pain in the ass. I get to say that. I am one. Whoooo Hoooooo! PAR-TAY!!!!
Its not an article about airheads, lay-abouts, losers or even light-weighters. Its not about white males woo hoo. Its about hating White Conservative Men. Try to remain focused…just a bit.
Keep your self loathing to yourself.
No liberal I know wants poor, working-class white men marginalized. We only want hateful, sexist, homophobic, intolerant assholes to loosen their stranglehold on our government.
Loved the column. I want to do more writing myself. I echoed some of the same ideas in something I wrote yesterday. If you like it, give it a share:
http://spiffysean.com/2012/11/11/keeping-it-real/
“And overall Obama still lost white women. The president captured only 42 percent of the white women’s vote, Romney captured 56 percent of it. So, white women actually were an area of strength for Romney.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/women-are-not-a-unified-voting-bloc/265007/#
For everyone thinking that it’s the demise of white MALES.
This “3/5 of a person” insult always aggravates me, because it means you don’t understand what the whole Three-Fifths Compromise meant. Slave states wanted the slave counted as A WHOLE PERSON, so they would get more votes. Northern states wanted the slave to NOT BE COUNTED AS A PERSON AT ALL, because only land-owners voted so counting the slave as a person and added a large population to states that were pro-slavery. If you’re going to insult the south, you could at least be educated about it and quit perpetuating an alarmingly wrong misconception. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise
Guys, he’s just saying Obama would be 3/5ths of a person. Regardless of the fact that the North benefitted from the 3/5 equation, its really still a bad thing. See? Stop nit picking.
It’s not nitpicking, it’s history. If someone has written that the US entered WWII because China bombed Guam they’d look like a fool.
3/5ths of a person has no mening outside of its meaning in the constitution.
The three-fifths compromise was over how much the South would get to count their slaves for representation in Congress, not some abstract metaphysical statement about what proportion of a “person” a black person constituted. And the fact is that the South (the slaveowners) wanted them counted as full persons for representation, while the North wanted them counted not at all.
You fail history forevar!
I’m a six year Army veteran (from the sixties,) and have mostly voted Dem. What’s more, I was an enlisted man, not an officer. I found the article obnoxious. For one thing, it’s sexist.
Yeah…and he was really creative with his invocation of Southern Secession. He forgot to mention Archie Bunker.
Jeff, quit being disingenuous. The slave states wanted slaves counted in order to increase the size of their various congressional delegations, without actually having to you know, represent the slaves in any way whatsoever.
What goes around, comes around. Don’t gloat too much. 58 million Americans agreed with Romney’s vision of America. The most certain thing about American politics is that the pendulum swings both ways and it will swing back to the right, hopefully you are not in the way when it does. It is just this kind of insult that tears this country apart. Yes we believe in the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, we believe men and women should compliment each other with their respective strengths, not compete with one another, we believe in hard work, not hand outs, we believe in American exceptionalism, we believe in the second Amendment and we unapologetically believe in God and our right to believe in God is supported by the First Amendment. The House is still Republican and we are a force to reckoned with. The liberal agenda must first get through the House. So be kind, because when your side is on the losing end, you will want kindness from right. Like I said, what goes around, comes around.
You mean the kindness your kind showed during the Bush years? Calling liberals America-haters, that kindness? Attacking anyone who opposed the Iraq War? THAT KINDNESS? Yes, what goes around comes around. And that is PRECISELY why we get to gloat!
Excuse me, it was the left that mercilessly attacked George W. Bush. Lampooning the President at every turn. Sadaam Hussein may not have had WMD’s, but he was an extremely dangerous despot in an unstable area of the world that threatened if not the US directly, certainly our strongest ally in the region, Israel. You may disagree with Bush’s policies, but the left launched personal attacks on him that were viewed abroad as less than full support for the what we were trying to accomplish in Iraq. So let’s continue the circle. Liberals gloat now, but the right will have its turn. If liberals truely are the better way, then show it. Seek to unite and tear apart. The author doesn’t seek to reach out to the other side, he seeks to herald the demise of the conservative right. Had Romney won, the conservatives I know had intended to reach out to liberals and help them understand our viewpoint. So far what we have seen from the left is repudiation. That will not unite the country. But it is my belief that liberals really don’t care about this country, so what has followed really is what I expected.
You don’t have to look past this site alone to see how conservatives are viewed. Even so called Christians do their fair share of attacking .
Your belief is the belief of the kind of person alluded to in the text. Good thing they will gradually count for less and less.
Yes, karma goes around and comes around and there is a pendulum effect in politics. I support any and all attempts to have civil and honest debate about issues that impact all of us as a nation. The trouble most on the left have with the values you stated isn’t that you shouldn’t have those values or that those aren’t valid values, it’s the imposition of those values on others. Not everyone wants to marry a heterosexual partner and everyone has the right to determine gender roles for themselves in their own families. Everyone has the right to freedom of and from religion and I’ve never met a liberal who thought otherwise. One person’s “hand-out” is another person’s hand up and out of poverty (I’m not going into institutionalized disadvantages of people of color and the poor). Liberals value hard work as much as conservatives do and to imply otherwise is insulting and serves to shut down debate about how we can solve our problems. I won’t touch “American Exceptionalism” because the meaning of the term has been in transition ever since some have decided it was a good cudgel to try and make Obama appear somehow un-American and other. I would venture to say most liberals support the 2nd Amendment and a majority of Americans support sensible gun control.
The problem we have right now is largely a problem with the political discourse. The conservative white guy (and everyone who gets their news from the conservative media entertainment complex), for a whole host of reasons, has retreated to an alternate reality. Unfortunately, that alternate reality has not only damaged the discourse but it has harmed our democracy. In order to have a functioning democracy, we need an engaged and informed citizenry. We need BOTH sides.
I would be thrilled to see a balanced and reality-based debate about all the issues we face as a nation. How can we raise the level of discourse so we can live up to our history as Americans? We have work to do.
We have work to do.
Olita, yes indeed we do. I really don’t believe that liberals understand the viewpoint of conservatives. For instance, marriage. Conservatives view marriage in the context of raising children. While there certainly are childless marriages, in the conservative viewpoint the purpose of marriage to raise a family that includes children. It is scientifically undisputed that the ideal model for raising children is the traditional one of one female mother and one male father. Do successful non traditional families exist(I know I will be getting a slew of anecdotal evidence of successful non-traditional family structures). Yes, they do, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Conservatives believe that our public policy has undermined the traditional family, which as a society we have an interest in promoting. To award non-traditional family structures with the same rights and privileges of traditional family structures undermines the specialness of the traditional families and disincentivises people from entering into traditional family relationships thereby leaving our children to be raised in less than an ideal environment. Our public policy should also seek to promote the growth of our citizenry and therefore as a matter of policy we should promote those relationships that reproduce. Homosexual relationships will never produce a new life. Only a heterosexual relationships can do that. Any child raised in a homosexual household may very well someday wonder about who his real biological mother/father was and why she/he would not want to have raised him/her. The psychological consequences to a child so situated are incalcuable. That can be said of anybody who is adopted by a heterosexual couple as well, but it is helluva alot easier for a heterosexual couple to represent themselves as a child’s parents than it is for a homosexual couple. Conservaties seek to make it policy for our government to promote the formation of families that provide the best environment for raising children in, not just an acceptable one. As far as abortion is concerned, I think we can all agree government has a duty to protect life– your life, my life and even the lives of all those liberals out there. So the question becomes, when doesthe life government has a duty to protect begin? Many see this as a religious quesion. But is it really? I mean we know that an unfertilzed egg is not life nor is the sperm that fertilizes it. But when the sperm fertiizes that egg the fertilized egg contains all the dna needed to develop into a living breathing functioning human being and that fertilized egg will continue to grow and develop for a life time. So when does the duty of government to protect that life begin? If you don’t start at conception, then where do you start? I believe conservatives err on the side of caution and begin at conception. I want to address the remarks made by the idiot Missouri Republican Senatorial Candidate and his twin in Indiana–Murdoch. Clearly when a woman is raped, it is tragic, horrendous, but for my opposition to the death penalty, I would want all rapists executed. But what if the rape victim is impregnated by the rapist– and that can happen notwithstanding the Missouri idiot’s belief that it can’t — but the child conceived is also innocent– in some respects he is a victim too. If the child is aborted the only person getting the death penalty is the one least capable of defending himself. The rapist gets to live, but the product of his rape doesn’t? What kind of logic is that? This will not make my fiscal conservative brethen happy, but I would compensate the mother until she gives birth and can put the child up for adoption. The rapist would be indebted to the government until all the money that went to the mother was paid off and if that meant for the rest of his life then so be it. Conservatives are good people who love this country. They are often serving in the military or are veterans. Yes they are God fearing and feel constrained to publicly express their love of God by liberal forces. Conservative values are good values and they will prevail in my belief, but if the liberals seek their demise, they may very well also achieve the demise of this great country, which i fear is their goal anyway. Convince me my fear is unwarranted.
Actually, scientifically speaking, the ideal situation for raising healthy, well-adjusted children is a *large, extended family* and a child-centric outer culture. The nuclear family model is a very new invention in human history, and it seems clear it’s not perfect.
I am happy to see that you do have compassion for others. That is what the liberal/progressive worldview is based on, not the laws of one holy book or another, but on COMPASSION. Pure and simple.
Large extended families have their roots in the nuclear family. The nuclear family has been diminished by gay marriage, feminism, sexual freedom, birth control, abortion thereby diminishing the “large extended family”. These liberal notions of progressive thinking.
I have never met a conservative that wasn’t compassionate. The difference between liberal compassion and conservative compassion is that a liberal will take a fish from a large commercial fisherman and give it to a hungry man who doesn’t know how to fish feeding him for the day, a conservative will leave the large commercial fisherman to sell his fish at the highest price and teach the hungry man who doesn’t know how to fish how to fish allowing him someday to compete against the large commercial fisherman causing him to lower his price on fish thereby all to afford it and all to eat well. Conservative compassion is better for everyone.
@ Courage …. Well said
Agreed, it’s not old white men who are becoming politically marginalized. It’s social conservatism. Your belief in “the sanctity of marriage” is a religious issue, not a civil one, and you are free to have a sanctified marriage. And your belief that “men and women should compliment each other with their respective strengths, not compete with one another” is fine… for your home. As is your belief in your god. Those are inarguably your rights. But the existing and growing majority of the country doesn’t think your rights extend to imposing those social constructs and religious beliefs on us.
Rewards for hard work, social safety nets, American exceptionalism, the Second Amendment – these are all good subjects for political discourse. And I hope that conservatives continue to represent their views on them in the political arena. We are all better off having a multi-party political system. But I do not see how any group or coalition – whatever gender or color – attempting to use political means to impose purely religious or outdated social restrictions on an unwilling majority can succeed.
My belief in the sanctity of marriage is not a religious issue, it is for the purpose of promoting the best environment for raising children, which as a society we have an interest in doing for the stability and success of society. I do not seek to impose my belief in God on anybody, but I do expect, as does the Constituion, that you will respect my right to worship. I believe a society guided by the principles Jesus taught is a better society and those principles can be followed without invoking God or Jesus. The job of Conservatives is to convince the “unwilling”, majority or otherwise, that the best way for society as a whole is the way of conservative values.
We seem to be in complete agreement.
I agree marriage is good for children. That’s one of the reasons why we should extend its benefits to all families. Sanctification of marriage – making it holy and sacred – is something that religions do. They are welcome to keep doing it, and I don’t expect religions to perform or accept marriages they don’t think of as consistent with their religious guidelines. As noted previously, you having the kind of gender roles you like in your home and practicing your religion are inarguably your rights. And the Golden Rule is an excellent basis for a society.
So what is it you see as your job to convince me of?
When I say the sanctity of marriage I mean the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. If you read a prior post of mine I explain why that has proven to be the ideal marital model for raising children. While everything else may be “adequate”, it is not ideal and as a society we should strive for the best, especially when it comes to our children. Our public policy should reflect our reach for the ideal and not promote anything that does not do that. Christians do not hate homosexuals. As has been said many a time, it is not the sinner, but the sin. When the seed is spilled, it should be spilled in the context of a life creating and life nuturing environment, not purely for recreational or non-committed purpsoses. From your post, I think you at least see a narrowing of the gap between conservatives and liberals and to whatever extent we can narrow that gap is a good thing. I don’t agree with conservatives who are not willing to reach out, but in as much as liberals apparently won this election I believer it is incumbent on the victor to initiate reaching out to the other side and the way I see it this article does the exact opposite.
Your statement that “our public policy should reflect our reach for the ideal and not promote anything that does not do that” implies that we should outlaw divorce, among other things. I propose that rather than prohibiting certain groups from accessing those policies that serve the ideal, we should promote and extend the opportunity and access to those positive benefits more widely. Perhaps that’s the essential difference in our positions.
Your comments in other posts about undermining traditional marriage and families were all made during the Proposition 8 trial. The transcripts present a fascinating study in the anthropology of marriage and I highly recommend reading them. Here’s a link to them: http://www.afer.org/our-work/hearing-transcripts/ Blankenhorn’s testimony on day 12 of the Perry trial is particularly enlightening.
You seem like a reasonable fellow and a respectful commentor. I appreciate the opportunity to engage in an informed and reasoned discussion about finding common ground among liberals and conservatives. And again, we are agreement that labeling and marginalizing conservative white men doesn’t serve that ideal very well.
I don’t think we should outlaw divorce, but I do think we should not make it so easy. I would also require a sort of “pre-cana” requirement on those seeking to marry (absent the religious aspects of that), in other words, no Las Vegas style marriages where the couple knows each other for a couple of hours before marrying. I would also, of course, would only allow marriages between one man and one woman. A marriage is a life time contract and people make life long decisions based on the representations made in advance of entering into that contract and in reliance of those representations. Because one side finds the marriage not going so well, they shouldn’t be allowed to bail without taking steps to cure the defects in the marriage. Many of our societal problems can be traced to unstable and dysfunctional families which are often rooted in ill advised marital decisions. We have to stop it not create new ways to screw up kids.
Your eulogy of the conservative white man is premature. It reminds me of the predictions of another contributor to this blog who heralded the demise of Rush Limbaugh after his imprudent remarks regarding Sandra Fluke. I seem to recall this particular blogger predicted Rush would lose market share and ultimately go the way of Don Imus, Bob Grant and otherconservative radio personalities. But it did not happen. Rush enjoys the following of a huge audience. Why? Because his conservative message resonates with a substantial segament of the electorate. Don’t celebrate yet. Obama is not going to get a free ride in his second term.
Sad that a place like this puts down men. Article after article we read how society doesn’t understand the complexity of the male yet here we are relishing in the downfall of a segment of males in our society. In a society where we should be respecting and learning from people of ages gone by, an article is posted mocking them.
It should also be noted that the so called “far right” is not limited to men, there are countless women at their side.
I guess the idea of “accepting” people for who they are, what they believe goes only as far as those beliefs are similar to your own. And to say that conservatism is limited to whites is an insult as well to non-whites.
And for many like this author, its not just about marginalizing the absurdly broad category “White Conservative Men.” Its about vilifying all the imagery and connotations surrounding what they think the CWM is all about.
Some like author-Nathan speak of generalized negatives like lynch-mobs, gay-hating, bible thumpers who hunt polar bears after beating some baby seals. The CWM is the new Jew in this Nazi-like regime thought process.
We’ve reached that point where pulling Ward Cleaver out of the station-wagon and beating him Reginald Denny-style is chique and now peer-expected. They think this sad economy, destruction of the middle-class and trampling upon the CWM’s values is exactly their dream-come-true; as Mr Greene said – “its a PAR-TAY.”
Maybe one of them would have the man-guts to itemize what they think the CWM is all about, rather than this boring, limp-wristed slap-and-run.
But people like Nathan are working toward a crescendo exactly like China’s cultural revolution, where someone who just looked intelectual due to his eye-glasses would be murdered without cause.
“Conservative White Men.” General enough to murder without cause.
What a relief to know that Nathan agrees the most important color in America remains…green.
I am not Nathan, I am Bill. My favorite color is blue. Not sure what his favorite color is.
Thars a title in there sir! “I am not Nathan, I am Bill.”
I’ll have my peeps submit (posthumously) MY crappy transcript of a poor shredded, abused boy’s life to you. There will be the failed-christian version and the failed mortal’s version. Guess which one they will send to you? We’ll make a killing!
I just won’t be able to attend the ALA Annual Conf to sign promos.
Thought that was a no-no here.
I think I liked this column better when it was written in 1992, after Clinton won.
Or after 2006, when the Democrats took control of Congress.
Or in 2008, when Obama won the first time.
Here’s what’s wrong with the white guy discourse. Especially when it’s directed at working class or rural men. It’s racist (yes, Virginia you can be racist toward whites.) It’s sexist (it’s directed at men.) And it’s classist (ever wonder who does a lot of the work yuppies think they’re too good to do? Much of the military service? Puts food on the table in many areas of the US? – it’s white men, at least some of the time.) There is no sensible category called white males. There are rich one percenters who are about half females and half males, true.
Don’t you know that its ok to be racist, sexist and elitiest against white males. You can call me honky, whiteboy or any name you want and its ok. You can give my job to a woman who will go out on maternity leave and not come back, even if I had intended to stay in the job for the next 30 years non stop or at least until they shipped my job to China. Its ok, its all ok. Because I am just a whiteboy and whatever you to a whiteboy is ok, because just maybe my great, great, great grand uncle may have beena member of the Ku Klux Klan and even if I have contributed 10% of my annual income every year to the United Negro College fund, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or any number of African-American organizatrions whose mission it is to advance African – Americans. You can do anything to me. I walk around backwards with my hands firmly clasping my ankles, because I get what I deserve. Isn’t that right.
If you can’t see how similar this article is to the crap spewed by Rush Limbaugh and others of his ilk- you’re part of the problem.
From the looks of the pic the “far right” is defined by mainstream Republicanism. I suppose it’s not atypical to portray that which one can see as the worst manifestation of the “other” around. After, Hillary Clinton is a feminist NAZI, right? Whew.
Wow, that is perverse. I don’t take pleasure in seeing my fellow Americans suffer angst and anxiety in the face of perhaps having their fundamental beliefs come under attack. For instance, I did not enjoy any particular pleasure seeing Chris Matthews practically suffer a stroke after Obama’s first debate performance. I would prefer if my news commentators were not so partisan and I have watched both Fox and MSNBC and can unequivocally say that MSNBC is much more liberally partisan than Fox is conservatively partisan. Fox at least permits the views of liberals to be aired on their network, MSNBC does not.