The reason why the McCain-Palin campaign has appeared erratic throughout the election season is that their strategic communications have been conceived and crafted according to the language of implicit cultural code rather than explicit thematic cohesion. On the surface, their messages appear scattershot, misaligned, contradictory and confusing; but that's because these messages are designed to appeal not to crisp logical consistency, but rather to murky socio-cultural undercurrents and subterranean sentiments which have fueled, informed, and warped white identity politics since the birth of this nation.
What's extraordinary is that this time around — at this particular
crossroads, against this particular candidate — it's not working.
The beauty of US history is that years, decades, centuries of persistent popular struggle have resulted in dramatic social, political, and cultural changes in the continuing quest for greater common good. The ugliness of US history is that at every step, reactionaries have undertaken — and many others have tolerated — all manner of inner and outer violence in a greed- and fear-based desire to impose and maintain exclusionary power schemes. I view the 2008 presidential election as some sort of forward step along this trajectory. I hesitate to either overstate or understate the historical significance of what we're witnessing. We're way too close to the moment's clamor to know just what it means in a larger scope.
Not that this is about to stop me from sounding off now.
As I see it, the McCain campaign is perhaps best encapsulated by the iconic VP choice of Sarah Palin. Not because she's been a "drag" on the ticket. Not because of her many flaws as a candidate. Rather, because of what her selection, and its outcome, reveal about the US political landscape. I don't believe that Palin was "unvetted". I think GOP operatives knew exactly what they were getting when they picked her. I believe they simply threw the full weight of this year's presidential campaign into the strategic calculation that a raw smashface appeal to white identity politics, against a black opponent, would outweigh and overwhelm any dainty intellectual nitpicking or idealistic rhetoric.
To be sure, there remains a doughy core of conservative Americans who breed a noxious hostility to the changing shape and hue of US society. I've taken to calling this group "the twenty-two percenters". These people ludicrously view themselves as the only true Americans, beleaguered and beset on all sides by a dark tidal wave of the heathen unclean and their liberal lackeys. And these people have indeed responded well to the McCain-Palin message, whose only unifying theme has been to consistently draw from America's deep well of racist constructs and paint the Democratic candidate as Barack The Other. The twenty-two percenters read the code correctly and conclude that Obama is not one of Us. He can't be trusted because he doesn't share Our values. He harbors unpatriotic views of America, like the terrorists and anti-Semites he pals around with. He's an insurrectionary community organizer who threatens to destroy the fabric of democracy by infiltrating the White House on behalf of ACORN, Black Radicals, Muslims, communists, and illegal immigrants. He's a socialist who's going to redistribute wealth from Joe The Plumber to welfare queens looking for handouts and giveaways. He's The Spook Who Sat In The Oval Office.
Unfortunately for the McCain-Palin campaign, the twenty-two
percenters are small, flaccid, and shrinking. And there's no Viagra strong enough to bolster their diminution in the face of cultural, generational, and demographic shifts which are transforming the
electorate. No matter how rabidly the twenty-two percenters promote white
teen pregnancy and fundamentalist home schooling, the country is
slipping away from their clammy grasp and changing in ways that are
simply beyond their power to halt.
Don't get me wrong: racism remains a pervasive factor in the US and
global order. Anyone who suggests that we're in some sort of
"post-racial" era might as well go ahead and spit in the faces of
people and communities of color who endure daily inequality, exploitation, incarceration, economic injustice, and more
forms of dehumanization than I can possibly list, as a direct result of
racism and colonialism. An Obama presidency isn't going to undo all that. Moreover, white liberals who think
McCain's "dog whistle politics" are somehow beyond the pale of normal civilized discourse are wrong. Such liberals probably just weren't sharp enough or interested enough to notice before, because we've never
before had a presidential election with a person of color on a
major-party
ticket. Now they're sensitized to it and are shocked and appalled. In truth, white identity politics aren't the shocking exception but the mundane norm. For many of us, it's simply what we experience
every day, in mass media, in the workplace, in social interactions, in
the blogosphere. It's usually not dramatized and magnified by the glaring 24/7 national spotlight of an epic presidential campaign, but it's woven into the fabric of mainstream US culture.
Nevertheless, I think it's safe to say that two generations of steady anti-racist work in the wake of the Civil Rights movement have had a profound effect on mainstream attitudes. The stigmatization of racism, so often decried as mere "political correctness", has in some ways succeeded in driving the most toxic forms of racist hatred underground, resulting in a popular culture which at least tolerates a superficial modicum of racial diversity. Many white kids growing up in this environment simply don't respond to people of color with the same visceral disdain that was common among whites just one or two generations ago. They may still harbor stereotypes and blindspots; they may still view the world through an uninterrogated prism of white normativity; but they're not explicitly racist and they're not afraid of Barack Obama. Indeed the same can be said of many not-so-young white Americans
who have longed for years to heal the burning wounds of our fractured
nation. They may not be consciously anti-racist but they know bigotry when they see it and it's not what they believe in.
It's obvious that Obama has tapped into a powerful vein of energy and emotion
coursing just underneath our society's skin. So many people want to believe that we can be better. The
genius of the Obama campaign has been its ability to ignite and draw upon that
widespread desire and idealism without getting caught up or pulled into the previous generation's embittered battles and intractable stalemates. This isn't a repudiation of what came before and what paved the way. It's a fresh attempt to take previous high points and apply them to a new era. This doesn't mean that I agree with all of Obama's politics; it means that I understand, appreciate, and respect what he's trying to do.
In this election, the McCain campaign slammed its money down on the bet that the Palin identity could overwhelm the Obama hope. But it's turning out that tectonic plates have shifted underneath that calculation. The twenty-two percenters increasingly find themselves on a sinking island. They aren't done with their sad and desperate attempts to protect the crumbling edges of their world, but the outcome of this year's election should tell us a lot about how shaky the stilts are under their beach houses. I'm looking forward to seeing plenty of movement.
