So here is Ms. Dowd saying, ha, ha, the old white people lost. It doesn't take much perceptiveness to do so, but it is still worth noting how morally decrepit she is being. You might have thought this battle was won somewhere along the course of the Enlightenment, but apparently not. You might have thought, Arise, Ye People of Color of the World! was not exactly the future of the USA, but not if the Dowds of the world, and numerous others in the commentariat, have anything to say about it.
Yet we should just pause to observe, racism is, as has been proven in the past, to be a very bad basis for politics. Humans fall into racial hatred and destruction only too easily. I speculate this is the result of our primate past, when we spent a lot of time murdering members of adjacent tribes who lusted after the same fruit trees. A quick glance at the sanguinary goings on in the Middle East or Africa should lead one to be skeptical about the desirability of race-based politics. Yet this is what one of our most sophisticated, if not particularly intelligent, social commentators is celebrating. All in good fun, of course.
The same goes for egging on the war between the sexes. Here is a thought. Inciting hatred between the sexes is a bad idea. The people who exploit this hatred, which no doubt also has deep roots in our natural history, are loathesome. Of course there are huge gains to be made in exploiting this human weakness, just as there are in the businesses of pornography and selling drugs. This does not mean those who do so are to be admired. Nor is just a little race or sex baiting OK, just all in good fun. It is the sort of fun that has a way of getting out of hand very quickly.
Of course I understand the likes of Dowd are probably not to be salvaged. The point is for people who read blogs like this one to understand what we are dealing with. Of course our white ancestors commited many crimes against blacks and others and there is still a lot of racism in American life directed against non-whites. But this answer to this is not more racism directed against whites. The Democrats have discovered that racism is a powerful political force and are working ways to use it. Their opponents have to figure out the much more difficult business of how to appeal to, how did he put it, the better angels of our nature.
You totally, totally, inaccurately represent her argument, and her point. She's praising that more women and LGBT candidates won. She only mocks Romney for failing to seriously attempt to campaign for minority votes. It's an argument that a presidential candidate ought to try to appeal to all Americans, which is a reasonable request. She feels Romney didn't do that, and making fun of him for it isn't racist, duh. Who's trying to play victim now, Smith?
Posted by: Weak argument | November 13, 2012 at 04:11 PM