Evidently, even President Obama has become afflicted with Trumpitis.
For only this explains the conceited and crass clarion call he issued to blacks on Saturday night. The occasion was a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gala in Washington, DC.
With Democratic leaders increasingly worried about a lack of passion for Hillary Clinton among young black voters, President Obama is rolling out a new and more personal campaign message: ‘It’s about me.’
The president told African-Americans this weekend he would consider it a ‘personal insult’ if they did not vote for Mrs. Clinton, implicitly putting his name on the line as his former secretary of state struggles to replicate the coalition that delivered him victories in 2008 and 2012.
(New York Times, September 18, 2016)
When I first saw Obama saying this, my visceral offense was tempered by the thought that he was caught up in the emotion of the moment, and simply misspoke. But then I received an e-mail from him yesterday not only repeating it but asking me to donate to Hillary’s campaign. I suspect every registered black voter received the same.
Frankly, this reeks of Trumpian arrogance; you know, the arrogance that makes Donald Trump feel entitled to say he can kill someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still vote for him. Except that the arrogance Obama is displaying is even more galling.
After all, he so takes black voters for granted that he feels entitled to assign to Hillary the passion they have for him. Can you imagine Bernie Sanders feeling so entitled that he could pimp off his supporters to her…?
Apropos of galling, Obama is issuing this perversely self-interested call to blacks who are mostly worse off today – by almost every socio-economic metric – than when he took office nearly eight years ago. This is plainly manifest in daily headlines about the scourge of drugs and gun violence (black on black and blue on black), in the midst of chronic poverty, in black communities across the country. And too often innocent black kids, trying to get an education in sub-standard schools, are the ones ensnared by drugs or caught in the crossfire. I lamented this cursed fate with respect to ‘Chiraq” in “Tayshawn Lee: Excuse Me, but Which Black Lives Matter,” November 5, 2015.
To be fair, blacks like talk-show host Tavis Smiley and Professor Cornel West have been lamenting trends in this respect since the third year of his presidency. But their lamentations have been laced with too much personal resentment to resonate in the minds of Obama-loving black folks. I wrote about this in “Professor Cornel West’s Racist Psychobabble about President Obama,” June 1, 2011.
Sure enough, most blacks are reacting to this clarion call as if Obama were a messiah resurrecting them, Lazarus-like, from the dead. No less a black leader than Reverend Al Sharpton hailed it on Sunday morning as the “shot in the arm” Hillary’s campaign needs to show signs of life.
But I find it a personal insult – as patronizing as it is gratuitous. And I’m actually more interested in protecting Obama’s legacy than electing Hillary.
In fact, my support for Obama dates back to 2006, when johnnies-come-lately like Sharpton were supporting Hillary and dismissing him as an uppity Negro. Back then I was the one issuing a clarion call to blacks in “It’s TIME: Run Obama, Run! October 24, 2006, and “BET Founder Executes Black-on-Black Hit [on Obama] for Hillary,” January 15, 2008.
More importantly, it’s worth noting that blacks compose only 12 percent of the electorate, whites 69. Therefore, just as Obama needed many more whites than blacks to win his elections, he needs many more of them to protect his legacy.
But can you imagine Obama issuing this clarion call to whites at a celebrity gala in Hollywood…? He wouldn’t dare. He respects them too much….
Meanwhile, it’s patently obvious that white voters are the ones who need a shot in the arm to support Hillary. Which is why it would make more sense if Bill Clinton were issuing this clarion call to working class whites in swing states.
In fact, whites are even more indispensable to securing Hillary’s election than blacks are to protecting Obama’s legacy. Not to mention that, if Hillary garners the same percentage of the white and black vote Bill garnered in 1996 (44 and 84 percent, respectively), she would win this election handily.
In any event, it’s foolhardy for Obama to stake his legacy on Hillary’s election. Moreover, it’s wrong for him to cheapen black loyalty to him by insinuating that it would mean nothing unless blacks support her.
I would be remiss, however, to end this rebuke without acknowledging the culpability of white Republicans. After all, their defiant, if not racist, determination to make Obama a failed president had a lot to do with his presidency falling far short of its hopes and promises for black Americans. But this hardly entitles him to treat their loyalty as his fungible currency.
Accordingly, I urge him to cease and desist with this “it’s-about-me” clarion call forthwith.
Related commentaries:
Chiraq: Tayshawn Lee…
Run Obama run…
Prof West psychobabble…
Black-on-black hit…
Birther and opportunistic black politicians…
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