Why the GOP's Really Afraid of a "Cool" Obama

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alternet.org/story/155221/why_the_gop's_really_afraid_of_a_%22cool%22_obama/


The Nation / By Leslie Savan

Why the GOP's Really Afraid of a "Cool" Obama

Lately Obama has been raising the ante, asking which candidate would you like to share a song with, and the GOP considers this to be some kind of dirty trick.

May 1, 2012 |

Republicans used to exult in fielding candidates that voters would like “to have a beer with.” This year, of course, their candidate doesn’t drink beer—in fact, Mitt Romney’s so socially challenged that his advance team is wary about letting him share cookies with voters. But lately Obama has been raising the ante on social comfort, asking which candidate would you like to share a song or nod to a pulsing beat with, and the GOP clearly considers this to be some kind of dirty trick. snip

But as you watch the two ads above, it becomes clear that it’s not only Obama acting like a celebrity that has the GOP’s nose out of joint. He’s also “acting black”--in fact, he’s rubbing their faces in it, just like he did when he sympathized with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for getting arrested in his own home. And that gleams like troll gold to Republican strategists. snip

At some level, much of the GOP base still believes that Obama’s race is somehow disqualifying for the Oval Office, and they can barely keep themselves from overtly attacking him for it. But the demographics are daunting, and their professionals know it. To see a white guy like Jimmy Fallon acting black—doing a silly Barry White impression with Obama and Roots vocalist Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter behind him—reinforces the fear among some on the right that the hip youth culture is increasingly a black culture and that it’s inexorably taking over. Obama, half-black/half-white himself, is at the center of this race jam, which is as “impure” as topical comedy itself--a mélange of news and clips of political speech marbled with rap, R&B, tech-talk and global kid culture. (Let’s hope we see more of that Saturday night when Jimmy Kimmel hosts the White House Correspondents Dinner.)

It's all that mixing that sparks miscegenation imaginations, creating GOP fears about cool whites leaving them behind in electoral limbo, forever.

[JNelson6563]

1. Hell yeah they're scared. As well they should be!

President Obama has been clearly demonstrating one needn't be an uptight asshole to be successful in politics.

In fact, this last one is a fine example of using "coolness" to bring an issue to the people. It has left the R's sitting & crying in their own poop.



Julie

[colorado_ufo]

4. He's smart, and he has caught on!

Everyone (probably even the Repugs, secretly!) loved it when Bill Cliniton played the sax. Makes them human, cool, seem full of life and fun and also at ease and competent.

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. Wow! Thanks...I hadn't seen his turn with BB, Mick and friends!

Good thing they turned Obama's mic on!

[madokie]

7. I'll never get tired of watching all three

I like having a cool President. I know he won't be going off on a killing spree like the dick and w did and I get great comfort in knowing that

[loudsue]

12. Thanks for putting those up, Julie!

I'd never seen any of them!

[BeyondGeography]

2. They're fucked up, and more and more people realize it

Which makes them even crazier.

Who knows how it ends for them, but the GOP is going to have to change. There's no political future in narrowcasting to self-destructive white males.

[siligut]

5. Self-destructive white males have built up a power base to prevent their downfall

They have used every means possible to continue their reign.

[meow2u3]

3. The GOP is afraid of their own collective shadow

If it weren't for paranoid fear, the GOP would cease to exist as a party.

[Alcibiades]

8. One quibble: it's not news that black culture and youth culture

overlap. Nothing new, and these same people--the George Wallace people--have been decrying these cultural developments since the swing era.

The fact is that black culture is "mainstream" in American life, and has been for a long time. The real divide is IRONY.

Conservatives don't do irony.

[TahitiNut]

9. Elvis is now "heartland" music.

That's irony. In "the day" he was a white man doing "black" music. Every tight-assed conservofreak on the planet was appalled that "black" music was infecting our lily-white precious children. Blechh.

[Alcibiades]

14. It was ever thus

The thing is, though, we today make fun of the Lester Maddoxes and George Wallaces. The decline in overt officially sanctioned racism has meant that these same people are now more invisible, except when they slip up.

But they are the same people. The very same people. Most of the Tea Baggers of today are of an age to have cast their first presidential vote for George Wallace.

http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/misc/maddox.htm

Same ideas, certainly, but in many case the same people, and they never get called on their bullshit.

[pnwmom]

10. So they'll pick a "cool" VP.

Or one who's cool in their little minds, anyway.

[Arugula Latte]

11. Who says white culture isn't the coolest? "One Toke Over the Line" on Lawrence Welk...Beat that...

[loudsue]

13. Oh holy shit! Where in the hell did you find THAT?

You know that never happened!!!

[Arugula Latte]

15. I wonder if they knew what "toke" meant?

Not sure where I first saw this ... It's been making the rounds.