Despite what idiots like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and their clones continue to say (and embarrassingly, some true conservatives like Pat Buchanan have echoed the chorus), Barack Obama’s so-called “race” speech today, was a watershed moment for the advancement of genuine conservatism.
Politically, I thank Obama.
Personally, in terms of my career as a commentator, I thank Obama.
I’ll explain in detail in a future commentary, but for now here’s a good point made by “Patroon” over at The Conservative Times (their writers all work anonymously):
“Say what you want about Obama but I have never heard a African-American politician say this before in his much-hyped “race” speech today:
“….Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience — as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.”
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