This was a strategically stupid thing for Barack Obama to say:
Everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class . . . don’t want to vote for the black guy.’ Here’s how it is: In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism.
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Never insult the people you want to vote for you. That’s, like, Rule A732.12 in the Running For President Handbook.
But let’s set that aside and ask the substantive question: Are Barack Obama’s claims true?
The claims Barack Obama makes are at first glance about the attitudes of people living in small-town America. At second glance, he’s making a more specific claim about the attitudes of people living in small-town America who are white and who are working-class.
The following are empirical looks at reports of attitudes by respondents to the General Social Survey (a nationally representative survey of non-institutionalized adults) from 2000-2006. For each attitudinal claim made by Barack Obama, I’ll look at the pattern for rural and small town people vs. suburban and urban people. I’ll further look at the rural vs. suburban-urban pattern for self-identified whites and for those who report a family income of $30,000 or less (in inflation-adjusted 1986 constant dollars).
Claim 1: White and Working-Class People in Small-Town America Are Especially Bitter and Feel Betrayed by Government.
Percent Reporting they are “Not Too Happy”:
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 11.0%
Rural: 9.2%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 10.1%
Rural: 8.6%
Income of $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 14.9%
Rural: 10.9%
Percent Reporting That “I don’t think the government cares much what people like me think.”
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 41.2%
Rural: 51.7%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 39.0%
Rural: 51.6%
Income of $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 46.1%
Rural: 65.1%
Takeaway message: there’s no more simple unhappiness in rural areas than in suburban or urban areas; in fact, if anything people who live in rural areas report being more happy. But people in rural areas are significantly more likely to report the feeling that the government doesn’t care what one thinks. Rural people with low incomes are especially likely to report that the government doesn’t care what people like them think.
Claim 2: White and Working-Class People in Small-Town America Especially Cling to Religion.
Percent Reporting a Strong Religious Affiliation:
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 36.2%
Rural: 40.2%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 34.1%
Rural: 38.9%
Income $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 35.4%
Rural: 37.7%
Takeaway message: No matter where people live, if they’re white or lower in income, they’re less likely to report a strong religious affiliation than if they’re non-white or of higher income. There appears to be a consistent but pretty mild difference between rural and urban people in their reports of religious affiliation.
Claim 3: White and Working-Class People in Small-Town America Especially Cling to Antipathy towards People Who are Different from Them.
Percent Reporting a 0-30 on a 100 point “thermometer” scale of feelings toward Muslims (where 100 points is most positive and 0 points is most negative):
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 21.6%
Rural: 28.2%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 22.2%
Rural: 29.6%
Income $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 21.3%
Rural: 33.0%
Percent Reporting a 0-30 on a 100 point “thermometer” scale of feelings toward Catholics (where 100 points is most positive and 0 points is most negative):
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 8.1%
Rural: 16.5%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 7.3%
Rural: 15.3%
Income $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 10.5%
Rural: 18.7%
Percent Reporting a 0-30 on a 100 point “thermometer” scale of feelings toward Jews (where 100 points is most positive and 0 points is most negative):
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 5.2%
Rural: 9.3%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 5.0%
Rural: 8.4%
Income $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 4.4%
Rural: 13.7%
Percent agreeing with the statement “(Negroes/blacks/African-Americans) shouldn’t push themselves where they’re not wanted”:
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 36.4%
Rural: 52.1%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 38.4%
Rural: 50.2%
Income $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 41.2%
Rural: 56.9%
Percent who answered with a 6-9 to the question “In general, how warm or cool do you feel towards African Americans?”, where 1 means very warm and 9 means very cool.
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 10.5%
Rural: 14.4%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 11.2%
Rural: 15.7%
Income $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 12.6%
Rural: 16.6%
Percent who answered with a 6-9 to the question “In general, how warm or cool do you feel towards Asians?”, where 1 means very warm and 9 means very cool.
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 12.3%
Rural: 17.0%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 11.4%
Rural: 17.3%
Income $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 15.1%
Rural: 19.0%
Percent who answered with a 6-9 to the question “In general, how warm or cool do you feel towards Hispanics?”, where 1 means very warm and 9 means very cool.
Overall:
Suburban or Urban: 12.5%
Rural: 20.1%
Whites:
Suburban or Urban: 11.6%
Rural: 20.8%
Income $30,000 or less (1986 dollars):
Suburban or Urban: 14.5%
Rural: 23.2%
Takeaway message: it does appear that people who live in rural areas report more antipathy toward people in ethnic and religious minority groups than people who live in suburban or urban areas. There is only an inconsistent subtrend for white vs. nonwhite people in this regard. People with low family income who live in rural areas are the most likely to express antipathy toward ethnic and religious minorities.
It may have been politically dunderheaded for Barack Obama to say what he said, but most of what he said is supported by empirical evidence.
It was true if you are a psychologizer, a generalizer and, dare I say, a racist. Obama spoke what he really believes about Americans instead of carefully planned campaign words, and it showed people the real Obama. See:
http://christianprophecyisspam.blogspotspammer.com/
This is just another example of media scandal mongering. From yesterday to today, I’ve seen the corporate news outlets move from providing context to the remarks to simply paraphrasing them with an emphasis on the word “bitter”. I think it’s outrageous that television talking heads making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year fancy themselves as community scolds for politicians that speak the truth about the conditions of life in America. Fortunately, most of the callers on C-SPAN this morning agreed with me on this. So long as corporate media treats us like children we’ll continue getting stuck with criminals in the White House.
As a person who has worked as a survey methodologist and as a statistician, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the Number One flaw inherent in all surveys, namely that people lie.
A lot.
Seriously. People answer in accordance with what they think the interviewer wants to hear, or with the attitude that they’d “like” to have but don’t. No one really knows why just yet — theories include a desire to please, or a desire to spread and encourage altruism (without actually being altruistic oneself), but the fact is I’ve seen studies where “demonstrated” preferences were nearly a polar opposite from “stated” preferences.
That’s why the better surveys are so arduous and aggravating for the one taking them — they have to build in lots of redundant, reworded, converse and other questions to try to “trick” people into telling the truth. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is a perfect example.
Thanks for the empirical data. Certainly I hate the generalization. And I am
so disappointed that the media talking heads are pouncing on this goof. But
one major issue is that Hillary is a Clinton. She is clinging to her husbands
claim that the economy was good in the 90′, and that they love Pennsyvanians.
Well how did they leave them behind and what will they do for them in the 90′?
Hillary will ride this dead horse and hopefully Pennsylvanian will ask them
selves if Hillary plans to use them to step up in Washington and then continue
to look past them four 4 more years. Or worse still as hard as this issue is
The Clintons’ and McCain will shoot Obama down and do absolutely nothing for
them.
Alan, thanks for the comment. The tendency for individuals to dissemble makes a reliance on a univariate statistic problematic. That’s why I spoke regarding variation on a dependent variable according to one or more independent variables; it’s the variation in answers that matters here more than some fixed statistic. It’s also why, where possible, I’ve looked at multiple questions pointing at the same concept and looked for consistencies and discounted inconsistencies across them.
What Obama said was not about all small town people. It was about small town people in Pennsylvania who have had difficult economic times and have retreated into desperate ideological positions. He was talking about why those people, and only those people, have done so.
So here’s the media going on and on about some comment that one or the other of the candidates have said when they let slide all the outright lies that Bush and Cheney have told us and continue to tell us.
We’re so completely screwed as a supposed “intelligent species” – we’re so effing smart that we’re killing ourselves, know it, and won’t do anything about it. THAT’s why we’re toast in the long run. We are surely going to learn the hard way why it’s unsustainable for the top 1% of the world’s population to own or control at least 50% of the wealth and resources, why fossil fuels aren’t going to make our lives any better if we continue to use them for energy, and why overpopulation of the world by humans (or any one species) causes their ecological demise.
Sound bites. With all that’s going on in the world that needs our direct attention and action we parse people’s words. What a bad joke American democracy has become.
Put any of the three top candidates in office, track their policy positions out to 4 or 8 years and you’ll see that NONE of them will be able to change things for the better in any meaningful way (enough to avoid the climate catastrophe unfolding before us). There’s simply too much inertia to overcome. We’ll still be relying on fossil fuels well into the middle of the century and the results won’t be advantageous for any of us, let alone future generations. Take the Iraq War for another example: McCain wants us to stay there for at least another 10 years, Obama and Clinton have both stated that even if they start pulling troops out immediately, that it’ll take at least 2 years to bring them all home (hopefully not in caskets). So our economy will continue to bleed money we can’t afford to lose any longer, and the consequences again won’t be any fun.
tommy boy, you whining little progressive putz. Your favorite house nigger spouts his elitism for the world to hear and some how you turn it into a Bush bash.
You clowns run a commnuist cunt and a racist nigger and wonder why you don’t win elections!!! Duhhhhh!! MUWHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
“Gloomy’s” comment (#9) indicates to me that Obama’s remarks were not so far out in left field as all that.
Even if it was meant ‘ironically’, I’ve overheard plenty of talk, both on-line and off-, from white people who think and feel that way for real. There are *plenty* of white racists left in ‘Merka, and unfortunately, they vote too.
How the hell ya think we wound up with Bush in the first place? Still think it was Nader’s fault? Pffft.
The creation of this issue is a transparent attempt to appeal to some Americans’ racist anger at the people they resent as “uppity blacks”. That’s what Hillary Clinton’s “elitist” comment was aimed at. It is a shameful distraction from truly important issues.
To the extent that Americans indulge in the hype over this non-issue, they are doing so because they’re looking for an excuse to hate Barack Obama, not for his policies, but for who he is.