The underlying problem for the Democrats

Senator Obama put his foot in it over the weekend, but the issue raised by the controversy is more about the mindset of many in the democratic party than just a simple misstatement. Obama is quoted (in the LA times) as saying in Muncie, Indiana that
"You go into some of 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. So it's not surprising, then, that 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." The assumptions in the original statement are mind-boggling. He seems to assume that middle America clings to religious beliefs or support for guns based on bitterness. He tried several times to clean up his mess. For example he said "Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare-up, because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter." Indeed there might well be bitter people in those states, but is a belief in religion or guns based on bitterness?

Later he said "They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through. So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country, or they get frustrated about how things are changing. That's a natural response.

"And now, I didn't say it as well as I should have, because you know the truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important."

This afternoon I was working out and listened to a podcast from the National Constitutional Center where Dinesh DeSouza discussed discussed his recent book (The Enemy at Home) in which he argues that the cultural left's linkage of cultural values and political ones has helped to create problems for US foreign policy by linking political values (our support for democratic systems) with cultural ones (our support for things like abortion rights in all countries). DeSouza argues that much of our problems in the middle east lie not in our support for democratic reforms but our support for looser culture. He makes the very strong point that Bin Laden purposefully tried to argue that we are not a Christian nation.

Obama's comments are a part of what DeSouza is trying to point out. The listening issue that Obama discussed in one of his responses is something that he himself should try. Most democrats in the country have a deaf ear to those who hold differing cultural beliefs or who support a reasonable standard for the Second Amendment. The examples are too numerous to list.

DeSouza argues that US foreign policy would be stronger were we to be a bit less dogmatic about linking cultural and political beliefs. He suggests that many cultures around the world could support democratic values without necessarily buying into the other values that many in our society want to promote. That does not mean we should repress the diversity of cultural approaches we have in this country, merely that we should be respectful of values in other countries. For Obama, it would also be good if he were a bit more respectful of differing values in this country.