Heart of Darkness
You can almost hear the “Scree! scree!! Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!!!” of exotic plumed birds and shrieking monkeys as this intrepid scribbler hacks his way into the clearing where he encounters natives heretofore ignorant of all trappings of civilization. It’s a tour de force of the genre as the UK’s Financial Times attempts to explain why Obama is going to tank in West Virginia. Apparently because the back of beyond is loaded with ignorant bigots who underscore the deep insight of Obama’s anthropological observations re bitter small-town gun-toting bible-thumpers. Let’s listen in as Andrew Ward reports on these exotic creatures who puff upon the smoke of rolled up tobacco leaves and voice bizarre superstitions, one of “several” he encountered when he ventured deep into the Heart of Darkness.
Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.
“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.
Mr Simpson’s remarks help explain why Mr Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, by 40 percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s primary election in the heavily white and rural state, according to recent opinion polls.
A landslide victory for Mrs Clinton in West Virginia will do little to improve her fading hopes of winning the Democratic nomination, because Mr Obama has an almost insurmountable lead in the overall race.
But Tuesday’s contest is likely to reinforce Mrs Clinton’s argument that she would be the stronger opponent for Mr McCain in November, and raise fresh doubts about whether the US is ready to elect its first black president.
Occupying a swathe of the Appalachian Mountains on the threshold between the Bible Belt and the Rust Belt, West Virginia is a swing state that voted twice for George W. Bush but backed Democrats in six of the eight prior presidential elections.
No Democrat has been elected to the White House without carrying West Virginia since 1916, yet Mr Obama appears to have little chance of winning there in November. Recent opinion polls indicate that Mrs Clinton would narrowly beat Mr McCain in the state but Mr Obama would lose by nearly 20 percentage points.
West Virginia is hostile territory for Mr Obama because it has few of the African-Americans and affluent, college-educated whites who provide his strongest support. The state has the lowest college graduation rate in the US, the second lowest median household income, and one of the highest proportions of white residents, at 96 per cent.
A visit to Mingo County, a Democratic stronghold in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields, reveals the scale of Mr Obama’s challenge – not only in West Virginia but in white, working-class communities across the US. With a gun shop on its main street and churches dotted throughout the town, Williamson is the kind of community evoked by Mr Obama’s controversial comments last month about “bitter” small-town voters who “cling to guns or religion”.
…
Most people questioned said they mistrusted Mr Obama because of doubts about his patriotism and “values”, stemming from his cosmopolitan background, his exotic name and the controversy surrounding “anti-American” sermons by Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor. Several people said they believed he was a Muslim – an unfounded rumour that has circulated on the internet for months – despite the contradiction with his 20-year membership of Mr Wright’s church in Chicago. Others mentioned his refusal to wear a Stars and Stripes badge and controversial remarks by his wife, Mich elle, who des cribed America as “mean” and implied that she had never been proud of the US until her husband ran for president.
Good thing, out the 500 or so gap-toothed throwbacks at that Clinton rally, the scribbler was able to single out and highlight one of the “several” willing to speak truthfully for their strange culture’s bigoted ignorance. Bloody savages. One wonders why these primitives are allowed a vote at all. In any case, it becomes clear from the work of daring explorers such as this one that when Obama loses the West Virginia primary and the general election in November, it will be due to profound backwardness that persists on the mysterious American continent in this enlightened age. Because it is clear from this report that what this expedition to locate de Source of de Nial has stepped into is not simply a stagnant puddle beside the stream but the very wellspring from which great rivers of American racism flow. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s going to report back to the Royal Geographic Society in November.
It’s not entirely groundbreaking work. Some bloody Yank appears to have trampled through the underbrush ahead of him.
As you can see below, this chap’s done a fair amount of scholarship to support his positions. Though like many 19th century explorers and 20th century anthropologists, it appears possible that he may be viewing these primitives through his own prism, with a certain amount of condescending, imperialistic ethnocentrism:
Conservative commentators have questioned Mr Obama’s patriotism for months and the issue is expected to be one of the Republicans’ main lines of attack if he wins the nomination. “The American people want a president who loves their country as much as they do,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist. Obama supporters believe patriotism is being used as code to harness racist sentiment.
I’d like to see the footnotes on that, but nonetheless, it hardly seems cricket to accept unquestioningly the protestations of Satanic heathenism coming from the missionary in the stewpot, when within the cultural milieu of the prancing cannibals he may just look like a snack. Always a hazard in the field, one’s own prejudices making a better mirror than a magnifying glass.
To wit:
Andrew Sullivan, The New Clinton Base.
More anthropological scholarship:
Sadly, No! gets off to a good start, noting flaws in the fieldwork, but oddly concludes this exercise in Obamist anti-Hillary bigotry is the fault of Republicans.
Gateway notes more scholarship of this sort at Newsweek, which has an important discussion of Republican scaremongering.
Don Surber: John McCain, come to West Virginia. Talk about Republican scaremongering, here are some reasons not to vote Democratic.
Van der Galien is impressed by the FT expedition report and outraged to learn that Andrew Ward encountered an ignoramus in West Virginia.
Former Clinton-Gore campaigner Schoen at WSJ: Define yourself before the GOP does it for you, Obama. Become someone else. Don’t worry, ignorant flag-waving Jesus-loving American bigots will fall for it.
Well, here’s some useful news. Scrappleface: White Hillary voters will be allowed to sign “X” on West by God Virginia precinct registers. At last someone’s exercising some basic common sense. If we do that nationwide, by gum, maybe we’ll end up with a non-Muslim, God-fearing gun-toter for president. Enough with the book learnin’ evolution-lovin’ forriners!
We’ll see you out with some fun vid via Vodkapundit: Hitlery Clinton.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:42 am on Monday, May 12, 2008
8 Responses to “Heart of Darkness”
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May 12th, 2008 at 9:20 am
[...] No, Jules Crittenden agrees the stereotype is unfair, even if he thinks we’re toothless (I have 20+ left), barefoot and married to our sisters [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 9:35 am
These people behave as if they don’t realize that West Virginians (and everybody else in America) went to school, own a television, can read newspapers and magazines, and probably have an internet connection. They’re still mired in the old “log cabin in the holler” scenario, because none of them have ever really bothered to get out and actually do some investigation. It’s called field work, idiots, and I don’t mean picking cotton, either.
May 12th, 2008 at 9:45 am
No Democrat has been elected to the White House without carrying West Virginia since 1916……..
[snip]
West Virginia is hostile territory for Mr Obama because it has few of the African-Americans and affluent, college-educated whites who provide his strongest support. The state has the lowest college graduation rate in the US, the second lowest median household income, and one of the highest proportions of white residents, at 96 per cent.
Let’s see. West Virgina is historically key to Democrats winning the White House. Yet, as per this British journalist, it’s a haven for poor, uneducated white bigots.
From which one must conclude that poor, uneducated white bigots generally vote the Democratic ticket.
That’s the nasty thing about a tool (and that starts with a “T”, not “F”) — that biased view can bite one in the butt!
May 12th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Web Reconnaissance for 05/12/2008
A short recon of whats out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
With apologies to Rudyard Kipling the poet; here’s my reworded version of his poem “the White Man’s Burden* which praised the “benefits” of colonialism. The new “Sahib” or “Bwanna” is our left-wing media and their cronies out to correct(deconstruct)those vulgar Appalachian savages from their “unenlightened” worldview:
The Left Wing’s Burden
Take up the Left wing’s burden
Send forth the same old breed –
Go bind your journalists to brief exile
To serve your hillbillies’ need;
To wait away from starbucks
On fluttered folk and wild –
Your captive, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Take up the Left-Wing’s burden –
In condescension to abide,
To veil the threat of exposure
And hide the evidence of pride;
By duplicitous speech and lies,
An hundred times mad plain.
To take another’s profit,
And steal another’s gain.
Take up the Left-wing’s burden –
Our savage campaigns for “peace”
Shut down those coarse distractions
And bid “bitter” ignorance cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The presidency for others sought,
Watch guns and Small-town Folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
Take up the Left wing’s burden –
And reap an entitled reward:
The blame of those ye enlighten,
The hate of those you deconstruct
The vulgar cry of the working class ye condescend
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light: –
“Why brought ye us from bondage,
“Our loved Appalachian night?”
Take up the Left-wings burden –
Ye distort what Obama meant –
Nor call too loud on freedom
To cloak your true intent;
By all ye preach or publish,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your party and you.
Ragnell
All Hail the “Bwanna” medi
Do they need some native appalachians to haul their monthy supply of Starbucks out to the “Heart of Darkness” land?
*The White Man’s Burden http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/kipling_ind.html
May 12th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
“Welcome to West Virginia. Here’s your banjo.”
May 12th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Couple of Dems I generally listen to for insights into that strange redistributionist, surrenderist party actually had this pegged. Blacks and intellectuals comprise the “McGovern coalition”, the same one that lost 49 states to the ultimate right wing bogeyman Nixon of all people.
And if you are not sure why blacks vote 9 to 1 for the party of Dred Scott, Jim Crow and the KKK and tolerate 50 years of failed left wing solutions to the black condition, you should be even more uncertain now.
May 12th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
[...] a comment on a post at Jules Crittenden’s Heart of Darkness “Ragnell” has this to say on the post’s topic The Left Wing’s [...]