Obama, Race and the Progressive Blogosphere

With Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic nomination on a roll, the "long knives" have come out of their sleeves. While the attacks have come from all sides, the most disturbing ones, from my perspective, are being launched from the progressive blogosphere.

The acknowledged founder of said blogosphere, Jerome Armstrong, recently posted a diary on MyDD questioning Barack's electability, the first few lines of which contained the following admonition:

First, let me just say that anyone who accuses skin color as some part behind the reasoning will find themselves banned--there is zero tolerance for accusations of racism.

Mr. Armstrong's bold attempt to censor any discussion of the issue of race in connection with his critique of Barack's electability is stunning. Having talked to hundreds of people about Barack's candidacy over the past year or so, I can say with a great degree of certainty that the number one issue going through most people's minds when they consider Barack's electability is the obvious one: Is America ready to elect a black President for the first time in its history?

Mr. Armstrong is, of course, far more evolved than that:

I don't even view Obama as black or with racial distinction. Identity-wise, I can understand why he's seen as such, but in that regard (and I have two kids with this same beauty), it points to a bright future when such fallacies such as 'race' become historical dust, and racism ceases. One day, let's hope. Having black skin is not totally gone as an electability issue, but it's as negligible as being a woman, a southerner, or a northeasterner. You can ask Harold Ford if you doubt it's still an issue in certain races-- but nevermind, because he would have to say otherwise in public, and I hope one day he will be able to win in Tennessee-- but it no longer is an insurmountable hurdle to being elected President.

According to Mr. Armstrong then, it's not the racists who will pose the greatest risk for Barack Obama in the general election; no, the bigger electability problem for him is that the progressive base of the Democratic Party will abandon him in the face of the Republican assault that is sure to come.

The skepticism about Obama's electability isn't grounded in empirical polling (which are too early to matter); instead, it's more just a feeling that, given how well he's positioned his candidacy with the media's blessing, he's setting himself up for being torn down without a partisan base to rely upon for pushing back.

Yes, right now, Obama does pretty well among Republicans & Independents. But there's been more and more of a dissonance growing between Obama's campaign and among progressive partisan Democrats.

The amazing thing to me is that Mr. Armstrong can so casually dismiss "empirical" data, totally ignore the fact that Obama has the most progressive biography and record of any of the major candidates, admit that his sentiments are based on nothing more than "just a feeling," and then use his position as the owner of a supposedly "democratic" political forum to squelch any discussion of the possibility that the very factor most talked about with respect to Barack's electability -- race -- might have played a role in how he, himself, arrived at this "feeling."

All of that combined with the counter-intuitive illogic of the claim that Barack's chances in the general election will be somehow compromised by his insufficiently partisan rhetoric during the primary leads me to believe that there's something a little deeper going on here. For those new to progressive politics it might sound novel, but for many of us who know the history, it's an old story: white progressives are uncomfortable getting behind a black standard-bearer for the progressive movement who they cannot control.

Whether it be Paul Krugman's rants about Obama's failing to tow the progressive line on Social Security and health insurance mandates, the "McClurkin" controversy, or any number of other things, the problem isn't so much that Obama's not really a true progressive at heart (his biography and record are crystal clear on that), but that he's his own man; when confronted with a demand that he "back down" on mandates or "exclude" an ex-gay gospel singer from his campaign, Obama refuses to do so.

It would be one thing if there were a viable capital "P" Progressive Party with a track record of winning elections; that would be a great argument for enforcing a party line. But we all know how far from the truth that is. With very limited exceptions, the progressive movement has been on a losing streak in America for decades and the inability of white progressives to find a way to work with black leadership is a big part of that history of failure: without black support, progressive victories are few and far between, and without black leadership, there is no black support.

So, even though the progressive movement is presented with what would appear to be its greatest chance in history to simultaneously help America take a huge step forward in realizing it's age-old dream of racial equality while at the same time electing the most self-evidently progressive President in our lifetimes, apparently many would prefer to stay on the sidelines, sniping at Barack Obama, suppesedly for failing to march in lockstep and/or throw a sufficient amount of rhetorical red meat at the base, but in actuality because they're just not comfortable with the emergence of a free-thinking black man as the leader of the progressive movement.

Fortunately, however, through Barack's unique force of personality and charisma, and maybe also because of the presence on the scene of a new, younger generation of progressive activists who are more accustomed to working on an equal basis with people of other races, this historic logjam in the progressive movement appears to be breaking down. Once we begin to separate out the more established leaders who have a vested interest in Obama's defeat, i.e. paid and/or high-profile supporters of one or another of the other candidates, by and large progressives at the grass roots level across America are getting "fired up and ready to go" behind his candidacy. Barack's army of field volunteers now numbers in the hundreds of thousands and is growing by thousands more every day.

I'm confident that twenty years from now, many of Obama's detractors will be writing books and articles with not a hint of irony about how Barack rejuvenated America by putting together a new progressive majority that was able to bring about incredible changes in America life and politics on a par with that accomplished FDR and JFK. I won't mind at all.