Remarking on Karl Rove's ludicrous description of Barack Obama in terms of what type of country-club member he is, Christopher Orr remarks that "On the plus side, this presumably means Rove is giving up on the whole radical-Muslim-foreigner-outsider frame."
I understand that Orr is being a little tongue-in-cheek, but this is most certainly not what is going on here. Orr is making a mistake in assuming that either frame -- Obama as haughty country-clubber or Obama as scary dark outsider -- is intended to operate as a logical argument. Far from it. They are designed to plant seeds (or exploit latent seeds) about whether Obama is truly one of "us", as opposed to "them" -- and for that purpose it really doesn't matter who "they" are.
While the country-club set may be the ultimate insiders in one sense, they are certainly far removed from the experience of average Americans. To most voters, they are part of a "they" that are distant and mistrusted -- folks we don't want to have in charge of our government. And of course, scary dark hordes of foreigners occupy the same position: distant, inscrutable, and (in the eyes of conservative demagogues like Rove) always on the cusp of wresting control of the nation from good ol' patriotic Americans. It's obviously illogical for Obama to be both barely American and a member of the blue-bloods, but putting both those frames out there is quite effective at reinforcing a vague sense of "otherness", and Rove is savvy enough to know that.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis that Rove is conveying a “vague sense” rather than a “logical argument”. And I’m certain that I’m being paranoid in suspecting that you consider this to be exclusively a Rovian tactic, rather than one that is used by spin doctors of both parties.
ReplyDeleteI wrote about that sort of tactic (see url below), offering an undoubtedly quixotic, modest proposal for bringing logical arguments and actual policy differences to the fore in presidential campaigns.
http://exploreps.blogspot.com/2008/06/you-call-that-debate.html
(I spent altogether too much time trying to use html code to create a link to this blog post. Does anyone know whether that’s supposed to be possible in blogger comments? Thanks.)
HTML should work. For a URL, type [a href="http://www.theurl.com"]the displayed text[/a] (replacing the brackets with side carrots).
ReplyDeleteI agree that plenty (most) political operatives attempt to plant seeds of doubt and discontent in the ears of voters (and the press), but I will stand by the Rove is a) a Grandmaster of it and b) has a particularly vicious and demagogic streak when engaging in it compared to other operatives.
I don't think Rove is quite as close to pure evil as many portray him, but I have no particular interest in defending him.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested, though, in any thoughts regarding my debate proposal.
I put them in the comments to your linked post, but short version: I agree entirely (and there are new debate forms that are 1 vs. 1, so that's no problem).
ReplyDeleteDavid, I hope you'll write a post about how the reaction to Obama (both positive and negative) plays out the ideas in "Covering." I started trying to write something about it and realized I didn't have quite enough grasp on the concept to feel comfortable with it. How the Obamas do and don't cover (even for something as small and personal as Michelle Obama's getting her and her daughters' hair straightened), and how deeply the positive response is based on their assimilation, and criticism is based on Otherness while avoiding overt racism, could be a whole supplement to Yoshino's book.
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