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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Down to Earth

These must be those unreal Americans I've been hearing about. Byron York argues that Obama's "sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are."

Because clearly, it doesn't count if Black people are happy. Pollsters should adjust accordingly by weighting Black responses at only 3/5 the value of Whites.

UPDATE: Adam Serwer situates Byron York's "Black people don't count" post within a larger category of conservative writing which notes how awesome they'd be doing if only certain segments of America disappeared.

2 comments:

  1. it goes well beyond conseravtive writing to basic conservative thought. Conservative thought is structured around the idea that some people matter and others dont. Christians, whites, the wealthy, these people matter and if they agree with you then who cares about the others. remember the whole "real america" stuff from the campaign? same thing.

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  2. In fairness to York, it's not so much that some people don't matter, just that some people's opinions don't. As Yglesias's commenters pointed out, in conservative ideology, white men's opinions are the Platonic ideal of disinterestedness; everyone else is all distracted by race and gender and their opinions can't be trusted.

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