Dear Michael,
It’s me again.
When last I corresponded with you, I pointed out how your understanding of why terrorists have attacked us (and continue to seek to attack us) is on par with your understanding of physical fitness. I also invited you to debate these issues — I enjoy tee ball — but I haven’t yet heard back about that. I’m sure your response is forthcoming.
Anyway, having made my point about your batshit crazy understanding of foreign policy, I thought I would write you a letter about your recent sputterings on American politics, specifically the midterm elections.
Now, political prognosticators and commentators can get things wrong and often do — just see a certain column I wrote predicting the Senate would flip to the GOP. But there is a difference between reasonable analysis that gets things wrong and the type of analysis that you provide, which could just have easily come from the craziest patient on a mental ward.
For instance, speaking of the results of the midterm elections, you said Friday on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” “White America does not like having a black president. That is just the sad truth.”
What you were suggesting, I surmise, is that the Tea Party energy that overwhelmingly went to the polls to vote out Democrats was motivated by racism toward the president.
Of course, there are at least two big problems with this thesis: Allen West of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina.
West and Scott are black Republicans elected during the midterm elections who were backed by the Tea Party. Since they came from districts that were overwhelmingly white, we can also say they were backed by specifically white conservatives — the very conservatives you suggested were motivated by racism.
In fact, in the case of West, no other black representative in Congress comes from a district so decidedly white. Just around 5 percent of West’s district is black while roughly 75 percent of the district is white. Which is to say that in the political microcosm that is Florida’s 22nd District, it was mainly white conservatives and moderates that came out to strongly support a black Tea Party-backed candidate.
In other words, Michael, these supposedly racist white Tea Party voters didn’t care about West’s race. They cared about his ideas. Could it be that the Tea Party opposition that has sprouted up against Obama is motivated largely by the president’s ideas and policies, and not the color of his skin?
Be careful, Michael. I know that concept could very well make your brain explode.
During Maher’s show, you also proffered this gem:
“In Congress, the majority of the conservative Democrats were defeated and the progressive Democrats — they have a caucus with about 80 progressive Democrats — only three lost. The more liberal you were, you won last Tuesday.”
What you are suggesting here, Michael, is that had the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats who lost on Nov. 2 more boldly stood up for your brand of progressivism, they would have won, like most of those in the Progressive Caucus. This is the type of analysis that performs the impossible by making Meghan McCain’s political pontifications seem Platonic by comparison.
Those Progressive Caucus Democrats who largely emerged victorious from the midterms generally came from very liberal districts, Michael (see Boulder, Co.; New Haven, CT.; and Detroit, as examples). The conservative Democrats who lost came from more conservative districts that, on average, voted for John McCain over Obama by a very substantial margin in the 2008 presidential elections. If the conservative Democrats who lost acted more like those in the Progressive Caucus, they would not have won, but lost by an even greater margin than they did.
There are two groups of people who it is easy to envision making this type of political argument. The first group, of course, is you and your raving mad legion of followers. The second is the various loons who as a young boy I witnessed screeching unintelligible political rants near Times Square before Rudy Giuliani cleaned up the city.
On second thought, that’s unfair. The latter group would never have said something so utterly vapid.
Like always, Michael, I remain ready and willing to debate these issues in the place, time, and format of your choosing.
Your pen pal,
Jamie Weinstein
P.S. Have you decided yet on a topic for you next “documentary,” Michael? My guess is it will either be on the stunning achievements of North Korean technological innovation, the glories of the Mugabe agricultural miracle in Zimbabwe or uncovering America’s pernicious role in the Hundred Years’ War.
P.P.S. Sorry Matt