Cassilis

Dan Schnur, the 'Toby Ziegler' in John McCain's 2000 campaign has a fascinating article in yesterday's New York Times on the real error in thinking behind Obama's 'cling to guns and religion' row (or 'bittergate' as it now appears to be known).

If you can, make time for the full thing but worth quoting at length anyway because the reflexive value judgements about peoples politics it highlights are equally common in the UK:

"By using a voter’s adverse economic circumstances to rationalize his cultural beliefs, Barack Obama has reintroduced what has been a defining question in American politics for more than a generation: Why do so many working-class voters cast their ballots on social and values-based issues like gun ownership, abortion and same-sex marriage rather than on economic policy prescriptions?

In his book “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” Thomas Frank articulates essentially the same case that Senator Obama has made in recent days... [That] Republicans have deceived blue-collar Kansans and their colleagues in other states into voting against their own economic interests by distracting them into a conversation about traditional values and cultural concerns. Both Senator Obama and Mr. Frank seem to be saying that economic policy should be more important to voters than social and cultural questions

For many people, that’s certainly true. But there are plenty of other voters who don’t necessarily base their votes solely on jobs and taxes, and many of them are quite financially successful. They have determined their political affiliations largely as a result of the same continuing battles over abortion, guns and same-sex marriage that have drawn so many working-class voters to Republican candidates over the years. The only difference is the side of the fight they’ve chosen. It’s hard to argue that a wealthy pro-choice Democrat is any less of a values voter than a pro-life construction worker who votes Republican.

The mistake that Senator Obama and Mr. Frank both make is that they assume that only the values of culturally conservative voters require justification. An environmentally conscious, pro-stem cell bond trader who votes Democratic is lauded for selflessness and open-mindedness. A gun-owning, church-going factory worker who supports Republican candidates, on the other hand, must be the victim of partisan deception. This double standard is at the heart of the Democratic challenge in national elections: rather than diminish these cultural beliefs as a byproduct of economic discomfort, a more experienced and open-minded candidate would recognize and respect the foundations on which these values are based."

In the UK the landmarks might be different - guns for the obvious reason and religion because Rowan Williams and Jerry Falwell are chalk & cheese - but the journey is a similar one. The BBC's 'White' season is the most recent example of the left/liberal readiness to dismiss any political flirtation with the hard right as misplaced frustration at economic hardship. 'White working class' is usually the give away phrase, followed by words like 'lost' or 'forgotten'. You could rewrite the key sentence in Schnur's last paragraph above with a UK slant:

'An environmentally conscious, pro-immigration leftist who votes Labour is lauded for selflessness and open-mindedness. A unemployed bulldog-owning, tattooed young man from northern England who supports the BNP, on the other hand, is frustrated by his economic plight and simply needs decent liberal values explained better'

Perhaps. Or maybe he just supports what the BNP stands for? The problem is that anyone who advances that latter, simpler explanation is assumed to have somehow legitimised the views being discussed - 'for heavens sake, he can't possibly just be a bigot so there must be a more nuanced explanation, don't encourage him'.

That's a dangerous line of thinking and it lies behind the argument often heard from the left that we should somehow moderate our language to an excessive degree when discussing things like immigration and race. It's a tricky path to follow of course because some on the mainstream right do stray too far into language that's provocative and unhelpful. But Schnur's article is a useful reminder that it's equally dangerous to drift too far in the opposite extreme - constantly dismissing these views as a proxy for something else and refusing to engage with them head on.