Lexington

Angry white men

Will piqued pale males hand the Republicans a victory in November?

Mar 4th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

RACISM explains a lot of white opposition to Barack Obama, say some Democrats. It would be foolish to dismiss this argument out of hand. Lexington walked into a shop in Millington, Tennessee last week and asked the white gentleman behind the counter what he thought of the 44th president. “He’s a fucking nigger,” came the reply. The shopkeeper then helpfully explained that he was “not bashful” about expressing his opinions.

Bigotry cannot explain, however, why Mr Obama’s approval rating among white Americans has fallen since he took office, from roughly 60% to 40%. As the president pointed out in September: “I was actually black before the election.” White voters have changed their view of Mr Obama not because of his skin colour, but because of what he has done—and what he has failed to do—since he took office. And although he is not on the ballot this year, this matters. The less people admire the president, the less likely they are to vote for his party in the mid-terms.

Consider David Peel, another white Tennessean whom Lexington met outside a hardware store in Millington. He had just bought some spare wheels for his trailer, which he planned to use for his weekend mission work: helping to rebuild a school playing field in a poor, black district of nearby Memphis. As a Christian, he says, he does not believe in race: “We are all brothers and sisters.” He thinks Mr Obama is a nice guy, but naive. He thinks it is a lousy idea to try terrorists in civilian courts, where a judge could “release them with a stroke of a pen”. He is appalled that the Obama administration wants terrorists to be swiftly informed of their right to remain silent. “If we Mirandise these guys, we aren’t going to get anything out of them,” he says.

In 2008 Mr Peel voted for John Tanner, a Democrat, for the House of Representatives. Mr Tanner is the kind of Democrat who does best in the South: pro-gun, pro-life, fiscally hawkish and a co-founder of the moderate-to-conservative caucus of “Blue Dog” Democrats. But he is retiring this year. Mr Peel is thinking of voting for a Republican, any Republican, to replace him. Since Mr Peel is a trial lawyer, this would be against his economic interests, but moral issues matter more, he says. And top Democrats “are not remotely in touch with any of the people walking out of this store,” he adds, gesturing at the hardware shop behind him. He is not alone: although most of the counties that make up Mr Tanner’s district have been Democratic since the 19th century, the smart money says the seat will go red this year.

Democrats have a Caucasian problem. It is not new: no Democratic presidential candidate has won the white vote since Lyndon Johnson. Mr Obama actually did better among whites than John Kerry did. But in the past year white voters have become grumpier, and this is especially true of white males. There is even talk of a repeat of 1994, when a surge of “angry white men” helped Republicans take over both chambers of Congress.

Sixteen years ago, it was blue-collar white men who were the angriest. This year, too, they are smarting. The recession has hit hardest the most macho trades, such as building and manufacturing. Two-thirds of the jobs destroyed since it began belonged to blue-collar men. Black men have been worse affected than whites, but their loyalty to Mr Obama and his party is unshakeable. Not so for white men, whose unemployment rate was a comfortable 3.9% in 2006 and still only 6.8% when Mr Obama was elected, but is now a painful 10.3%. Those who can no longer provide for their families feel emasculated. Those who still have jobs fear losing them. Since Democrats now run Washington, Democrats get most of the blame. And white men are disproportionately sceptical of Mr Obama’s proposed solutions. Seven out of ten prefer small government to big government. “I don’t like the way they’re giving away all that money,” says Steve Roberts, a welder in Arkansas. “I think you should work for your money.”

Neglected and frustrated

Cultural issues add to Democrats’ woes with whites. Mr Obama’s first pick for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, is best known for backing a plan to deny promotion to white firefighters because of their race. (That is not how she phrased it, but it is what happened.) On another occasion, the president accused the police of acting “stupidly” when they briefly arrested a friend of his, a black Harvard professor who was locked out of, and broke into, his own house. Many blacks sympathised with the professor because they, too, have been presumed criminal. But many whites sympathised with the cops because they, too, have been presumed racist, says David Paul Kuhn, author of “The Neglected Voter”, a fine book about white men and politics. Both episodes reinforced the stereotype that the Democratic Party favours everyone except white males.

Perhaps in reaction to unified Democratic control in Washington, white men (among others) have grown more conservative in the past year. Support for gun rights rose from 51% to 64% between 2008 and 2009. Ballot initiatives to protect “hunters’ rights” will pull deer-shooters to the polls. All this spells trouble for Democrats in swing states and districts. Because the party did so well in 2006 and 2008, it is defending a lot of seats in “enemy territory”. Because incumbent Democrats in such seats are nervous, many are reluctant to support Mr Obama’s most ambitious reforms. And a slew of Democratic retirements is tilting the field yet further towards the Grand Old Party.

It will take more than a posse of piqued pale males to hand the Republicans control of Congress in November. White men are a shrinking share of the electorate: 36% in 2008, down from 43% in 1994. But still, the Democrats can hardly afford to alienate the nation’s largest ethnic group. And with the economy in the doldrums, it is not only white men who are angry.