Hillary is racist and her campaigns have been racist

I grew up and went to college in Iowa. As a politically inclined young person, I of course participated in the presidential caucuses: volunteering for Bradley in 2000 and Kucinich in 04. I hopped on the Obama train very early in the 08 cycle and began volunteering for and helping coordinate his campaign appearances around the Cedar Valley starting in 2007. (I’ve written about this before, in explaining how his leadership brought a data-worshiping, top-down approach to the state politics that led directly to Joni Ernst winning Tom Harkin’s old senate seat in 2014.)

Anyhow, I spent the 12 months between January 07 and January 08 talking to a helluva lot of people about why I supported Obama. He won, you may remember, and so most of the people I spoke to were enthusiastic about his candidacy, or at least receptive. The people who eventually moved to Edwards, Richardson, or Biden tended to listen respectfully. Hillary voters, on the other hand, would dismiss me immediately. They almost always expressed some variation on the same basic theme: “I think it would be nice to have a black president,” they would say “but I just don’t think America is ready.”

This, we all now recognize, was a racist deflection. These voters were projecting their own racism onto the subconscious of an imaginary other. And I’m not kidding or exaggerating–this was, by far, the most commonly voiced concern among Hillary supporters, and only among Hillary supporters. 90+ percent of them said this, and I never heard it once from anyone who supported any other candidate.

The second most frequently cited concern had to do with Obama’s nation of birth. Some–not a huge percentage, but a solid chunk–would flatly announce that they had suspicions as to his American-ness or religious affiliation. More came forth with an advanced riff on the “not ready yet” theme, saying they had heard some people saying he might be Muslim, and, golly, that might really hurt his electability.

Caucuses are different from primaries. The voting is not secret ballot. Divvied up by cities or regions within cities, all registered members of each party gather together and deliberate. There’s an initial headcount vote, and the supporters of candidates who did not achieve viability (15%, in 2008) can go over to another candidate’s side.

During this phase, campaign organizers work the room and try to bring as many people over as possible. Designated representatives give short speeches. In our room, Hillary’s representative repeated the same stuff I’d heard dozens of times before: America isn’t ready yet, you got to worry about people saying he’s not from here, and there might be some questions about his religion. Obama still won. No one from our side defected. But the everyone on the Hillary side nodded along to the race-baiting, thinking it perfectly acceptable.

I bring this up in light of today’s New York Times profile of Neera Tanden, Hillary’s campaign advisor who was primed to become her chief of staff. If your economic politics fall to the left of Margaret Tatcher and you’ve spent any time reading about the past two elections, you’ve probably come across Neera. She’s one of the main purveyors of the Bernie Bro narrative. She’s spent the last 3 years calling you a racist sexist idiot bro who was duped by Russia into not voting for Hillary enthusiastically enough. She’s helpfully explained that you’re the reason Hillary lost, even if you voted for her. You owe Neera an apology.

I was struck especially by this chilling quote, which came from Neera’s own mother:



“Those Bernie brothers are attacking her all the time, but she lets them have it, too,” Maya Tanden said. “She says Sanders got a pass” in 2016, “but he’s not getting a pass this time.”



What does this mean? Well, we know that they don’t have any actual oppo research on Bernie. They’ve been scouring through 40-year-old interviews and Vermont public access speeches for months, and the worst they’ve come up with is that one time he talked to school kids about why racism was bad but he didn’t do so in the manner that’s expected of people in 2019. Nothing that Bernie’s actually said or done is going to harm him.

But what Neera’s mom means in that Sanders was “given a pass” in 2016 is that he was not the victim of any directly racist smears. They didn’t have to make anything up. They didn’t falsify a rape accusation or start saying that, golly, they just worry that America isn’t ready for a Jewish president who may or may not have caused the village goats to give sour milk.

That’s what the Hillary people are capable of. It’s what they’ve done before. And they will do it again, probably sooner than later. Don’t fall for it. Don’t legitimize it.