The Angry White Man....An Interesting Species

Many thanks to the two loved ones who forwarded this column from the Aspen Times by Gary Hubbell (February 9th edition).

I wonder……are angry white men the forgotten faction in the American political process that the media and certain pundits are forgetting when they create their sound-bites and politcal forecasts?

Read Mr. Hubbell's column below, and let me know what you think?

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn’t ask for a penny. He’s the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. If they’re looking for someone to walk all over, they’ve got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.
He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

Hubbell leaves no stone unturned, huh?

The problem is….it doesn’t look like Hillary will be the nominee. What’s a white guy to do, Mr. Hubbell?

The column and all 700 plus comments can be located here.

Blah, Blah, Blog also linked to the post and there's come interesting comments there as well.

13 Things About Political Parties in the United States

A few days before our break for the cold snap or as the school calendar called it, Spring Break, my history kids and I were finishing up our look at the Constitution.

We had analyzed the Articles of Confederation and determined why they didn’t work, we had eavesdropped on the Constitutional Convention and pondered The Strength of the Triangle, we celebrated with the rest of 18th century America as George Washington was inaugurated as the first president under the Constitution, and we had discussed the formation of political parties due to a huge difference of opinion between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

This is usually a hard unit to teach with nine year old children, but not this year. Things were going great. Kids seemed to understand the three branches of government. Their performance pieces (mainly reflective writing) were on target. Then of course….the other shoe dropped.

Have you ever run a race, crossed the finish line, and then discovered you had to go back to the starting block? Even having to go halfway back can be a little disturbing.

One day towards the end of our formation of the U.S. government race Mr. Right-on-Target, Brainy Boy, Always-Gets-It Kid seriously said to me during class, “Hey, Elementaryhistoryteacher…is this a political party?”

I looked down to where he was pointing. His text was open and he was pointing to the image I’ve posted here. The image represents George Washington’s inauguration.

Let me explain what happened another way. One of MY students was pointing to an image in the text that contained a caption explaining the picture was the inauguration of George Washington, and I was being asked if the image was a political “party”.

I let out my biggest Charlie Brown cry of disbelief, “ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Sweetie,” I asked, “do you mean a party like cake, ice cream, and a pinata?”

Mr. Right-on-Target, etc., etc., etc. said, “Yeah, like with a clown, paper hats and streamers.”

Oh my gosh…..had we…er….I….missed the mark somewhere. We cleared up the misunderstanding straight away, and had a refresher course on multiple-meaning words, but it just goes to show you that often students are confused. They don’t always speak up, and it doesn’t always come out in their work.

So here are 13 factoids about political parties in the United States:

1. Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution and are not required in our political system.
2. There are no laws that dictate how many political parties we may have though our current ballot access laws and leadership rules in Congress pretty much limit us to two parties…….third parties just don’t seem to make it for long.

3. Parties ARE regulated by the constitutions of the individual states since they regulate state and federal elections.

4. Even though delegates to the Constitutional Convention decided the Articles of Confederation would not work because too much power was given to the states, the whole states versus federal government issue was still very much an issue even after the Constitution was ratified.

5. Thomas Jefferson, Washington’s Secretary of State, wanted a federal government with limited powers. He did not want the federal government taking away states’ rights. Jefferson also felt the future of the infant nation would grow on the back of her farmers. .

6. Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, preferred a strong federal government and strongly believed that the future of the United States would be based on trade and manufacturing.

7. Both Jefferson and Hamilton, of course, were men with very strong personalities and leadership skills. It was only natural for people to side with one or the other.

8. A political party is a group of people who share similar ideas about government. It seems almost inevitable that political parties would form in the infant United States. Anytime you have a group of people meet up the eventually sort themselves in some way. While some travel back and forth between a few of the groups there are always groups of one type or another.

9. People who supported Jefferson’s ideas formed the Democratic-Republican Party. No joke…..even my students could tell me the irony in that particular name based on the current political climate in the United States. As one young lady stated, “We ain’t so united anymore, are we Elementaryhistoryteacher?”

10. Folks who liked Hamilton’s ideas about manufacturing, trade, and a strong federal government formed the Federalist party.

11. George Washington heavily advised against the formation of political parties because he said they divided people instead of bringing them together. Can I hear an amen on that?

12. Even though George Washington often received conflicting advice from Jefferson and Hamilton the two political factions did manage to compromise on the building of a federal city we now know as Washington D.C., however Jefferson and Hamilton argued fiercely over the formation of a national bank. Hamilton wanted it, and Washington finally agreed with him.

13. Over the years we have had some political parties with very interesting names that often intrigue students such as the Nullifier Party (1830-1839), the Whig Party (1832-1856), The American Party commonly referred to as the “Know-Nothings” (1854-1858), and Anti-Monopoly Party (1884). Students learn very quickly the Anti-Monopoly Party has nothing to do with the Parker Brothers game of real estate. There are also some real humdingers in the mix as well…….the Communist League of America (1928-1934), the Vegetarian Party (1948-1964), the Looking Back Party (1984-1996), and I could never leave out the Progressive Party known to some as the “Bull Moose Party” of Teddy Roosevelt fame (1912-1914).

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