Eight years ago, and again four years ago, conservative white Americans were told that the reason we did not vote for Barack Obama was because we were racist. Now, conservative American men are being told that the reason we are not voting for Hillary Clinton is because we are sexist.
As reported in the Huffington Post, “President Barack Obama on Tuesday called on men to ‘look inside’ themselves and think about bias if they have any doubt about voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“‘To the guys out there, I want to be honest,’ Obama told a crowd in Columbus, Ohio, at a Clinton campaign event. ‘You know, there’s a reason we haven’t had a woman president before.’
He added, “I want every man out there who’s voting to kinda look inside yourself and ask yourself, if you’re having problems with this stuff, how much of it is that we’re just not used to it? When a guy is ambitious and out in the public arena and working hard, well that’s okay. But when a woman suddenly does it, suddenly you’re all like, well, why’s she doing that?”
Liberal film director Michael Moore was even more direct, stating, “It’s the muscle memory of 10,000 years that’s in our DNA where we’ve run the show forever. Next Tuesday possibly ? hopefully ? a woman is going to lead the most powerful country on Earth. In other words, the 10,000-year reign is over.”
Well, I’m sure there are some voters out there, both male and female, who don’t want a woman running our country, just as I’m sure there were some voters out there in the last two elections who didn’t want a black man running our country.
But, speaking without shame or apology as a white American male, my issue is with Hillary Clinton’s policies and character, not her gender, just as my issues were with Barack Obama’s policies, not his skin color.
The truth be told, I wanted to be able to vote for our nation’s first black president but I could not.
And I would gladly vote for our nation’s first female president – hopefully, a modern-day version of a woman like Deborah who led the ancient nation of Israel, or another Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher – if I could stand behind her policies and had confidence she could lead.
At this very moment, had Carly Fiorina or Nikki Haley or Joni Ernst or any other solid conservative woman been running for president against a male liberal Democrat, I would vote for any of those women in a heartbeat, just as I would vote for Ben Carson or Tim Scott if either of these black leaders were running against a white liberal Democrat.
Again, that doesn’t mean that some people did not vote for Obama because he was black or that some people won’t vote for Hillary because she’s a woman. I don’t deny that for a moment.
But at the same time, there are some people who will not vote for Donald Trump because he’s a male and/or because he’s white.
Yet it would be utterly ridiculous to state, “The reason a lot of you won’t vote for Trump is because he’s a white male.”
That would be a gross exaggeration, totally overlooking Trump’s myriad flaws and shortcomings.
In the same way, it would be a gross exaggeration to say that the main reason a lot of people won’t vote for Hillary is because she’s a female, just as it would be a gross exaggeration to say that skin color was the main reason lots of Americans didn’t vote for Obama.
Over the last 8 years, I have heard from numerous African American callers who did not vote for Obama, and their reasons were identical to mine. And in recent months, I have heard from numerous female callers who will not vote for Hillary, and again, there reasons are identical to mine.
In fact, of all the people with whom I have discussed the elections in the last 8 years, in public and in private, I have not met a single individual who voted against Obama because of his skin color or is voting against Hillary because of her gender. Not one.
Yet I have met many – and that is a very large “many” – who deplore their policies and therefore would not vote for them.
Why, then, cloud the issues with charges of racism and sexism?
Or is that yet another ploy straight out of the liberal Democrat playbook?
Why can’t the issues be the issues?
When I started my live, daily talk radio show a little over 8 years ago, it was right during the presidential primaries, and I remember making my first on-the-air political comment, which was critical of something Senator McCain had said.
A day or two later, I took issue with Senator Obama, and then did so again a few days after that.
Immediately, I received a phone call from an African American listener who said to me, “Why do you always have to bring up race?”
When I asked her what she meant, she replied, “All you do is bash Barack Obama.”
I explained to her that I had only differed with him on the air twice, but before that I had differed with John McCain. More importantly, I told her that I would gladly vote for Alan Keyes, a black leader who ran against Obama in Illinois, rather than Obama, because race was not the issue for me. I also said that I preferred Sarah Palin to Hillary Clinton, since my issue was not gender.
Thankfully, over the years, my listeners have learned that I am anything but racist or sexist, and today, when a black caller implied that I was racist for taking issue with President Obama, other black listeners quickly weighed in, saying I was anything but racist and that they too didn’t vote for Obama. One of the callers actually said that the woman who implied that I was racist was guilty of racism, rather than me.
So let us not be distracted from what really matters, since the bottom line is simple: Racism and sexism certainly exist in America, from every perspective and among every people group, but racism and sexism are not the issue in this election. The issues are the issues, so let’s concentrate on them.
And if you tell me that I’m blinded my superior status as a white American male, I’ll encourage you to search your own heart. Perhaps the racism and sexism are on your end, not mine.