Cliven Bundy Neatly Encapsulates a Potent Crossroads of Opposition to Obama +Venn Diagram

[ChisolmTrailDem]

[blockquote style="background:#eeeeee; padding: 20px;"]http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/cliven-bundy-neatly-encapsulates-a-potent-crossroads-of-opposition-to-obama/361158/

There were already a lot of lessons about the modern political landscape to be drawn from the standoff of rancher Cliven Bundy and federal agents in Nevada, but Bundy's comments looping in race and the welfare state reveal one of the most important: President Obama embodies a number of the things that his opponents dislike most.

[div style="float:left; padding:0 20px 20px 0;width:400px;height:400px;"][img][/img]Bundy, as you are no doubt aware by now, was joined by hundreds of activists — many armed — to protest the seizure of his livestock by the federal government. The standoff was portrayed by conservatives as one earnest businessman standing up to the ruthless bureaucracy of Washington, D.C.; it was portrayed by liberals as an alarming and unconstitutional act of rebellion against authority. Then, as you are also no doubt aware, Bundy tipped the scales of sympathy against himself, in an interview with The New York Times.

(...cut here - an excerpt of Bundy's vile racist remarks that I won't repeat here)

But Bundy's argument is a common one, mixing in race and government programs and government overreach. There's a Venn diagram to be made, so I made it. These are overlapping complaints, which are represented here with circles of the same size for clarity but in which the anti-government sentiment circle is far, far larger than the racism circle in reality. Is Bundy at the center of the diagram? Probably; he's certainly in the overlap at upper right. (Update: He says he isn't.) But the larger point is this: the presidency of Barack Obama fits neatly into that little center triangle.

...more...

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/cliven-bundy-neatly-encapsulates-a-potent-crossroads-of-opposition-to-obama/361158/

[blkmusclmachine]

1. It's just the Republican Party being the Republican Party. Wealthy, white, & entitled.

[2naSalit]

2. and foolishly

thinking that the rest of us are as stupid as they wish we were.

[Skittles]

3. men like Bundy

never acknowledge how much affirmative action they received simply by being white and male