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The Land That Obama Forgot
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Inaugural fever? Not in deep-red Oklahoma, where Barack Obama failed to carry so much as one county in November. This is ground zero of the Obama resistance, and as Denver Nicks reports, it's going to take a lot to win some residents over.
With most of America still reeling from inauguration hysteria, it’s easy to forget that a sizeable minority never wanted Barack Obama to become their president. Nowhere is this more apparent than in my home state of Oklahoma. No state gave a higher percentage of its vote in November to John McCain. Obama lost every county. And while nearly every county in America went more Democratic in 2008 than in 2004, southeastern Oklahoma is in a political red sea in the center of the country that responded to “yes we can” with a resounding “I hope we don’t,” voting significantly more Republican than it did four years ago.
It’s not just that Oklahoma proved resistant to Obama’s charms. Though Obama did have a small official campaign presence in the state, Okies were largely spared the deluge of media and campaign staff that nearly every other state experienced. Thus, Obama’s image was defined without much input from Obama himself. He took a 25-point loss to Hillary Clinton in the primary, and after that what Okies what heard about him came from local media, right-wing talk radio, the national networks, and viral email.
“I don’t think the people in the Oklahoma that I know are that sold on a black leader,” one newspaper editor said. “And that scares me.”
There’s an argument to be made, then, that Oklahoma is the state most out of step with the current jubilation. As the inauguration approached, I set out on a journey to see how the state was preparing for America’s first black president.
My first stop was Wetumka, in eastern-central Oklahoma, a once prospering oil town and sometimes hideout of Pretty Boy Floyd. At the intersection of two small highways and the entrance ramp to my own family history, Wetumka is where my dad and uncles ran wild as boys during hot Oklahoma summers, where my grandmother grew up across the street from my grandfather, and where my great-grandfather was once postmaster.
Wetumka has been contracting, to employ the economist’s euphemism, for the last half-century.
With a local economy based primarily on welfare, Social Security, and subsidies from Indian tribes, it is the poorest town in one of the poorest counties in United States. It is rural America in a snow globe.
I asked a group of students at Wetumka High School what they felt about the recent election and their incoming president.
“Palin 2012,” said Jayme Pack, an outspoken, All-American seventeen-year-old girl.
“She was really down to earth, and I really think she got everybody, especially in our part of the country. I mean, she was a Carhartt-wearing, boot-wearing girl, and she knew what we were going through, better I think than John McCain did.”
With that, Pack articulated a political reality that I heard echoed over and over in Oklahoma: populism hath returned, and it looks a lot like Tina Fey.
In its early days Oklahoma was a hotbed of populism, an egalitarian and anti-intellectual strain of political thought that shook American politics around the turn of the last century and transformed the Democratic Party. My middle name, Bryan, is a family heirloom that was first given to my great-grandfather (the postmaster), who was named after William Jennings Bryan, the firebrand champion of the populist cause.
Similar to the anti-eastern-elite sentiment that gave rise to the populist movement of the late 19th century, many people in rural Oklahoma—the heart of flyover country—mistrust and resent those who reside in America’s big city powerhouses of business and culture. Under President Obama these feelings are set to intensify.
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Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.
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The Craziest Senator
Denver Nicks is a writer based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
My grandparents farmed 160 acres of bottom land outside of Edmond. My mother was born in Quay, and my father came from Coffeyville just across the Kansas state line. I was born in OK City and spent the first 18 years of my white life in Tulsa. I know whereof Mr. Nicks writes, and this article is a very good depiction of how it is in rural Oklahoma. Today, I live in New Mexico and voted for Obama. I gave him a bunch of money for his campaign, and I cried when he was inaugurated. Things can change, and miracles can happen.--daishin
I feel bad for the young high schoolers who seem to think they will go through life just dealing with white people. My advice to them is stay in Oklahoma. However, the door is always open for them if they want to enter the 21st century.
Portmanteau says OK can suck it.
Who cares about people too dumb to know when they are being screwed.
I can relate, I grew up in Kansas. I'm sure there will be an attempt at another anti-intellectual platform in 2012 ( or even 2010). My hopes are Obama will do extremely well and since he is the first president to come from a large city really, that may show people that not all city folk are bad.
This year in the media it seems like late night talk show hosts and news anchors seemed to be questioning the concept of city people being elitist, snotty, and mean...props to Jon Stewart!!! "Willful ignorance is not a down home value."
In Kansas I had the same frustration with people who talked about educated people as being elitist, and talked about the liberal bias in universities. Like learning is some sort of brainwashing, or some sort of tool for the "elite" to make the farm kids all feel stupid. Us and our big words.
This article had a lot more potential than what we received. For starters, Obama didn't "forget" OK, I imagine, he just knew better than to devote a lot of resources to it. I understand that, I live in LA - we fought like crazy in the primary but pretty much gave it up for the general.So the premise of the article is already lost. Then the rest of it just seems to be the author meandering around OK, with no real point to the story.
C-, Mr. Nicks, please edit and try again.
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Let me guess............they are Palin supports too. Is this ground zero for Team Palin?
Need I say more?
Palin supporters. Sorry.
If Palin gets that 11 million book deal, will the people of OK still feel that "she is just like one of us"?
It was all a PR image to begin with, but they bought it hook, line and sinker.
I think I understand Oklahoma's skepticism. I lived in rural, economically-depressed southwestern Pennsylvania during the Reagan years. The economy was booming all around the country. Except for SW PA where the economy got worse and worse, and then, even worse.The election of the first George Bush was NOT heralded as hopeful by most people.
According to the region's senator John Murtha they are still clinging to that lack of hope. I believe that's why PA went with Obama--they hate what Republican presidents have done to their economy.
At first most people backed Hilary and when that plan fell through they cautiously started looking to Obama rather than McSame.
When no change has ever been a good change its hard to get excited about anything.
Seems like Oklahoma was the only state that got it 100% right. Oklahoma is OK
Well, I live in Oklahoma, and I voted for Obama, and I love the guy, and I am white, and I am changing my voter registration from Repub to Dem.
While it is true that there is still a lot of inherent racism around the state, mostly the people here believe what they are fed by the Daily Oklahoman and its biased television stations.
Just as America initially believed the lies given for invading Iraq, the people here believe what they are told on the tube.
I tossed my tube out many years ago, and have immunity
from that disease.
But, don't give up on the entire state. Thirty percent of us voted for Obama, and we won't back down in our conversations with the Rush Limbaugh lovers.
Obama is the man!
When I grew up, the entire state was Democrat, and the local thinking was that if you weren't registered as a Dem, you couldn't vote in the primaries for the eventual winner. Now the
folks here say the same thing in justifying their Republican
registration.
But, like I said, I am changing my registration, and am not silent about that fact.
Zorkadork made a very good point about the American minds being controlled by what they are fed via the media. As I recall virtually the entire country believed that Iraq was the sponsor of the 9/11 attacks. It took several years, and no discovery of WMDs before the truth came out in the media.
Even our Senators and Congresspeople were foaming at the mouth. Garbage in garbage out. The people in Oklahoma are no different than the other Americans who simply believe what they are fed on the nightly news.
I am encouraged that individuals like Zork are stepping up and saying "don't believe everything you are being told". Big changes begin in small ways. I won't give up on the Oklahomans. There are too many good people living there among the thick heads, which live all over this country.
I was catching a plane in the Tulsa airport, and paused to read the newspaper headlines. I didn't have any change to buy a paper, but read the front page of one of the Tulsa papers, which talked about how Obama visited Oklahoma only once, early in his campaign, before blowing it off as a pointless effort.
Then it went on to say that only 33% of Oklahomans voted for him. The article's big question was a queasy and uncomfortable, "Do you think he'll remember that?" I thought it was pretty humorous.
Did anyone watch the entire inaugural parade on C-Span? I did, and the order of the floats was very interesting. It seemed to go from the states most supportive of Obama and/or most important to his victory, to the least of those. So it started with Hawaii, Illinois and DC (Obama's three homes), then went into New York, Iowa, Florida, Ohio, California. Many of the "red" states that went for Bush were represented by groups of Native Americans: Idaho, Alaska (Eskimos), Wyoming, North Dakota). New Mexico and Texas were totally Latino. At the very end of the line came Oklahoma, represented by two dour-looking young white men holding an OK banner (that was it) and finally Utah, who were allowed to bring up the rear with their rousing (if totally predictable) version of God Bless America.
Try to imagine how little the progressive educated people of this nation and around the world gives a darn. These people are society's dead weights. They are the kind of toxins that helped get our country in the sad state it is in today. Obama can not help them, nor should anytime be spent trying.
It doesn't really matter what these Okies think. The country's population is becoming more concentrated in urban centers and simultaneously becoming less white. There's not a lot that someone opposed to that could do to stop it.
Republican strong holds like OK (which is not) SC GA TN and all those other states where having a meaningful relationship with your sister is treated with a nudge and a wink need to get together and secede from the union. Oh! right they tried that and it didn't work. I live in one of those states and the racial intolerance is disgusting
I live in one of the slave (and a few other contiguous) states that didn't vote--and will probably never vote--for the likes of Barack Obama. These are supposed to be "good tax-paying, patriotic citizens," but they're mostly on some kind of government assistance while decrying all the n_______ on welfare.
These are mean spirited, nasty people, and IMHO are completely capable of violence for imagined causes. And that includes the election of a black guy as President.
Barack should not travel to the Red Gash--West VA to OK and points in between if he can avoid it--at least not until he demonstrates what proper decision making is comprised of.
I really worry about his safety.
I live in Oklahoma. I am a 73 year old white woman. I voted for Barack Obama with great enthusiasm. I watched the inauguration, cried and prayed that he can do what he so much wants to do for us. Our children have already erased so many barriers.
My home is in a lovely wooded upper middle class neighborhood in midtown Tulsa. During the fall before the election, there were more Obama signs here than McCain signs. If he hadn't completely written us off ( though I understand why he did) he may have don a great deal better. Look what happened in the Omaha area in Nebraska.
For all our faults, I love my state.
deborama
Good point after years of Rosa Parks and her brothers and sisters riding in the back of the bus maybe our soon to be minority "friends" in those states will enjoy the view from back there
Willful ignorance is not a down home value, but marginalizing the ignorant serves no one, and is contrary to the intention of the Obama administration. Xenophiba, and complacency in 'the way things always been' is not overcome by dismissing people out of hand. I applaud zorkadork for his efforts to get the information out there about Obama. And, I'd like to point out that 33% of OK that voted for Obama is still higher than W's approval rating by the whole country.
Luddites and the Amish peacefully recuse themselves, yet successfully live within the laws of the land. They simply do not participate in aspects of our society they do not approve of. I don't expect the 19th century populists described here would consider the same. But, if they want to continue to participate in our broad American society in the 21st century, we need to include them and inform them of the realities that exist across this great nation - and that includes big cities and universities.
And, let's not fool ourselves, just because we elected a black president, who has a brilliant wife and a perfect looking family, including grandma, does not mean racism is over - not even in those big cities and universities. In society we shape what is acceptable by what we accept. Electing a multi-man like Barack Obama is a wonderful and huge step on the journey of true equality. But it is one step - that we must reinforce with another and another.
Former Pres W and wannabe VP Palin made it seem like regular, plain folk can be world leaders. The past 8 years have proven that's a mistake we all pay for in the end. Smart, educated, aware and in touch are minimum prerequsites for effective leadership.
Personally I am grateful to have a President who is patently smarter than I am. I'm grateful that the great majority of Americans who made that choice with me.
Thank goodness.
It's tribalism. No different from South Central Los Angeles, where wearing the wrong color shirt or hat can get you shot by the other-color gang. It's my folks vs. them other folks, which in this case means Carhartt-and-boots vs., Idunno, Brooks Bros?
It's Israel and Palestine, it's Shia and Sunni. Tribalism is deeply wired into us, and long ago, was part of why we survived (those of us who did). But now it prevents larger-scale cooperation, which we're going to need if we're going to survive the next period.
When everyone's all riled up about The Other, projecting their shadow in that direction, there's not a lot of hope for basic strategic rethink, which we're going to need. Because while 19th century resource extraction may be big in Oklahoma, it isn't going to solve our 21st century problems.
So, Up From Tribalism.
This is not the Oklahoma I grew up in, even the "Little Dixie" section. It represents the GOP southern strategy perfected. My heart breaks for these tough minded but good people who have been scammed out of education and decent jobs for years.
For them and the section described above as "Red Gash--West VA to OK and points in between from Virgina" here is one more chance to join the Union.--- and not withdraw into enclaves of dark resentment............. as they did after the Civil Rights Laws, the New Deal, Reconstruction etc.
With a Republican Party in shambles and new hope embodied in Obama, perhaps this time it will be different.
Thank you.
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