It has pained me to watch Sean Wilentz act like such a tool during this election year, because I really admire his historical works. ("Chants Democratic" and "The Rise of American Democracy" are both well worth reading.) He has accused Barack Obama of playing the race card when his opponents launched controversial personal attacks, while blaming the Senator from Illinois for his inability to win over certain voters. (Those would be the mysterious "white working class" we hear so much about, who supported Obama in Wisconsin and Oregon but not in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and other states.) His latest salvo in the Huffington Post -- "Barack Obama and the Unmaking of the Democratic Party" -- reaches all the way back to 1828 to show why Obama is going to ruin everything. In the process, he fails to explain the roots of the real forces at work here: white solidarity, anti-intellectualism, and racism.
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