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August 18, 2008

"The Clueless White Guy Vote" by Russ Vaughn

The Clueless White Guy Vote

Contrary to their politically correct aims, the advertising industry in this country has created a voting bloc that I am positively sure they never intended. I refer to all us Clueless White Guys, that resentful constituency that for years has endured a constant onslaught of television commercials in which the white male is always the bumbling buffoon, while minority males, black, Asian and Hispanic are always the cool, in-tune, in-the-know dudes who always, effortlessly get it, whatever it may be.

Variations include the Clueless White Guy being totally oblivious to the obvious worth or value of whatever is being sold in the commercial while his wife or some other female, usually a racial minority, demonstrates with over-done grimaces or knowing smiles just what a total and complete dumbass the white guy is.

I have no children so I've never had to suffer the indignity of spending an evening watching television with my kids where at least every fifteen minutes or so that demographic which I represent is subjected to ridicule by the corporate sponsors of the programs I'm watching. Still, I have to wonder, don't those fools realize the influence fathers have on the buying decisions made by their families? Don't any of the corporate wunderkind ever question the wisdom, or lack thereof, of insulting that demographic which controls the buying decisions, especially of big-ticket items, in a majority of American households, especially the most affluent ones?

And yes, I know, it's just all in good fun and to take offense is being silly and hypersensitive, or at least that's what all these advertising whizzes would be quick to tell us were we ever to mount an organized protest. And I would agree if such commercials were merely sometime things and if black, Hispanic and Asian husbands and fathers were depicted occasionally as hapless losers, just like their white counterparts; but that's not the case.

In fact, this phenomenon has become so widespread that even my wife now sits and shakes her head ruefully when we see it played out again and again. And that brings up another issue, the ancillary effect of such advertising where it has become so prevalent that now the offense extends to those family members who happen to love their white fathers and husbands and are fed up with seeing them constantly portrayed as maladroit dopes.

So all you smug, elitist, politically correct liberals in the business of making these commercials should give some thought to the inestimable backlash voting bloc that you have cluelessly created out here with your steady drumbeat of ridicule of white males. Take just a moment to wonder as to just how many clueless white males, their wives and their adult children are going to go into the voting booth in November and express their frustration with your constant condescension by the only means available to them:

Their vote for the only white male in the race, the one the media loves to portray as clueless.

And it's not because they are racists that these folks will vote this way; to the contrary, many white Americans who might have voted for a first black president will not do so precisely due to their heretofore, unexpressed resentment of your unceasing, smug portrayals and precisely to prove you wrong. In fact, I'm wondering how many white males may go into the booth intending to vote for Obama and at the last minute remember a particularly insulting commercial and think, "Well, screw them!"

This reaction may be comparable to the reasoning we hear from the liberal media who claim that the 93% of blacks reporting their support for The One are not racists. We hear that this is a completely understandable skewing, given the history of oppression endured by that demographic and their need to find a champion to advance the healing process. Please don't think I'm trying to equate the malignance of slavery and Jim Crow with this current campaign of ridiculing of white males, which does indeed pale in comparison. But before you accuse us of whining, consider this: if we are whiners, why have you not heard more complaints, earlier and louder from this caricatured cohort? We have endured the indignities with graceful (dare I say manly) silence and only now have I raised the issue in the context of how it relates to the coming election.

If you creators of these commercials think you are cleverly and harmlessly assuaging the resentment of minorities by constantly and very publicly maligning white males, you are badly mistaken. You are only transferring resentment from one group to another and in doing so may be creating a backlash vote not against the first black presidential candidate for his race but rather a protest vote against yourselves, the too politically correct media industry that slavishly supports him. On a broader scale, the overt bias in the news media for any Democrat candidate may be creating a similar backlash vote and for similar reasons, but that's a topic for another article.

All of this, your mocking of white males and your idolizing of The One, will result in yet one more demonstration of that fatal flaw in too many liberal minds, the inability to foresee the unintended negative consequences of your supposedly good intentions: the clueless white guy vote.

We'll just have to wait until November to see if I'm right.

Russ Vaughn
Vietnam 65-66

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Wild Thing's comment...........

It has always bugged me how fathers and men are portrayed on television, in the ads and in sitcoms. They make men look like they could not do anything and that men are stupid, clumsy, helpless fools.

A couple of years ago I noticed it had begun and then last year it got even worse and showed up more often, to the point a person would have to be brain dead not to notice what is such obvious propaganda to dumb down America, the family and the leadership of the man in the home. I have ranted about it just to the TV haha but it has really been getting worse and worse.

I realize how things happen, slowing, inch by inch, step by step things like this worm their way into the mind of the public then one day what was thought to be just stupid ads we find more and more people believing this baloney.

Then we hear talk shows with liberals telling us how men are no longer leaders in the home, how the home itself has changed and how yes government is needed to take the leadership to run the lives of the citizens.

Children taught to disrespect the father in the home simply by propaganda they see on TV, that insults the man of the house.

Sooooo I am thrilled that Russ wrote this, I think it is excellent.

....Thank you Russ

Posted by Wild Thing at August 18, 2008 04:45 AM

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Comments

Posted by: Jack at August 18, 2008 08:54 AM

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Posted by: TomR at August 18, 2008 11:40 AM

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Posted by: TomR at August 18, 2008 11:42 AM

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Posted by: Wild Thing at August 18, 2008 06:14 PM

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Posted by: Wild Thing at August 18, 2008 06:17 PM

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Posted by: JOHNNY WALKER at August 24, 2008 11:17 PM

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Posted by: Wild Thing at August 24, 2008 11:58 PM

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