President Obama gave his last State of the Union address this week. I did not watch it, but I read the transcript. To my eye, to my mind, it was as fine a way to cap his presidency as one could hope. He spoke to the future. Make of that what you will. Those who do not now or never have liked him, it was all hot air, empty rhetoric, posing for posterity. For those who believe he has been the best president since the last great one, it was inspirational, an arrow aimed at the next horizon. For anyone with the slightest grasp of history, how politics works, of even a grasp of the last 40 years, it was a gracious and generous invitation to Do Better.
In contrast, Governor Haley’s official Republican rebuttal was a tortured exercise in finding a way to be right in the cracks of a broken legacy, made nearly irrelevant by an evident lack of understanding and, apparently, knowledge of our country’s history.
Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina, said in an interview after her rebuttal “we’ve never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion.”
Let me pause for a breath while I ponder the utter feckless ignorance in that statement. This is the flip side of the Right’s insistence that this country was founded on Christianity, I suppose. More to the point, if that’s your belief, and you did not notice how stupidly wrong that statement from Governor Haley was, then you do have to ask yourself how you square the contradiction. If she’s right, then this country was never a “christian” nation. If it was so founded, then she’s wrong and every single law ever passed has been based on religion.
As to race, please. Have you never heard of the One Drop Rule? Or Loving v. Virginia? Or Plessy v. Ferguson? No? What a pristine place your mind must be, then, unsullied by the grimier legacies of this country.
Saying something like that is tantamount to saying “All that stuff we did—we never really did it, it’s only stuff in books we don’t read.” Wishful thinking and frankly insulting, because for that to pass she has to believe her listeners are stupid and uneducated and ignorant. She has to bet on you not knowing any better.
Nikki Haley is one of the more reasonable Republicans holding office currently, but it is this kind of tone-deaf, ahistorical, reality-denying rhetoric that makes it impossible for me to take her seriously. Or any of them, really, so synced to their Party campaign to undo everything from the 1950s (at a minimum) till today just because their constituency will vote for them if they do. A shrinking constituency, I think. The louder they get, the smaller their numbers. But, my word, they are loud.
By comparison, Obama has shown far more gracious tolerance than—well, than I could possibly have shown.
We seem not to teach civics in school anymore. We should. We should have a course on civics combined with American history, beginning in grade school (when I got it) and continue on until 12th grade. No let up. Cover this stuff in greater and greater detail, ad nauseum, until it sinks in and we no longer think someone knows what he or she is talking about just because they hold high office.
What I will miss most when Obama leaves office is not being talked to like I only have a 3rd grade education by my president. I will miss his erudition. Yes, I will miss his humor, his sophistication, even his syntax.
I suspect the rest of the world will, too.