Preemption. The American people by overwhelming majorities reject the desperate retreat to the racist charge. But no matter. Elites know that by preempting criticism with “racist!,” they can fire a shot across the bow of potential critics. Conservatives scoff, but some of them will be wary of spending hours writing mea culpas that they are not racists.

Bewilderment. Many who employ the desperate tactic are themselves bewildered by criticism of Obama. They had assumed that his ratings would stay at 70%. Apparently, they thought anger at Bush, the Iraq war, Wall Street after the meltdown, and the McCain campaign, all translated into grass roots demands for a new humongous mother state, in which the government would run 40-50% of aggregate GDP, under the aegis of bureaucrats like a Timothy Geithner, Joe Biden Eric Holder, or Van Jones…

“Racist!” supersedes the real problem of class. In today’s multiracial society, class is no longer predicated on race. The elite Stanford students of color I encounter during the week are far more privileged than many poor whites I see in the southern San Joaquin Valley on weekends. Asians have higher per capita incomes than Californians at large. I am here at Hillsdale for four weeks of teaching, and, to engage in stereotyping, the poorer whites of southern Michigan (and almost everyone of the proverbial middle and lower middle class here) seem to be far worse off economically than their counterparts, or indeed Hispanics in general, in a Selma or Reedley in central California, in a state that is literally bankrupt. Race does not seem to have much to do with status, social standing, or wealth.