Dave Weigel is puzzled by some of the results in this new Washington Post/ABC poll showing that only 41 percent of Americans believe the Obama presidency will help race relations, down from 58 percent in January 2009:
Here's a chaser that I'm not sure how to interpret -- since Obama was sworn in, the percentage of Americans saying blacks have achieved equality has risen from 35 to 42 percent. It has remained static among blacks, and spiked nine points among whites.
First it's important to note that this question is really odd. Why is it the job of the president to improve race relations, rather than Americans themselves? It sets up this sort of conservative self-fulfilling argument, where someone like Rush Limbaugh can rail all day about having to "bend over" for "the blacks and the gays" and then gloat that "History will show that the election of Obama, this period, will be a giant step backwards in race relations."
Certain influential conservatives, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck--have devoted a considerable amount of time to convincing their audiences that not only does racism against blacks no longer exist, but that racism against whites is so rampant that the president and attorney general are allied with a black hate group. Given the amount of time conservatives have spent attacking the Democratic agenda as not merely economic redistribution, but racial redistribution, it's not surprising that there would be an even larger disparity between how blacks and whites perceive progress on racial equality than there was two years ago.
