“There’s something different on the ground, and I think it’s going to overtake us all again, think it’s going to overtake the political class. I think it’s going to respectfully pick this president up and pat him on the head and say, son, son, son, Mr. President, you were never ready to be president, now go home and work for somebody and find out how the real world works.”Work for somebody?
Work for somebody?
Work for somebody?!?
Seriously, though. Is he seriously suggesting that the former President of the United States, upon his electoral defeat this November, get an ordinary job, with an ordinary boss and an ordinary salary? That can't be right, can it? I mean, that's just not a thing. Ex-Presidents, among other things, get Secret Service details! And, you know, they were President. They're not just going to get some random job working for somebody. Now, if you wanted to suggest that Obama just start up some private enterprise of his own, which could be something public-spirited like what Bill Clinton has done, that would be different. If you want to say that Obama doesn't know how to run the economy because he's never had a "real job," fine; it's a load of bull for many reasons, but I sort of see what the argument is trying to be. But Walsh said Obama should work for somebody, in the future, as the ex-President.
To my mind, this can only be explained in terms of race. I don't think it would be possible to see a white President being told that, upon his defeat and return to private life, he should get a mundane job where he would have a boss for whom he worked. The only explanation has got to be that Walsh was speaking from the worldview in which the natural order has all the black people working for other, presumptively white people. Seriously, though, how else can you possibly explain telling the incumbent President that he needs to go work for someone? Is there any other possibility? I really don't think so.
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