President Obama thinks some people donāt like him becaāuse of his raceš¦.
āThereās no doubt that thereās some folks who just really dislike me because they donāt like the ideaź¦ of a black President,ā Obama told The New Yorkerās David Remnick in the magazineās .
āNow, the flip side of it is there are są¼ŗome black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because Iām a black President,ā he added.
The article noted that Obama lost white voters in 2012 by historyās largest margin foš±r a winning presidential candidate, and that his plunge in the polls last year ā which many pundits declared the worst year of his presidency ā was steepest among whites.
Some observers immediately mocked Obama for suggesting that race ā and not his policies āā is the reason for his dismal numbers.
āIām fine with losing my job, losing insurance, being audited. I just canāt stand that heās black,ā @OrwellForce snarked on Twitter, cramming the weak economy, Obamacare and the IRS’s scrutiny of political nonprofits into one tweet.
Obama conceded that his party has sometimes appeared to shrug off āthe concernās of middle- and working-class folks, black or white.ā
āAnd this was one of the great gifts of Bill Clinton to the Partyāto say, you know what, itās entirely legitimate for folks to be concerned about gź¦etting mugged, and you canāt just talk about police abuse,ą½§ā he told The New Yorker.
“How about folks not feeling safe outside their homes? Itās all fine and good for you to want to do something about poverty, but if the only mechanism you have is raising taxes on folks who are already feeling strapped, then maybe you need to widen your lens a little bit. And I think that the Democratic Party is better for it.ā