Obama’s ‘Constituency Groups’ Checklist Offers No Options for Whites or Men

Actually, he's fine with whites as long as they're female.  And he's fine with men as long as they are not white-- to a degree, except insofar as they or anyone else fits his other favored categories, though.  But the only way a person who is both white and male, it seems, is likely to get consideration is if he is affiliated with some non-race or -gender-specific interest group.  A "primary constituency" for Obama has for example been organized labor, which by and large had been led by white men, though increasingly now by white women.

Now as for organized labor as such, personally I think it does more good than harm, though collective bargaining can in some cases lead to problems for the people coming after the current crop of workers.  As an example: Generation 1 collectively bargains for generous pensions, etc., while times are flush.  Times go bad and Generation 1 now wants to retire, but the employer is hard up for whatever reason(s).  So Generation 2 can't get nearly the same bennies or hope to even be able to bargain collectively as successfully as Generation 1 simply because the employer doesn't have the money.  This is especially onerous when the employer can't meet long-ago agreed-upon obligations for retired or retiring workers in terms of pensions or healthcare.  Here in the US, we're seeing this acted out in several contexts: the US Postal Service, numerous police and fire depts., and of course, teachers' unions.  But the labor movement can and should be thanked for bringing us such things as the 40-hour workweek and overtime pay for wage workers, arguably the people needing it most. And as for worker safety getting addressed, we definitely have the labor movement to thank for that as well. (How exactly we're going to deal with our current problems remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, they're real doozies!)

So while "whites and men" are not specifically named, they're in there-- as long as they are "the right kind" of white men.  But the categorical exclusion of these two identifiable groups as such, while contrasting groups are specifically named, reveals the lack of consideration of whites and men as groups.

Bearing in mind that one key strategy in politics is to create a sense of separateness within the body politic if in so doing it is likely to yield a majority support for the politician using the strategy, it's pretty obvious what is happening here.  It's a gamble on Obama's part, or more generally, on the Democrats' part.  Since Obama cannot run for re-election in 2016, they need to lay the groundwork for their as-yet unidentified 2016 candidate.  Lacking a personality around which they can form an effort, they need to come up with a stand-in ideology.  Creating a divided electorate wherein a specific group holding a minority position (ie, white men, comprising roughly 36% of the US pop'n) relative to the total pop'ns of all other groups (i.e., 64%) is categorically excluded from overt consideration in hopes the majority group (in this case, a de facto coalition) will respond favorably to the minority group's exclusion from consideration undoubtedly seems to them like the way to go.  If they can find a candidate to capitalize off this strategy's groundwork, then regardless of the shape the US economy is in in 2016, they may still win re-election through the momentum that their strategy will have created.  It's rare in the history of the world that a political party that bases its political efforts on the demonization or exclusion of a minority group doesn't meet with at least some degree of success-- at least initially.  History has shown time and again that this strategy eventually backfires, but pols are very short-sighted generally; most can't see past the next election or potential crisis.

So what we're seeing here is a tactic that is as old as the hills.  In this case it's much more focused around "identity politics" than other kinds used in the past, such as unionism vs. non-unionism, association with religion X vs. religion Y, etc.  This tactic known simply as "splitting the electorate" or "divide and conquer" can't succeed unless people allow themselves to be hornswoggled into taking the bait.  Are most Americans doing that or will do it in 2014 (the Congressional "mid-term" elections) and/or 2016?  Guess we'll see. But I note that this tactic has a solid track record of success through human history whether the stakes are high or low.

I don't necessarily blame the employer. Sometimes it's out of their hands. In some cases they are at fault (e.g.: good old-fashioned pension fund-robbing), while in other cases it's just that the reasonably-anticipated future revenues never materialized.

As for civil servants/gov't workers unionizing, that's a horse of a different color in that it's a separate issue from unionizing vs. non-unionizing altogether.