Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
There's an assumption in Ross's latest column that has stayed with me since I read it yesterday. It's hard to forget because so many people disagree with it so unconditionally -- and approach our political life accordingly. See if you can spot it:
The first America [...] views the project as the consummate expression of our nation’s high ideals. [...] The second America begs to differ. It sees the project as an affront to the memory of 9/11, and a sign of disrespect for the values of a country where Islam has only recently become part of the public consciousness. And beneath these concerns lurks the darker suspicion that Islam in any form may be incompatible with the American way of life.
This is typical of how these debates usually play out. The first America tends to make the finer-sounding speeches, and the second America often strikes cruder, more xenophobic notes. The first America welcomed the poor, the tired, the huddled masses; the second America demanded that they change their names and drop their native languages, and often threw up hurdles to stop them coming altogether. The first America celebrated religious liberty; the second America persecuted Mormons and discriminated against Catholics.
But both understandings of this country have real wisdom to offer, and both have been necessary to the American experiment’s success.
Yep, there it is: that last line. For too many Americans, what Ross calls "the second America" has no wisdom to offer, only irrational hatred. For these Americans, "the second America" has been a constant impediment to America's success, and folks in "the second America" implacable opponents of justice, fairness, and enlightenment. Too many Americans have something seriously approaching zero respect for most of the defining concerns, commitments, convictions, and attitudes of folks in Ross's "second America."
Those who despise the second America wish to see its power and authority taken away by any political or legal means necessary. It's an attitude disturbingly similar to the one that the second America is alleged by its enemies to hold toward Islam. To be sure, there are those, like Andy McCarthy and now Newt Gingrich, who are feeding what seems to me to be a growing and errant hysteria over all things (and all people) Muslim. They do not speak exclusively for the second America, of course, but it is time their critics consider why their rhetoric has gained such traction.
Dave Weigel suggests that Barack Obama's inability to move the needle of US-Muslim relations in any sigificant way has made it possible for second-American extremism to gain a frustrated, concerned audience. Though that may well be a contributing factor -- what Obama's selling just isn't working -- the real appeal is a widespread understanding within the second America that the second America is increasingly considered an enemy to be defeated, not a broadly aligned coalition of fellow citizens.
It does a disservice to both sides to say that the left, pure and simple, has radicalized the right. But for too many on the left, the right already is so radical -- so unreasonable, irrational, kooky, atavistic, and unthinking -- that it hardly matters whether the second America tries to protect and advance its interests politely or viciously. When it plays nicely, they believe, the second America is engaged in the tactic of papering over the bigotry that animates it at a foundational level. The only thing the second America can do to earn goodwill from this influential segment of the left is to abandon and denounce its primitive worldview and its cruel policies. Not quite convert or die, but -- almost worse from the far left perspective -- convert or be ruthlessly marginalized and stigmatized. Confronted with such a choice, Americans -- not just from the second America, as its enemies on the left should know -- are inclined to stop being polite and start getting real.
The misfortune, as we all know well enough from reality television, is that unhappy people who get real on national television are apt to develop the habit of overdramatizing as a way of life. Folks who are told that they are inherently unreasonable quickly turn theatrical. Treating Muslims as if they can have no place in reasonable society shows them the door to the theatrics of political violence. Treating Americans the same way is illiberal in the deepest sense.
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Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
Yuck, not a fan of the "two Americas" rhetoric. Aside from being reminiscent of John Edwards, it's incredibly facile and attempts to constrain a whole host of viewpoints into two buckets. And why not just use left vs right, or intellectuals vs. populists? If you use one of these alternate constructions -- say left vs. right instead of 1st America vs 2nd America -- the characteristics Douthat ascribes to each seem misplaced. "The first America [...] views the project as the consummate expression of our nation’s high ideals"? If not a mischaracterization, that's surely a stretch. The folks in this so-called "first America" are not especially known for their religious tolerance, and you can bet they'd put forth their very best efforts to thwart the erection of a Catholic cathedral or a Mormon temple in that very same space. And as he goes on with his characterization of 1st & 2nd Americas, I'm at a bit of a loss trying to figure out exactly who he's describing.
May '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
I'm not buying the "first America" and "second America" argument, at least in such a neat package. Distrust and outright persecution of Roman Catholics and Mormons was just as much a habit of the nation's educated elite as any "cruder" class. Consider the welcome that Catholic, Jewish or Mormon students would have experienced at Harvard a century ago, "finer-sounding speeches" not withstanding.
Both the current narrative of the "two Americas" and the historical retelling are fictions. Not only is there wisdom in both groups, there really are not two groups. The self-identified elites, many of whom would not have been admitted into the company of the earlier "elite", have adopted the elitist's traditional disdain for the populists and the "masses". There is nothing new here, and the great success of America has been to keep these ideas from becoming truly entrenched in classes and "groups".
Jun '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
Ask this "First America" what it thought about a cross out in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
Jul '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
Diane Ellis, Ed. Yuck, not a fan of the "two Americas" rhetoric.
Hey! You two kids stop fighting back there! Diane, stop picking on your brother!
"Did not."
"Did too."
May '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
There have always been two Americas: elites who think they should run the country by dint of their superior education, brainpower, or ability to "care"; and everyone else.
I'm fairly sure Ross Douthat believes himself in the former group.
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
Jimmie Bise Jr: There have always been two Americas: elites who think they should run the country by dint of their superior education, brainpower, or ability to "care"; and everyone else.
I'm fairly sure Ross Douthat believes himself in the former group.
Jimmie, Ross has never confessed to me even a repressed desire to run America, and I don't think I've seen one yet when I've gazed deep into his soul.
Agree, G.A. I'm not fond of "two Americas" framing either, but without it, it gets too hard to talk about the way some Americans really do take a comprehensively adversarial view of others. My aim here in adopting Ross's two-Americas language is to try to illustrate how treating some big portion of Americans like members of an alien tribe instead of like fellow citizens makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy -- a lesson our friends on the left would do well to dwell upon.
Jun '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
I agree with the view that the "two Americas" idea is overly-simplistic. I'm one of those Mormons who, under the Douthat view, would have been well-received and protected by the "first America." Yet when Joseph Smith went to Washington to seek help from the then-ruling elite, he was told "Sorry, can't help."
Further, if Douthat's view are correct, how does he explain the fact that, as a group, American Mormons are probably the most conservative (i.e., second American) group in the country? One would think we would be the leading members of the "first America" club.
May '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
James Poulos, Ed.
My aim here in adopting Ross's two-Americas language is to try to illustrate how treating some big portion of Americans like members of an alien tribe instead of like fellow citizens makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy -- a lesson our friends on the left would do well to dwell upon. · Aug 17 at 10:11am
Point taken, but I think the issue is one of mis-judging the scope of the "alien tribe." A strategy of demonizing a small group as a way to win the center is as old as politics. I'm listening to a Teaching Company course on Lincoln's speeches, and boy he and Douglas worked hard to paint the other as a "radical". But the current Left seems to believe that the Tea Parties and sympathizers are a small fringe element that they can safely denigrate and dismiss. That they are wrong about the scope of American dissatisfaction will be demonstrated at the polls this fall.
May '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
Stereotyping is a sign of basic intelligence. Reality is too complex for any of us to know and understand fully, so we each naturally categorize views and things into simple groups which help us understand the present and predict the future. Stereotypes are often wrong, but even the errors are good in that they are evidence of people trying to make sense of the world. Most stereotypes have some true basis in experience, however limited. One is only bad when not moderated by humility and consideration. Even the most ridiculous are often useful as thought experiments.
Douthat is right to the extent that many Americans imagine a hazily defined "other" category into which they will quickly lump anyone who disagrees with them. The category is basically defined as people one needn't listen to. Specific beliefs which fit into this group come and go as whim allows.
May '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
From pages 268-9 of The Unmaking of a Mayor (WFB, 1965):
"A woman . . . declares, ‘I think he is very courageous’, another woman adds, 'I like what he stands for.’ ‘Against welfare,’ says a fourth in a tall magenta hat, ‘and not making New York a haven for ... well …’ She says no more.".......
….."Why are you a conservative?" someone once asked the late, self-effacing Richard Weaver, professor at the University of Chicago. He declined to answer: but, under relentless pressure, finally obliged: "Because conservatism is the paradigm of essences towards which the phenomenology of the world is in continuing approximation."
Professor Weaver would have voted for me in New York in 1965 along with the lady in the magenta hat: and, in an odd sort of way, very likely for the same reasons, differently grasped.
......"Admiration," Ambrose Bierce reminds us, "is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves."
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TEA Party mom with no college, Ricochet, or Georgetown professor- come from either side of the tracks, live anywhere- and have roughly the same valid reasons for your views. I see a lot of young pundits- any ideology- who believe that they are smarter than us flyover serfs.
Jun '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
"... To be sure, there are those, like Andy McCarthy and now Newt Gingrich, who are feeding what seems to me to be a growing and errant hysteria over all things (and all people) Muslim."
Let's not allow for the possibility that McCarthy knows a lot more about Islam than "some" others of us. Perhaps he is sounding the warnig bell, as is Newt. Perhaps some of us aren't paying a lot of attention as Muslims demand more and more acceptance of sharia in the West.
Can someone here even attempt to explain how sharia can co-exist with our laws? Errant hysteria says Mr. Poulos. If it is hysterics you wish to see, click on some pictures of Muslims rioting throughout the world because of a few cartoons. Errant is it? Just pull up the Time magazine cover. You know the one, with the lovely young woman who had her nose and ears cut off for violating some sharia law.
I am a lot less worried about errant hysteria, than blase' avoidance.
May '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
cdor:
...Can someone here even attempt to explain how sharia can co-exist with our laws? Errant hysteria says Mr. Poulos. If it is hysterics you wish to see, click on some pictures of Muslims rioting throughout the world because of a few cartoons.
This is less simple than is often portrayed. Parties can agree under contract to subject their agreement to Sharia, courts, arbitration, or the Neighborhood Granny Council- as long as the process doesn't conflict with basic US law. Eugene Volokh has written on this in the past.
Obviously that doesn't apply to torts, governments, etc., that are not governed by explicit bilateral agreements. But Ahmad and Omar can write into their agreement that disputes will be handled by xyz and it is none of the government's business as long as the remedies are not unlawful or unenforceable.
The problem is when sub-communities try to inflict their rules on a group without explicit contractual consents. That is when you have to nip it and not compromise. Obviously, human rights (i.e., women's rights) must follow US law and you cannot enforceably consent away those rights.
Feb '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
The part of the article that I like best is that we need to have both "e pluribus" (out of many) and "unum" (one) in America.
We can disagree about whether there really are two groups that each only take one half of that motto as their value system. In fact, there really are groups that only value diversity and openness, and there are groups that only care about having a shared culture. In between are many, many others like myself who hold both, as we should.
So the overall point being made by the article seems valid to me. Best of all, it seems to be an argument that shows exactly where the Left is going wrong-- what they are missing-- and argues it from one of our founding mottoes.
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
Absolutely right, G.A. I'm stunned by the blindness I continue to see among even very sharp people who think Tea is just a '90s or '00s retread. I will add that too many on the left actually seem to be perfectly okay with demonizing a very large group (Prop 8 voters or pro-lifers or Iraq War supporters or...).
Jul '10
Re: Second-Class Americans: How the Left Helps Create the Right it Fears and Despises
I often remember a few days after Reagan's first election, a friend and I were in a bookstore on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and when we observed a typical frowsy NYC liberal woman, muttering to herself, "I don't know how he won," she moaned, "I don't know anybody who voted for him."
Urban liberals live in a cocoon. They imagine the "other" to be some snaggle-toothed minority randomly distributed in the rural trailer parks of flyover country.. Glenn Beck people. Rush Limbaugh people. Sarah Palin people.
Therefor, their kind must be in the sensible majority - how many trailer parks could there possibly be - and how many ignorant moonbats could possibly listen to Rush Limbaugh?