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Group Identity Convenience
Avik Roy has started a firestorm. (Spoiler alert: Take your blood pressure meds before listening to to this week’s podcast.) As noted by King Prawn, Roy has decided that the GOP is the worst thing that the Left claims it to be – racist.
“The fact is, today, the Republican coalition has inherited the people who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — the Southern Democrats who are now Republicans,” Roy says. “Conservatives and Republicans have not come to terms with that problem.”
That problem. But who really has the problem?
Group identity politics must be a neutral concept. By that I mean it can not be good for groups A, B & C but be bad for groups X, Y and Z. But the Left wants it that way. Roy’s answer is to surrender to it, part and parcel. Blacks may identify as being black and demand “group rights,” and the same for women, Hispanics, Asians, Gays, et. al. Whites must crucify themselves on a cross of their own whiteness (especially for the unholy Trinity – White, Christian and Male).
During the taping of the podcast this morning someone said to me, “But the country is changing. Society is changing. We either figure out a way to be relevant or we die. It’s not complicated.”
I’ve heard this argument before. The mainline Protestant denominations have been at it since the 1970s. They’ve become so “relevant” that they’ve almost completely put themselves out of business. When “relevancy” overtakes truth you’re doomed.
That “truth” for Conservatives (as opposed to the “truth” for Christians) is that freedom and liberty are based on the rule of law for each individual, not through guilt or absolution based on an identity, be it gender, race or sexual orientation. Otherwise the whole thing falls off the rails. If guilt in crimes should not be assumed because of group identity then neither can innocence. And worse than declaring innocence is declaring an excuse. Saying “Yes, your honor, my client committed the crime but must be excused” is not justice, social or otherwise. You don’t create justice through injustice.
The worst part of this group identity absolution was on display last night at the Democratic Convention. The parents of Capt. Humayun Khan spoke about the loss of their son in Iraq. If none of the perpetrators of death and destruction are emblematic of Islam, then neither is the late Capt. Khan emblematic of its absolution. If Nidal Hassan, Omar Mateen, Syed Rizwan Farook, Tashfeen Malik and the Tsarnaev Brothers are only individually guilty then only Khan himself was responsible for being an honorable American soldier. The fact that you may have to slow immigration to individually assess whether they are Khans or criminals is not proof of racism.
My son’s best friend in the Corps is an immigrant from the West Coast of Africa. Their racial and cultural heritage could not be farther apart. Yet when push comes to shove they each know they will have the other’s back. They know because they share the idea that the Corps, and what it stands for, is bigger than the color of their skin or whether they talk with a flat Midwestern accent or that of a mix of tribal dialect and French. Black or white, native or immigrant, they are brothers under the Eagle, Globe and Anchor.
If your main goal is to grow Conservatism or the Republican Party, declaring to the world that everything vile that the Marxists and race-baiters have been saying about you is true en masse is not the way to start. Self loathing unconditional surrender is the road to the concentration camp, the road to a totalitarianism that declares the law is nothing more than a tool of political revenge. It is not the road back to the American ideals of true equality and justice.
Instead you must, like the Corps, find that something bigger, that thing that unites. Will the GOP have undesirable elements vote for them? Sure. So do the Democrats. They accept it and move on. So should we.
Published in General
Depends who do I hate?
If Rob Long wants to expand the Ricochet membership, then I’d suggest including with greater frequency guests on the podcast who have a positive outlook on conservatism and the GOP. I used to listen to all the podcasts regularly but now put on only Money and Politics when it comes out. The rest have a consistently dour and complaint-ridden tone that I can do without most of the time. This latest Ricochet podcast is a case in point.
They don’t want to forgive because its so useful to them. They want whites to continue to feel that we have sin to redeem. They want to other side to continue to feel aggrieved about this historical wrong, and to blame it for all their current problems, because this anger and this blame give them power. They’ don’t care about healing and moving on – no power in that!
“I started giving quizzes to my juniors and seniors. I gave them a ten-question American history test… just to see where they are. The vast majority of my students – I’m talking nine out of ten, in every single class, for seven consecutive years – they have no idea that slavery existed anywhere in the world before the United States. Moses, Pharaoh, they know none of it. They’re 100% convinced that slavery is a uniquely American invention… How do you give an adequate view of history and culture to kids when that’s what they think of their own country – that America invented slavery? That’s all they know.” –Dr. Duke Pesta, University of Wisconsin
I’m quoting this part of CBA’s comment because I think it’s the most important part of what Roy had to say, yet it’s being discussed the least because everyone is attacking him as if he had simply repeated exactly what Democrats have been saying about the GOP for the past 40 years.
Even if you disagree with Roy’s actual argument (as opposed to the argument Vox advanced or the argument that nobody advanced but people on Ricochet are responding to), he does give practical advice for flipping groups that are assumed to be future Democrat voters by spreading conservative principles. I think that advice good enough to at least consider taking.
Just more proof that at the top there is not really much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. Just a bunch of rich elites that like to meddle in other’s affairs and when it goes wrong yell racist and try to blame whitey to cover their own ineptitude.
Excellent post!
I do not accept the leftist premise that if there are issues in American politics that are correlated to race, then it follows that some group or other is “racist.” African-American voters are monolithically Democratic. It therefore follows that those of us who are opposed to the leftist/socialist policies of the Democratic Party are monolithically opposed to the African-America voting bloc. I utterly reject the idea that this fact says anything about our attitudes toward race or racial groups. I reject it even to the point that I refuse to take offense at the fact that someone points out the truth of the racial divide in voting blocs.
I would like to suggest that we, as Republicans and conservatives, need to stop whipping ourselves into a frenzy of offense every time someone mentions the subject of race. Doing so only plays into the leftist ploy of keeping African-Americans “on the plantation” by constantly accusing our side of racism. We need to be able to talk about race in terms other than making accusations about who is or is not a racist. We need to be able to talk about political issues that correlate to racial voting blocs, without making the discussion about race.
Amen.
Political scientists have (tried) to explain how Appalachia and the South went from staunchly Democratic to staunchly Republican in less than a generation.
Some blame race relations and the Democratic Party’s embrace of the civil rights movement. Others cite religious faith and the hold that social conservatism has on evangelicals in that region.
A big part of the explanation lies in the fact that many in the white working class saw precisely what I did, working at Dillman’s.
I learned how people gamed the welfare system. They’d buy two dozen packs of soda with food stamps and then sell them at a discount for cash. They’d ring up their orders separately, buying food with food stamps, and beer, wine, and cigarettes with cash. They’d go through the checkout line speaking on their cell phones. I could never understand why our lives felt like a struggle while those living off of government largesse enjoyed trinkets that I only dreamed about. . . .
Every two weeks, I’d get a small paycheck and notice the line where federal and state income taxes were deducted from my wages. At least as often, our drug-addict neighbor would buy T-bone steaks, which I was too poor to buy for myself but was forced by Uncle Sam to buy for someone else. …… it was my first indication that the policies of Mamaw’s “party of the working man”—the Democrats—weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
JD Vance
Back when they taught history and economics together I was taught that Chatel Slavery was a complete economic disaster. The Southern economy was a disaster held up by the North. Like other economic systems that violate Free Market principles (chief among them is a right to benefit from the fruit of your own labour). Chatel Slavery was unsustainable.
I think Roy didn’t intend a sweeping indictment of the center right. However, many of his comments seemed to point to the idea that we now provide racists with a congenial environment. So, like someone who forswears Marx but admires Piketty, it’s a distinction without a difference. Vox was grateful for the raw material he provided. Fact is, the Democrats always provided a home for racism — early on it was the condemning pro-slavery edition; later it was the patronizing edition. The right, whenever it seemed to veer into an equal and opposite reaction, would be corrected by people like Buckley, who would throw you out of the mainstream, the way he helped expel the Birchers. We need a new Buckley.
When I mention racists, I mean white racists. Any other kind is part of the dem platform. Our current depressing situation is due to increasing numbers of Republicans actually starting to buy the old democrat story, that we’re in a racial Cold War: where one “race” wins, the other loses. A con.
(Roy cites polls. Obama trolls the right regularly by regretting our history aloud, deploring the crimes of Christianity. People are conned into thinking he’s a Muslim. Ridiculous. He believes in nothing for more than 10 minutes. He doesn’t hate whites; he’s rewarded for acting like he does, but he hasn’t the attention span. Roy believes the polls reflect our inmost hearts, but they’re just a summary of the latest press cycle.)
The last time we got conned by the dems’ collectivist routine was with the Civil Rights Act, where Goldwater understood that you can’t suspend the Constitution just this once, and where, in the old, sad, ending he couldn’t explain what was at stake. And so the Republicans could be framed as racist. We go through this a lot.
And here we are again, tempted to think of whites as a “race.” If we want an end to this nonsense, we must be colorblind, as a core value. Laws are for everyone. We can’t buy the Dem story that Americans are born wearing the uniform of a team or an army competing against another. Racism doesn’t quite rise to the dignity of “evil.” The more accurate description is stupid, or primitive or delusional. But you can’t make common cause with stupidity. If Trump makes use of racists, he’ll pay tenfold for choosing badly.
The only problem with this statement is that since I am white, or appear to be white, I am de facto racist. Doesn’t matter what the argument or topic is. Since I appear to be Caucasian, I am racist.
Being called a racist has no effect on me anymore. Life’s just too short to worry about it.
This is some kind of group identity working on placing me, who is an avowed Constitutionalist and has always voted for Republican candidates, as being willfully associated with racists because my political support for POTUS is the same as essentially half of voting Americans.
Perhaps we could have an additional check-off on the ballot such as Trump – but I am not racist or Clinton – but I am not a racist, to clarify how stupid this concept is.
Agreed. But unfortunately the Republicans nominated Trump who has not even attempted to make your argument above. And don’t hold your breath waiting for it.
Yes, the main goal is to grow conservatism and the Republican party. But that is difficult to do when the Republicans nominate someone who exemplifies every stereotype that the Marxists and race-baiters have been saying about us. Rich, white, angry, old, etc.
Sadly, the Republican voters have played right into their hands and have taken the bait.
The Dems are simply better at politics than Repubs. Devious, sinister, but much much better.
Well said. My only caveat is that I don’t care anymore if the Republican party grows or not, as it is no longer a vehicle for conservatism. At least in the past it gave lip service, and sometimes even more, to conservative principles, but that’s gone.
That’s also racist.
Where Obama was born? I believe it was Hawaii. His mother was an American citizen which renders the question immaterial anyway.
Is Obama a Muslim? I believe actually he’s nothing other than a sociopathic self-worshipping narcissist. If it comes down to a question of favoring one vs. the other, I think he will almost always favor Islam.
Reality is sufficiently flexible nowadays that you could identify as any race you choose. From Amazonian Indian to Zulu, the choice is yours.
Of course. Plus, anyone who is not white cannot possibly be racist. Its unpossible to be non-white and racist!
As am I.
Racist.
I believe the GOP’s wholesale embrace of identity politics – as evidenced by the otherwise inscrutable embrace of Marco-Great-Story-Rubio – is what Professor Richard Epstein calls “rising above principal”.
Why do Americans have such high expectations when it comes to demographic virtue? One way of describing the “southern strategy” is “we’ll be nice to the racist voters, treat them with some respect but do absolutely nothing for them policy wise.”
This is not a strong argument, and I don’t think anyone really believes it. What people believe is that poor GOP voters (as opposed to our politicians) are less virtuous than poor Dem ones, and *that* is what tars conservatives of all classes as morally unclean.
It’s a disgusting, prolephobic way of viewing the world, and an intolerant one.
Try saying this in a Russian accent. How does it sound?
Do you want guests with a positive outlook on the GOP or conservatives? The latter are Hard to come by among the former.
One problem I heard listening, and then saw as I read the interview, is the conflating of “white identity politics” with “American” cultural norms. I think what Roy refers to as hidden messaging and subtext to white voters is really politicians speaking to American cultural norms. It’s like inner-city kids criticized as “acting white” for studying hard, tucking in their shirts, etc. Of course they’re not “acting white,” they are following a recipe for success. Consider the following list, if a politician paid lip service to these is he speaking to white identity politics (WIP?), or is he just speaking to American cultural norms for success?
Attending a church, other references to faith or God, working hard, getting a job, hunting, fishing, other “survival” or traditional skills, owning your own home, getting married before having children, staying married and avoiding divorce, raising children in two parent households, sending kids to college or trade schools, military service, holding criminals accountable, not enriching the undeserving poor, value in work, doing the right thing, the list goes on.
Most of the things on the list don’t apply to many “whites” today, but hey all apply to a culture that once existed in most of America and still exists at least in principle in much of the country. Republicans tend to speak to a shared cultural norm, anyone can join it, just as conservatism can help any group.
It seems silly to say that speaking to a majority of the counties of the country, regardless of race, who believe in those things and try to live them, is somehow racist. It isn’t.
That’s a great point. But it’s impermissible for the Right to defend these cultural norms, because they will be seen as wanting to resurrect an era in which those norms walked hand-in-hand with the oppression of anyone not white, women, gays, and so on. Only the Left can talk about those things now, because they mean them honestly, you see, not as code words for heteronormative white patriarchal dominance.
There has to be a distinction between, say, hard racism – your David Dukes and many of the alt-right – and soft racism. I have known too many on the right, more of them of late, who feel blacks are all on welfare and taking the hard earned money of hard working white people, who believe all muslims are terrorists, and that mexicans are taking over the county. They don’t dislike these group for existing, but nevertheless fear they are taking things from white people and dread the day whites are in the minority. Given how many I know who have come out of the closet recently, I fear there are more of those in the party than I ever suspected (and if you are being honest you know that they made some percentage of the party).
Are there racists on the left? Absolutely. But that’s their party. On our side, because we DO have that perception of being racists, many black I know simply will not listen to anything we have to say. They assume we lie, assume we want them all back in servitude. I don’t care that this is an unfair perception that doesn’t tarnish the left equally. The point is it is there, and we must deal with it. By ignoring it, we will be assumed to be complicit.
Kurt Schlichter at Townhall.com answers Avik Roy ….
So conservatives … what have we learned from this Trump thing?
So what have we learned about ourselves? Maybe that many of us are snobs. There’s a lot of class warfare going on here, a lot of backroom snark, with a lot of conservatives who want to believe that the only people who could ever support Donald Trump are knuckle-dragging morons who can’t cut it when it comes to anything besides digging ditches. Too many of us choose cultural solidarity with the liberals we live among over political solidarity with the people we expected to vote with us.
“Gosh,” we tell ourselves. “These people can’t even see what’s in their own best interest.” Except maybe they don’t like what they see. Maybe it’s because they decided we aren’t worth listening to. Maybe they don’t like us conservatives. And maybe we better figure out how to fix that instead of whining.
Soft racism. That is what Democrats do. President George W. Bush accurately called it the soft bigotry of low expectations