People like Tucker Carlson are craven ghouls; to give them this attention without making it explicitly clear that their ideas are racist, and Carlson spends his time on Fox News framing a racist ideology as normal, would be a mistake.
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Interesting. They name their little boys' club after the man who is known for admonishing us that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Where is the nationalism in that?
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Two comments. First, “The main threat to your ability to live your life as you choose...” begins Carlson. Huh? What are you talking about? Homo sapiens sapiens is a social animal. We have never had the option of living the life you choose, somehow magically beyond the constraints of communities, family, and nation-state. That talk is nothing but antigovernmentalist propaganda.
Second, there is no such thing as a generic nationalism. A nationalism has a basis in, for example, race, political values, or economic values. As the leader of the GOP party is most certainly an ethnic nationalist, I’m perfectly justified in assuming that a self-described “nationalist” is actually an ethnic nationalist. Ethnic nationalism is racist, xenophobic, and has no future on a globe populated by a species whose history has been and continues to be one of migration. Global climate change is only going to fuel migration so ethnic nationalism is an imaginary solution.
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One picture...a thousand words.
A pure knucklehead.
All the Fox talking heads combined have the integrity of a mosquito - actually that’s a bit denigrating to mosquitos everywhere.
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This conference was a rancid stew of racism and anti-Semitism. A laughable attempt to dress their bigotry in intellectual clothes.
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It's not just the right that is struggling with what is an acceptable version of nationalism and what isn't. On the left, the word "nationalism" remains a pejorative, but some closely related concepts are being clarified, defended, and/or rehabilitated.
For example, from a recent NYT book review: "In “This America,” Lepore defends a version of civic patriotism against the three alternatives: illiberal nationalism, identity politics and liberal nationalism."
Modern Monetary Theory requires a state to manage a fiat currency, so it's no surprise that MMT'ers Mitchell and Fazi give importance to national sovereignty: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/08/make-left-great/
Thomas Frank has been working to rehabilitate the term "populism": https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/23/thomas-frank-trump-populism-books
Also related is the "politics of place": http://www.placeness.com/the-politics-of-place/
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GOP s’ only real consistent philosophy is festering plutocracy into America. Their unwavering support for Trump is due to their huge tax cut, and conservative judges who will enforce their plutocracy while accepting Trump's bigotry, misogyny, nepotism, crony capitalism, fraud, conspiracy, and collusion, money laundering for the Russian mob/government, etc.
They spend billions on political cabal of think tanks, fakes studies, and own major media markets with their ministry of misinformation of fuax news and Sinclair network, etc. Elect hucksters, clowns and conmen/women, to con voters to who vote against their own interests with trickle-down economics of tax cuts, corporate welfare, reduce worker rights/income, privatize social services like education, healthcare, etc.
Those with money can take advantage of a system they created while their voters are too stupid to realize they are left with nothing! They shepherded their voters using Orwellian tactics equating anything that helps 99% of us as socialist, communist, liberal, undemocratic, taking away our freedom, etc. Their success are evident in creating a massive vitriol anti-immigration voters in places with few immigrants.
From Nixon to Trump they win with racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious zealotry, etc. Trump just makes it obvious. Elizabeth Warren says system is rigged with sound anti-GOP policies will begin to cure us from this cancer. We need a GOP to be the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt again.
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@beachboy Warren certainly understands how rigged the system is and what to do about it. I hope she is successful.
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“In effect,” she said, this “means taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.”
That line is literally followed by:
"The conference was full of attacks on identity politics..."
Unreal. "Identity politics" is what this whole movement as well as Trump and his acolytes are all about. To these people the term doesn't apply when it's white Christian identity politics, only when it's a racial, religious, or sexual minority speaking out. Amazing they don't see that.
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All I could glean from this piece is what nationalism isn't, not what it is, other than something that requires "assimilation of immigrants into a common culture. And that "common culture" consists of what and is decided by whom? Is there a part 2 to this piece yet to come that will elaborate?
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@Jay Orchard
Considering the author didn't seem to pay much attention to what was actually being said, doubtful.
The contempt she feels for her assignment is palpable, and as gratuitous as her liberal use of Yiddish words.
Quite frankly, it sounds like she spent most of her time talking to people at the bar instead of paying attention to what was being said at the conference about what nationalism actually is.
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@viv, “In effect,” she said, this “means taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.” Direct quote from the conference & why separating “white” from “nationalism” is disingenuous nonsense. Nationalism is always about who dominants a society. Its cultivated within a racial, ethnic and religious cultural context with the deliberate oppression of anyone that the dominant culture find threatening to its perceived interests. In China it’s the communist party and the Han majority. In America it’s white conservative religious republicans who have seen their power diminishing and have embraced nationalism as part of a reactionary response.
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Could you share what Yiddish words were used? I can’t find any.
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