"Conservatism’s racism problem is real." Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.
33
It may not be white nationalism to say "babies are good".
But it is undoubtedly stupid to advocate for human population growth as humans teeter on the brink of making planet earth uninhabitable.
Ross, you seem to be very up on religion and politics. Why don't you try reading some science?
29
If you don't openly condemn, and adamantly oppose, White Nationalism, you're part of the problem.
Not being a racist means nothing. You can't say you don't hate people, if you do nothing to oppose discrimination.
Either you stand for equal rights, equal protection, equal treatment, or you don't. And if you don't, you don't get to complain about being lumped in with the White Nationalists and White Supremacists. No innocent bystanders on this.
And if you want to call yourself a Christian, you'd better be 100% in on The Golden Rule.
36
Yes, Ross (full disclosure, no relation; I hope) but Vance wants more white babies...You know that and yet you dissemble...And, what "church" should a country have as the state religion? Why not lots of churches (or none?)
12
Ok, just thought of another headline for this opinion piece:
" I am not a racist, but ...."
20
Sounds like another NY Times columnist working off grudges for things directed against his friends.
I'll agree with Douthat here when he agrees that conservatives trying to find anti Semitism in everything liberals say is equally wrong.
And, Ross, if you dig a little deeper you will find "both sides do it."
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/07/sam-seder-msnbc-reverses-decision-to-fire-contributor-sam-seder/
5
When the Republican Party publicly and officially abandons the poisonous, vicious racist dog whistles it has repeatedly employed over the last 70 years in tens of thousands of elections at the local, state and federal level, then you can write an article about a handful of media errors, misinterpretations and misrepresentations. Until then, let’s keep the public whining under wraps. It’s unseemly and just reveals the disconnect you and your fellow “conservatives” have from reality.
16
While it is true most Republicans are not white Nationalists, Ross fails to mention the legacy of modern American conservatism, that helped to pave the way for Donald Trump and the white nationalists to hijack the Republican Party. I preface my comments by saying that I do not infer the following Republicans were white nationalists.
Barry Goldwater ran a campaign hostile to the civil rights era for equality of African-Americans.
Richard Nixon followed up with a successful Southern Strategy of the “silent majority” who desired “law and order”.
Ronald Reagan who began his campaign for president in Philadelphia, MS. Enshrining states’ rights and catcalls for ‘welfare queens’.
Lee Atwater and George HW Bush with Willy Horton and the infamous nomination of Clarence Thomas
Ross, there have been many others in the conservative movement who disparaged people of color, including native Americans. If more Republicans would have come to the defense of President Obama for who he was: a legitimate US citizen twice-elected Pres of the US, perhaps the frenzy of mischaracterizations you rightfully cite in your editorial would not have had to be identified.
The problems that you identify as so unfair were also leveled against Pres.Obama daily by so many from the GOP mainstream, yet where were you Ross, or David Brooks, or the author of hillbilly Elegy?
Turnabout is not fair play, although in trump worked it is. The insanity should have been stopped years ago!
17
You're missing the point of all this racist bologna. That is, the machine Democrats want to control discussion and prevent reform of the party To do that, they create balkanization. It prevents the blacks, hispanics, whites and asians from getting together to reform the Democratic party. It probably slows down adoption of more moderate stances by some of the Republicans. And it serves the neocon agenda of keeping moderate parties in the United States from interfering was the agenda of Israel. So we have many actors creating social dissension, as a method to prevent reform.
2
The idea of an ethnic state isn’t “dangerously illiberal"?
Democracy and the logical pluralism it entails is the bedrock of liberalism. To exclude individuals from other ethnicities, skin color, and religious affiliation is the definition of illiberal, Mr. Douthat. This is what the Jewish state does. It is what Trump is trying to do in America. I’ll even give you that the establishment of the Jewish state was justified in the wake of the Holocaust and WWII, but that doesn’t mean the idea of an ethnic state can be congruent with liberalism. You better re-read Mill and others.
That said, there’s a reason we conflate Trump conservatives (who are trying to redefine conservatism as nationalism (fascism’s abusive father)) with their so-called “moderate” or “never-Trumper” counterparts. It’s because of your inaction, and your refusal to ever vote for someone of the other party, within the confines of our two party state; meaning your passive allowance of it you responsible for the coming future too, because the way you vote makes the statement that liberalism is worse than nationalism.
You conservatives would do well to recognize that illiberal states threaten every political philosophy, conservatism included. Do the right thing Ross'. You and the anti-Trump Republicans, vote for the only viable alternative and take a stand against Trump's and Israel's movement toward illiberalism.
16
Going back to antebellum times, conservatism has been the handmaiden of racism through concepts like state's rights, separate but equal and various schemes for limiting the franchise. Conservatives have been sleeping with racist dogs for years, and when those dogs roused themselves to move over to the Republican Party, they brought their fleas with them. Just as the Democrats, including FDR, were guilty of coddling racists for their own ends until recent decades, the conservative movement and the GOP have that problem today. You are known by the company you keep.
6
When Ross can explain why poor black women can’t get abortions, but rich white women can, I will believe that Republicans are not racist. Until then, let the facts speak for themselves.
We will give Ross the benefit of the doubt and say that there are 330 million people in the United States. 41% of them approve of Trump. So there are more or less hundred 32 million Trumpers. I am sure that a few hundred thousand of those people aren’t racist. But if you look at the polling data you will find the great majority are. When I talked to Trump people, they all tell me that white people are better and that black people are lazy. They all believe in a white God who loves white people. They all think their white God is superior.
15
"First Rachel Maddow’s show ran a segment accusing a judicial nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Steven Menashi (an old friend, full disclosure), of highbrow white supremacy for a 2010 law review essay arguing that Israel’s status as a Jewish homeland is normal rather than dangerously illiberal, because liberal democracies the world over often have similar ethnic identities and foundations. (The Maddow segment neither mentioned that Menashi is Jewish nor that Israel was his primary subject.)"
Maddow's accusation doesn't hold because Menashi is Jewish? Or because Israel was Menashi's primary subject?
Somebody else want to explain critical reasoning to Douthat? Because I give up.
9
A pretty good tell for "white nationalism," white supremacism," "white power," "Christian identity" and affiliated whackery is whether or not the individuals in question are horrified by miscegenation. At the core of all of these belief systems is a deep-seated horror at race mixing and interracial children. It's at the center of all of their conspiracies theories from "White Genocide" to "The Great Replacement" and so on. If they don't feel some kind of existential horror at the idea of interracial marriage or if they don't wilt in horror at the thought of white women not having a dozen Aryan children a piece, they probably aren't white nationalists & co.
They are certainly not white nationalists according the historical and popular understanding of what this word means (the KKK, the Order, Aryan Brotherhood, etc.) They might still meet the insanely nebulous and amoeboid definition of white nationalism that the academy provides, but this definition is vague to the point of uselessness and is not what the overwhelming bulk of the public thinks of when they hear or use the term.
3
Yet another NY Times editorial giving giving a some sort of rationalization for the fact that these people support a system of government that is systemically racist. If you are not for us you are against us, Conservatives who have passive aggressively supported what has been going on do not get a free pass.
5
The racism problem is not just fed by "a Republican president who race-baits," but by his followers who can't seem to call him what he is - a racist. He is not just an innocent baiter who goes around baiting. He actually holds racist views, makes racist statements, formulates racist policies, and performs racist actions.
The author, styling himself as one of the sensible ones, is too cowardly to call it what it is. The racism problem is racism, and it's not just the commander in chief. The baiting wouldn't work were there not racists eager to take the bait.
9
Well, the thing about the birthrate thing is that it really sounds like Vance and Douthat are really saying the white birthrate is too low. In fact, when you look at the data, white and Asian birthrates are low in the US. Hispanic is over 2, African American is almost 2 per woman. So, let Vance and Douthat exlicitly say that they want more black and hispanic babies in the US and that could be a start. Right now, it just sounds like they are saying we need more white babies.
7
While traditional conservatism is a healthy part of the political calculus, it is too often associated with, and used to serve the ends of greedy plutocrats.
To me, conservatism is about conserving current conditions rather than changing them. In the political discourse, it is quite legitimate for one side to advocate for changing things, and for the other side to say "not so fast".
So here we are, trying to draw a line between what is healthy discussion and what is racist. In my mind, concern for the future of Western civilization is not racist if we are willing to include different races. And so is questioning how many newcomers we can let in before they turn America into something resembling where they came from more than what it is now, while providing a decent life for the people who are here now.
Population is a vicious circle: how do you keep an economy healthy as the population declines, and how do you deal with the inevitable gray wave? Is it not conservative to want to conserve the natural world instead of consuming it like a plague of locusts?
Does it make me a racist if I want to reduce population, and most of the increase is coming from people who are a different skin color than myself? Is it racist to wonder if they will treat my descendants poorly when they become the majority? Is it racist to believe that the racial mix will have a profound effect on how that future will play out?
2
No one likes to be labeled falsely as a racist, so the anger of Ross Douthat when some of his conservative Republican friends were charged by reporters with being white supremacists is understandable.
There is and always has been an unfortunate phenomenon of human perception and opinion formation called guilt by association. A reporter who observes a conservative Republican interacting with a white supremacist who, unsurprisingly, also is a conservative, may jump to the wrong conclusion about the conservative Republican.
That does not make the reporter an evil person, just a sloppy reporter.
Democrats probably run into a similar problem more often than Republicans, because we have a larger tent which welcomes more diversity of thought. If a progressive or even a centrist Democrat engages with a self-identified socialist, who happens also to be a Democrat, a reporter may make the mistake of assuming both individuals are socialists.
Ross Douthat may be overreacting. He and his friends have every right to call out the reporter who went astray, and they have done that. It’s done.
One thing which Ross Douthat writes at the end of his column is something which needs clarification. He writes about “conservative ideas that are … true.”
Ideas may be silly or brilliant and deep or shallow, but they are never false or true. A fact, or something claimed to be a fact, can be false or true.
Indeed, a fact must be one or the other.
2
There is no institutionalized 'left' that has harmed the body politic in the US. No gay feminist vegans are committing mass murders. There is, however an aggressive, radicalized, armed "right" that has been incited and lied to by the likes of center-right media organs like the NYT and those whom it compensates for their 'opinions'- like Douthat.
Having been party to the damage Conservatism has wrought on our society and institutions, they now whine endlessly about 'civility' and "listening to each other" and "shared cultural traditions". Like clean air & water? A secular government of Constitutional Law? A social safety net?
The right of children to receive a quality education at an adequately-funded public school and NOT DIE from gun-crazed Trump Fanatics shooting them?
When someone claims to be a Democrat and tells you that some phantom "radical left" is "pushing" them toward Republicans, a few possibilities exist:
1. They're lying. Challenge them to explain exactly what those "radical left" policies are, and why they oppose them. Crickets.
2. They have rationalized themselves into a state of extreme cognitive dissonance. "Moderate"? What does that mean? 50% fewer children in cages? Grudging acceptance of gay people but hatred of other races? Grudging acceptance of black people but continued misogynistic actions against women? Hate Lite?
3. ...if it looks like a duck...
14
"It is not white nationalism to believe that countries like the United States would be better off with more babies. "
No it's not; it's white nationalism to be concerned with the skin tone of those babies.
8
"it’s not white nationalism..."
"...for conservatives to try to find ways to persuade and reel back people on the right who are tempted by bigoted ideas."
"...to believe that growing ideological uniformity in the commanding heights of culture makes American politics more polarized.
where is this happening?
2
Separating people based on differences that are superficial, such as skin color, clothing, or religion, is a backwards mentality that I hope the future avoids. Many different people from all backgrounds have something to contribute. As such, they should have a say in what happens around them.
Whether a person is liberal or conservative, Muslim or Jewish, upper class or lower class, they all should be respected as productive members of society. Trump's comments suggest a lack of empathy towards others that are not white or Christian. Telling others to "go back to the country they came from" is highly uncalled for and quite frankly childish.
While there are bad seeds within every group, whether they be terrorists or racists, they need not define the whole group. I am always saddened to see that the many of certain groups stay silent while the bad seeds continue to "define" what that group's "values" are. Many Republicans are not racist, many Muslims are not terrorists, many priests are not sexual offenders. However, headlines always portray these aspects vividly, disregarding the vast majority of how many of these people act in modern society. This further fuels the fire and the cycle continues.
When in doubt, sitting down and chatting with individuals that belong to these groups opens up a variety of doors that allow one to learn more. I hope in the future we are willing to listen to others and more accepting of others beliefs, regardless of what the media says
5
I find pronouncements of 'pro natalism' creepy and worrisome especially due to 'social conservative' inclination to look for a government's police powers to enforce their beliefs, rather than economic incentives. Will we have to worry about plan B and hormonal contraception bans next?
7
Re- the piece by Eve Fairbanks. What she wrote resonated with me. My Trump-loving relatives cannot understand why anyone is upset with Trump. They like what he does (appoints far-right judges), and they ignore what he says. Or rather, they only watch Fox News, so they are completely unaware of any of the ugly things he says.
It's as if I and people are care about are being smashed repeatedly from behind by their leader, carrying a huge club, and they can't understand why I can't have a nice calm rational conversation with them. Why am I so angry? Can't we all just get along?
9
"recrudescence of racism on the right" implies that it went away at some point. This is not really what happened.
5
Sorry, no go Mr.Douthat. Do this: Own it. Sleep with dogs and you get fleas- That is old school. Every responsible parent tells their child to be careful of associates. The present day Republican Party does not unequivocally denounce racial, ethnic bullying and is blindly accommodating continued de facto support of vile behaviors and opinions that hurt and harm people.
There is a stain with associations with White Nationalist that is not surgically defined; "good people on both sides" or "coexistence of these two realities" argument. So the idea that: I am not a racist antagonist but, yes I go to the same parties, have fun, drink benefit from the racist antagonist and I say nothing...forget it.
Silence Equals Death.
Or: "The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Or: "Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. Haile Selassie
Or maybe we should all live in the "Garden of the Finzi-Continis" until "they" take us away to a knowable, predictable and obvious fate. Or what Douthat says: "what a healthy conservatism would look like if the racist strain were quarantined" - really?
Sorry those of us who are "woke" gonna stay "woke" until we are all on the other side of this mess.
5
racism is as fundamental to conservative ideology as is any economic theory put forward by Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek or Ludvig von Mises.
4
Conservative rhetoric currently refers to certain left-leaning policy proposals as "socialism", but these liberal policies are only trying to solidify a "social safety net" into the fabric of American society.
Yet many Conservative voters (the 'base') benefit directly from the social programs currently in place (which are far fewer in America than in almost any other developed nation, by the way.)
This cynical bait-and-switch is sold to the conservative 'base' through a fog of racism, and only benefits those groups and families with significant incomes, who therefore seek to reduce their own taxes - at the expense of poor people of every race and creed.
This article by Douthat is part of the fog, and sounds like the old trope: "some of my best friends are...".
Follow the money instead. With a strong, fully-funded "Social Safety Net", (which would cost everyone less in the long run) the desperation that poverty induces would lose its edge, and racism would lose at least some of its power.
Republicans are using racism to incite their voting 'base', thereby gaining their votes, and then sticking it to these same supporters by cutting both taxes and social safety net programs.
This most cynical action is all about the money, folks. Conservatism is all about the money, all about elite Conservatives riding on the backs of those people they can trick into voting for them. Racism, (also a deeply held belief) is only one tool in the project of stealing money from the public.
6
If conservatives actively repudiated white nationalists and cast them out, then there’s be no ambiguity, but they didn’t, haven’t, and probably won’t.
6
I would think that there is something wrong with a state declaring itself to be of a single ethnicity or religion when said state includes citizens of not said ethnicity or religion. Israel's population is 20 per cent Arab and 25 per cent non-Jewish. And that's not even mentioning the Palestinian occupation issue.
7
Seriously Mr. Douthat, do you actually think that the problem of racism and the GOP is a recent state of affairs ... a Trump era phenomena only?
The GOP has been racist for a very long time. Have you forgotten that race-baiting was the foundation for the GOP's Southern Strategy that yielded the southern voting bloc .. the solid south. It rendered the winning template later on for Lee Atwater, the GOP's iconic political campaign architect who refined the Southern Strategy for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.
And, now, what unites and animates the Trump electorate more than any other factor is white grievance.
No, progressives didn't force the GOP .. kicking and screaming .. against its will .. to embrace racism. As a factual matter, conservatism has delegitimized itself.
6
Ross finishes with "...accusations of white nationalism can somehow quarantine conservative ideas that are both not actually racist and also, in many cases, true." Ross, besides support for the wealthy and powerful and destroying the role of government in our lives, what other Republican ideas are there? Oh, yea, more defense to protect the one thing the aforementioned cannot supply for themselves.
3
Regarding the Hillbilly Elegy author, and I know this viewpoint will be criticized, but the biggest problem in the world is it is over-populated. I applaud a lower birthrate not just in the U.S., but world wide. Our country is melting -- literally -- and the last thing we need are millions of more babies, where half will be born into poverty anyway.
The economy might tank? So be it, it's better than the world being environmentally destroyed.
1
The overreaction doesn't really surprise me. And I'm not really worried if you can count the instances on one hand (without the thumb). Doesn't seem like the actual problem.
How about this, the GOP takes a cue from their Tory counterparts and actively start to oppose Trump and his racist agenda.
7
One of the problems we face in this country is false equivalencies in the media. The shortcomings of the left are treated the same as those on the right, even when they are not comparable. This is how Hillary Clinton's treatment of her emails was drummed into voters' heads as existing on the same plane of dishonesty as Trump.
Almost three years and more than 12,000 lies later, it's clear that it was a false equivalency: Trump is by far the most dishonest politician our country has produced to date.
And here, Douthat engages in a similar exercise: picking out four examples of "media smears" of the right to show the left is just as bad.
It isn't. Its simply isn't, any more than Clinton was as dishonest as Trump.
The fact is the far right has long embraced the white nationalist cause, and the Republican party both courted the far right and accepted them within their fold (although they didn't really share power with them until Trump upended the normal order). With a president who spews racist tropes and retweets white nationalist messaging, there is a very clear and dangerous problem on the right.
By concentrating on these four individual pieces, Douthat attacks the legitimacy of criticism from the left: they are just as bad in their fake attacks as the right.
Sorry, but once again that's a false equivalency. The right's problem with white nationalism far outweighs any "ideological monoculture" or liberal "cultural power" on the left.
7
Somewhere there’s a similar argument to be made that all Democrats suggesting government solutions to obviously national- level problems shouldn’t be labeled as socialists.
3
"In the end the recrudescence of racism on the right is conservatism’s problem to solve, and it has to be solved independently of whatever liberals and leftists happen to be saying."
Given the explosion of racism and hatred, and the well-documented coddling of racists since at least the Nixon era, I think your conclusion would be that "in the end the recrudescence of racism on the right demonstrates that conservatism has neither the political will nor the power to solve the problem, and should start to support the best of the liberal initiatives to solve the problems".
3
My take.
"I’m not interested in using this sequence of smears to invite pity for the plight of conservatives in the age of Trump."
2
I followed Mr. Douthat's welcome admonition to be careful in characterizing people's statements falsely. To that end I checked the segment on Maddow's show, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tznHwD66yQ0 that he referenced as one of four examples of false accusation of white supremacy. If you watch the segment you will find that Maddow takes her subject, the judicial nominee, to task for promoting the value of choosing certain ethnicities as more valuable than others as a not only OK, but core value of a liberal democracy. So I read the paper she referenced. The nominee does say just this in the paper. He uses Israel as his first example, but then tours Europe and Asia to show it is a widespread practice. But the concern with this paper is not with Israel, or Latvia, or Bangladesh, it is with our liberal democracy, America. Each of the nominee's examples are founded on defining one group of people as more valuable to that nation than any other. Is that a value America seeks? Which group would the nominee have America place above all others? Hard to imagine if America endorsed such a stance it would any other group than the one we like to call whites. But isn't that step the definition of American white supremacy? It is not clear how Maddow mischaracterized the nominee's position. And for the record, it is not mine, mine is simply put: E pluribus unum, a motto that appears on every coin minted in the US, by law, seems like I am not alone.
5
The right is not culturally excluded. There are just many 'conservative' people who never before considered that there might be other points of view and hence are triggered every time they encounter said (non-christian, feminist, anifacist, whatever) points of view. They expect their religious heritage to occupy a privileged place in 'their' society. Guess what? The rest of us have to live here, too. Also, the term 'natalist' made me throw up a little in my mouth. PLEASE, PLEASE for the sake of everything that good, do not have more babies! There are plenty of unwanted children to go around already.
5
Just one question “Mr. Self Determination”: how is it that it is okay for Israel to have its self determination but Iran can’t have its self determination.
4
I've never seen a conservative, much less a Trump supporter, denounce the documented surge in abuse and violence (including mass slaughter) of Jewish, Latino, African American, LBGTQ, etc. Americans being carried out by their fellow travelers on the right, atrocities we are witnessing with our own eyes almost weekly under this president. The only rational conclusion is Trump supporters either agree with white nationalist violence, or it doesn't bother them enough to say it's wrong.
8
What a troubling opinion piece, and for reasons entirely opposite the author's intent.
Disclosure: I support Israel's right to exist.
That said, the nation I admired 50 years ago has followed an aggressive path such that it became an oppressor. No one will ever convince me oppression of a group of people is okay because it is in defence of a 'homeland'. It's their 'homeland' as well. The abuses of power are many.
Secondly, I see more rants about liberal media bias than I ever do conservative media bias. The left trashes Fox News mercilessly, largely because it openly lacks journalistic integrity (as a network, rather than on an individual employee scale.)
White Supremacy is relentless in its pursuit of legitimacy. It has reached this level of recognition because those conservatives the author claims are pure in intent enabled them across decades. One need only look at conservative outlook toward women's rights, lgbtq rights, and opposition to things like Affirmative Action, liberalised voting rights (and their attempts to make voing difficult) to see evidence of it.
7
A historical note about the GOP and the Southern Strategy - its deepest roots go back to...1928, when the Democrats nominated a progressive (for that time) urban Irish-American Catholics from the North and Herbert Hoover's campaign saw a chance to appeal to Southern whites (and their ideological kin in the North) who would otherwise have voted Democrat. On the other side of things, FDR's New Deal began the slow switch of African-Americans from the GOP to the Democrats (notwithstanding the New Deal's generous entrenchment of Jim Crow).
1
Conservatism as practiced in the United States is inextricably linked to white nationalism in that the conservatives' patient demolition of government guarantees that systemic injustices can never be addressed. With withered enforcement power, there's no accountability. Illegitimate gains become permanent. The mountebank is given free reign. You see it in every area where government regulatory power has been reduced. Government is the only non-violent method of bringing rich reprobates to heel. As much as Douthat desires smaller government I'm pretty sure he doesn't want what came before it: Guillotines.
4
Ross, you are in your own conservative bubble where the sky is always blue.
The real-world conservatives act and behave differently than you imagine. Those who brought us Trump, those who accepted the Birther movement silently, those who obstructed working with anyone remotely liberal in congress, those who blocked voting on a Supreme Court judge during Obama's term ....... they are still very real.
Liberals crying wolf about how racism is everywhere is problematic and not helpful. But in comparison to what conservatives and the Republican party not only accepts but promotes .... it is nothing.
3
Just a note about J.D. Vance: he speaks openly about "black pathology," and if you wonder where his feelings lie, read the couple of pages of his book where he writes about Obama. He says his people hate Obama not because of his race, but simply saying that doesn't make it so, which is something that people like Douthat often forget - or reject. The fact that, like many thousands of other people, Obama went to Harvard and is well-spoken and confident, just does not explain this unintentionally revealing sentence: "Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities."
R.e. the idea of intellectual exclusion on campus, here is Vance: "Sometimes I view members of the elite with an almost primal scorn - recently, an acquaintance used the word 'confabulate' in a sentence, and I just wanted to scream."
Here's the thing: if you try to play along with a symphony orchestra by randomly banging two pot lids together, and you have a primal resentment for the musical complexity the practiced violinist exercises with joy, and then you discover everyone in the symphony doesn't want you at practice, they're not protecting some kind of ideological purity. They're trying to play music, which is what a symphony does.
Anti-intellectuals are not uncomfortable on campus because of political conformity, any more than someone who tries to ice skate on a basketball court is being excluded from playing hockey: go to the ice rink if that's the game you want to play.
10
I read Ms. Fairbanks piece, and it was, indeed, judicious.
Either Mr. Douthat completely missed her point (doubtful) or he disingenuously mischaracterizes her argument as calling people like Ben Shapiro, Bari Weiss, Bret Stephens, Sam Harris and Nicholas Kristof (for Christ's sake) white nationalists.
What she says is that it's time to stop accepting bad-faith defenses "logic" and "freedom." It's time to start thinking critically about "balance" and "tolerance." All one needs to understand where uncritical acceptance for calls for "balance" lead is to see PBS's News Hour giving Kevin McAleenan a platform to perform mental gymnastics over killing aid to El Salvador that was demonstrably reducing pressure to emigrate from that country.
If you don't have time to click on the link that Douthat provided, at least read Fairbanks' last paragraph -
"If somebody says liberals have become illiberal, you should consider whether it’s true. But you should also know that this assertion has a long history and that George Wallace and Barry Goldwater used it in their eras to powerful effect. People who make this claim aren’t “renegades.” They’re heirs to an extremely specific tradition in American political rhetoric, one that has become a dangerous inheritance."
5
To me the ultimate act of conservative white nationalism is pretending that racism is some kind of aberration in our society instead of a foundation stone. There already is a conservatism that does not pretend that and it was championed by Barack Obama.
3
Trump is the opposite of a non-racist conservative. He's a racist with no particular political persuasion because he's too ignorant and apathetic to have one.
6
My white rural neighbors are racist and voted for Trump. Their vote was strictly about abortion but they're racist none the less. Oh they don't think they are even though they were apoplectic about President Obama. Most of them still believe to this day he is a Muslim interloper working with the Brotherhood to destroy America. When they tell me they aren't racists, I ask them a few questions:
1) Do you believe Obama was born in America?
2) Do you display or own any Confederate flags or memorabilia even though you live in Northern Michigan?
3) Do you use the terms "law and order" or "state rights"?
4) Have you ever hit send on an email that depicted the Obama's as monkeys, witch doctors, terrorists or having watermelon on the White House lawn?
5) As Michiganders, do you think that Flint deserved the fate of poisoned water because of who runs the city? Ditto for Detroit.
6) Are you silent about the things you once accused Obama of?
Just because they aren't using slurs about people of color in public (though they do) doesn't mean they're absolved of their bigotry. After all, George Wallace won the Michigan primary.
5
The definition of fascism is an alliance between capital and racists. Which side are you on?
3
Next column: There are no Nazis in the Republican Party. Well, maybe just a few. But they are very fine people.
8
Perhaps you would deign to explain why racism is wrong rather than simply assert that people expounding it must be shunned or coaxed back into "acceptable" thought.
If non-racism is the belief that ancestral origin doesn't significantly influence behaviour, non-racism doesn't seem to correspond to observable reality. Race is a strong predictor for many distinctive behaviour patterns, including voting behaviour.
If non-racism is considered to be a moral value rather than a factual claim about reality, then the question must be asked why this deprecation of the pursuit of one's racial interests seemingly only applies to people of European ethnic origin. People of non-European origins seem to have few or no moral hang-ups about pursuing their own interests, nor do they tend to suffer any reproaches for it.
If "racism" is growing, it is because more and more people of ethnic European origin perceive this double standard.
1
That Fairbanks essay in the Washington Post, the one that purported to net even Bari Weiss among its catch of Confederate emulators, was a dumbfounding use of many column inches in a great paper.
Fairbanks sets up her thesis with a multi-paragraph tease in which she keeps saying the calls for civility in public discourse have been reminding her of *something* she couldn't quite put her finger on. After we've been thus primed to see what the conjurer wants seen, we're told that it's the rhetoric of apologists for slavery in the antebellum South.
Consider, now, that civil discourse has been enjoined on Democrats by no less respected mentors than Barack and Michelle Obama, by liberal writers, and by rank-and-file liberal voters. After all, the plea for civility is so general and so ubiquitous in time and space that it could have reminded Fairbanks of nearly anything. It may have once been the plea of slaveholders, but it has always been the plea of those who understand how civility serves to check forces that no one would like, once the last check had been removed.
Fairbanks knew the effect she wanted to produce and sent the English language into battle to produce it. But the English language produces better effects when we let reason and conscience be our supreme commanders.
"In the end the recrudescence of racism on the right is conservatism’s problem to solve, and it has to be solved independently"
That won't happen as long as so many on the right shift the burden, making the charge of racism the issue rather than the possibile racism itself.
The energy that politicians and pundits spend on variants of "the left has charged this too often to be believable EVER" would be much more productively used in trying to understand why, in any specific instance, the charge/accusation/description was used.
4
"a society does not automatically become illiberal or racist or authoritarian just because it retains an established church or allows a right of return or maintains a preference for a particular language."
Except Ross, when you are not a member of the established church or a speaker of the state language.
9
@david
yes, and your statement could be supplemented "whether by explicit exclusion or not."
1
Ross Douthat has missed the mark here. For example, he misunderstands Fairbanks' argument. Fairbanks is not arguing that certain conservatives are complaining needlessly about 'political correctness' and that such complaints themselves are 'white nationalist'. Rather, Fairbanks is scrutinizing these complaints to get at their logic and to unpack the very polarization in American politics which Douthat also criticises. Fairbanks is saying that the rhetoric these conservative commentators use has a confederate history/parallel, and that this rhetoric is precisely NOT overtly racist: it appears to be about something else (reason, open discourse, civility).
If we can't present arguments such as Fairbanks' about how people are recruited into perpetuating racism without thinking that they are personally 'not racist', we will never understand how we got into this pickle whereby relatively powerful conservative voices 'shoot the messengers' (the 'politically correct' ones) who are -- by the way -- NOT saying 'you can't speak', but rather, 'please have a look at accepted forms of speech and arguments which appear to be about openness and civility but have the effect of excluding non-white people, poor people, marginalised people'.
10
Well said. Thank you.
1
Opposing racism isn't like opposing an issue. Racism is different. It is not an issue, it is evil. This country was founded on institutionalized racism that, despite some setbacks, still thrives today. At some point, which to me feels long past due, a majority must rise up and elevate opposition to racism above other concerns. Being racist, enabling racism, or sometimes even failing to oppose racism must come to delegitimize an individual as a leader or representative of the people no matter what. We need leaders who not only are not themselves racist but also can see the pervasive and catastrophic racism in our institutions, populate these institutions, and dismantle the embedded racism while still running the country. A long and arduous task. We can't trade off taxation policy against racism or even abortion policy against racism. Racism is inhumane and can't be allowed to stand.
11
Thank you. Especially for taking up the “enabling” of racism. When people do not openly condemn racism in others or in politicians like Trump - and often because they benefit is some way from not “rocking the boat” - they are enablers of racism. This is true for a number of issues: sexism, sexual abuse, injustice in law enforcement, economic injustice, and much else.
7
Ross, it’s time for the supposedly neutral folks to choose a side. Great their 401k and stocks are booming, are they in agreement with the humanitarian crisis, suppression of voting on bills by Mitch McConnell and civil rights violations?
Either you’re part of the solution or you’re part of the problem. PERIOD
7
The rest of us are seriously just trying to understand why on earth, any moral human being would continue to support people like Trump, McConnell and Lindsay Graham after what has transpired, especially over the last few years. Please answer us that, and we'll quit scratching our heads.
13
The election of Trump has finally taken the veneer of 'economic conservatism' off the Republican Party. Deficits? Love 'em! Free Trade? Hello Tariffs! Economic rationalism? Well, reason has a well know liberal bias. There are no more formal positions, no more rationality, no way to negotiate to solutions. Today's Trump-led GOP has but one central organizing principal left: White Nationalism.
I honestly feel sorry for Conservatives like Douthat. They're out of power *and* they've been abandoned by the Republican Party.
7
The comments are an education in themselves. I am so taken by the educated commentary of the readers who have written their views. It takes time, patience and years of in depth reading to sort through the complexities of life and try to reach a standard of reasoning that will judge fairly. This is a life long arduous task. Mr. Douhat and the people responding to him do readers like myself a great service.
I know this goes into the can but I just wanted to say hello!
6
Unless and until their are Conservative candidates challenging Trump in the Republican primaries, I think it is fair to assume that Conservatives are happy with the status quo. Actions speak louder than words.
15
". . . a society does not automatically become illiberal or racist or authoritarian just because it retains an established church or allows a right of return or maintains a preference for a particular language." Doesn't it though? I mean make the society illiberal to have preferences like these?
5
Race relations in the entire Western Civilization are quite clearly becoming too dangerous and religious bigotry in the world over is adding its share to push the human race toward intolerance.
I want to put my two cents by suggesting a reading of Arnold J. Toynbee's collection of essays entitled "Civilization on Trial" (Oxford UP, 1948). The entire book presents a true scholar's analysis of the problems faced by the human race. In particular the essay called "Islam, the West, and the Future" should be very helpful to restore sanity to our treatment of each other.
To those who may balk at the word Islam, I want to suggest to please be informed about this religion at the least as explained by Mr. Toynbee.
2
We need more moderates in this country. Moderation is a strength, the ability to recognize that everybody has at least something to contribute even if you do not wholly agree with them. Extremism appears as a strength to some but is really weakness and, often, egotism.
5
"...a couple of days later The Post published a peculiar essay by Eve Fairbanks, a usually judicious liberal writer, accusing a group of mostly anti-Trump conservatives and centrists (including, full disclosure, my colleague Bari Weiss) of somehow adopting the rhetoric of Confederates and slaveholders when they argue that left-wing orthodoxies in the intelligentsia are oppressively stifling debate."
I read that essay. What Jordan Peterson was doing on Eve Fairbanks' list of crypto-racist neo-Confederates is a mystery to me. She did not bother to provide an explanation of any sort, either. Peterson, a Canadian, is neither a Trump supporter or a Republican. Peterson isn't even ideologically inclined toward conservatism, unless one is using a definition that implicitly concedes a lot of ground formerly held by liberals to the right wing.
I didn't find the rest of the essay that well-argued, either. The people articulating the ideas she finds disagreeable can properly be critiqued. But not with tenuous analogies comparing their views to those of writers from the antebellum South.
3
I have heard of exactly one of these four matters, (I read Fairbanks' essay, which was neither peculiar nor making the argument Douthat ascribes to it), and have heard of none of the backlash.
Color me skeptical, but I don't think four instances of what appears to be niche dustups is an epidemic of unfair "media smears."
Hardly gives credence to your argument that other people are improperly going about looking for reasons to be offended. Glass houses and all that.
9
I read the two WaPo op-eds (thank you for the convenient link Mr. Douthat). I found them both to be well written, and that they made valid arguments. On top of that, Douthat grossly misrepresented the Fairbanks op-ed. She wasn't comparing anti-trump conservatives and centrists to slaveholders, she was comparing their rhetoric to that of antebellum southerners and northerners who disdained slavery but were squelching the more forceful arguments from the abolitionists. Instead of engaging in the argument about the actual issue of slavery, they were re-framing and avoiding the issue by appealing to 'decency' and 'unity'. To use the parlance of dysfunctional relationships, they were 'enablers'.
Just as today, the Weiss', the Ellis' and the Petersons' of the world don't want to actually engage on the subjects of racism, gender, or patriarchy directly, they would prefer to proclaim (wrongly) that 'free speech' is under attack. They aren't stupid. This is because their views on these subjects are indefensible and they know it.
Just as Lincoln confronted Douglas point-blank 150 years ago and asked him if he is in fact pro-slavery or anti-slavery, these people, like Douglas, simply won't answer the direct question.
11
Odd piece. I agree with Ross's underlying premise - that the rush to demon-label things from the left is a legitimate problem.
But his first two of four are such flawed examples.
One can argue about Israel's right to turn the Occupied Territories into virtual concentration camps. But the fact that Israel turns this attention to exclusively brown people is de facto racist, even if the color bar applied is theoretically religious.
And Vance's argument would look much better as a universalist observation - if it wasn't issued specifically in the context of a conversation about the browning of America. Because - the low birth rate is a particularly white phenomenon. The racism hidden is the context that lower birthrates in "our" America are a cause for concern. The "our" need not be explicitly stated, because of the context of delivery.
I wish Ross had chosen his examples better - because this leftie agrees that the quick-label button isn't only a problem of the right. And is totally unhelpful if we want to fix things up.
But making common cause with a Republican party that is openly trying, among other things, to disenfranchise voting rights among blacks - because they disagree, and generally vote Dem - makes further arguments highly suspect, even when legitimate.
Who you sleep with does matter after all.
9
Meh. Could it possibly be that American Conservatism has been rotten and racist to its core *at least* since the Southern Strategy? How dare these opportunistic progressives smear these Good Conservatives, out here just defending dominant cultural and economic hegemonies per decades of respectable tradition! Note to Douthat: white supremacy and white nationalism are not the same thing. Conflating them just makes you look (more) like an ignorant buffoon (than usual).
13
Trump's fake Republican Party coopted can be laid at the feet of Conservative tea party. Koch Brothers' money and his subsidized think thanks, Las Vegas' Adelson's money and newpaper influence, even Ross Perot's will. Palm Beach where Trump resides is virulent in group think conspiracy theories about Obama's birth certificate and drug history when I met a wealthy resident 5 years ago. Rather than the Squad, newcomers, I would like to hear more from NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, and independent news outlets. One cannot say that MSNBC is independent minded, rarely inviting conservatives to counter Miss Maddow's overt bias. Even my liberal rabbi told the congregation in NY to turn her off. However, we have seen the descent into madness where the ultra rich can go when unimpeded, in history, Henry Ford Sr. who funded eugenics, German industrialist Fritz Thyssen(early supporter of Hitler), and presently the Sacklers and our President.
1
Just when I was starting to relax and think that politics was becoming more civil, here comes this column that should have strengthened by example my nascent hope--but, alas, it has done the opposite.
Douthat, one of our lonely, conservative never-Trumpers, is still trying to engage people who most conservatives would think of as psycho-Stalinists. Among most conservatives, the idea that the Rachel Maddow show has any remaining credibility or that its producers have any genuine willingness to accept criticism and face reality is beyond belief. It is also obvious to them that the other chosen interlocutors with which Douthat engages were not acting in good faith.
I admire RD's conscientiousness and his perseverance, and I hope myself to follow his example, but, for now, it's a lonely and mostly ineffective road.
2
I have no quibble with with the propositions concerning what is not racist. My concern is the failure to acknowledge conservatism’s reliance on racial fear to maintain electoral relevance as their otherwise non racial goals have failed to gather traction with voters. How will a post Trump conservatism appeal to a larger group beyond traditional constituencies?
Only conservatives can begin to answer this question.
8
If Mr. Douthat thinks that Eve Fairbank's article analogized conservatives to slaveholders, then he did not understand the article.
6
In theory Conservatism desires and supports thriving families. In practice, diminishing job opportunities, increased educational costs, concentration of wealth in an ever-shrinking number of hands, and insecurity about health care, all undermine the ability for an average family to thrive.
The practical matters beat your theory, every time.
12
The only way the reasonable, moderate conservatives like Mr. Douthat can regain their voice is if they are forced to do so by the President's extremist positions. That is in essence what happened today in London when Boris Johnson forced out the moderate conservatives, leaving them no choice but to caucus with the Labor Party.
7
All forms of discrimination can be destructive to a society, whether they come from conservative or liberal roots.
The conservative brand of racism lends itself to exclusion and discrimination and is both the largest and fastest growing within our country at present. This is also the racism of our deepest sins, slavery and Jim Crowe. Racism based in liberal principles is also rapidly growing, however. It is based largely in stripping historically oppressed groups of any determinant agency, and can be traced as a cause of colonialist urges and forced conversions of social and religious values.
We would do well to tighten our definition to the actual instances of racism (which are on the rise) within our communities and debate those with whom we disagree on the liberal-conservative spectrum with a measure of good faith.
Good piece, though it is a sad commentary that it needed to be written.
It past overdue to finally jettison the words "conservative" and "liberal" to describe American politics; tired, heavy overused, and now well nigh devoid of any consistency or meaning.
There is nothing whatever "conservative" about trashing practically every American tradition in sight, as Trumpublicans have been doing for nearly three years now, and resorting repeatedly to fearmongering based on bigotry.
And there is nothing at all "liberal" about being hyper-politically-correct while accomplishing almost no meaningful societal reform for decades, and instead litmus-testing the bejesus out anything and everything people say.
American politics is broken, the two political parties are principal agenst of the destruction, and this right-on column is one more illustration to add to the tons of mounting evidence.
5
White privilege = finally realizing it's not nice when your group (in this case conservatives) is the target of gross generalizations and oversimplifications, something your group has been guilty of perpetrating for decades. Let those of us in minority status offer you our thoughts and prayers along with this tiny tiny violin.
27
Very impressed by that intellectual elaboration.
Yet another false-victimhood article containing conservatives' favorite false smear - reductively accusing liberals of reductivism.
- The WaPo article indicated J. D. Vance has said something that could be considered racist. (Claim of action, possible motive)
- Douthat rewrote the entire claim to be an absolutely certain claim of identity and idenity-linked motive ( ..."is a racist".)
WaPo made no explicit reductive identity claims against Vance, but you would never know that by Douthat's hypocritically reductive claims.
15
This obsession with race is an "inside the bubble" thing. Outside the bubble, Trump is considered crude and boorish but definitely not a racist.
6
So weird that someone who is "considered definitely not a racist" is so popular with white power and neo-Nazi groups in America and worldwide. So interesting that a total non-racist would be so enthusiastically supported by David Duke, Richard Spencer, Andrew Anglin and their hundreds of thousands of followers. I guess it takes a Trump supporter to understand that logic.
4
Conservatism does have a racism problem and it is self-inflicted. The U.S. has a two-party system and the conservative party is led by a racist who is nearly universally embraced by members of his party. Of course that is deeply disconcerting to anyone who is not a racist. Much worse than anything the party leader might tweet is the fact that he is normalized by the party. Maybe that's not because he's a racist; maybe it's purely power politics. But I won't apologize for being more than a little paranoid that it's both. Russ, you would do a much greater service to the body politic spending your copy exposing conservative racists rather than defending non-racist conservatives.
11
Liberals are called socialists when most of them aren't, just as conservatives are taunted for being racists and homophobes. Applying a false label to one's opponent is as old as politics.
5
Wait, on the one hand we have an entire cohort of 20-something conservatives with "racist flirtations" and on the other there's 4 instances of media over-reach (possibly). Yeah, seems equivalent...
11
Worried about bad-faith accusations against Republicans.
That's rich.
15
I seldom agree with anything this columnist says. But I high five him for this: “...the American right in the Trump era faces a liberalism that’s eager to discover and condemn racism where it does not actually exist.” It’s something that I have seen this very newspaper — in both reporting and editorial — and it makes me nuts.
Of course, there are those who would accuse me of seeing sexism where it doesn’t exist. Everyone thinks their uniques worldview is the Truth.
3
The techniques used to smear conservatives detailed in this Op-Ed are well known to our history, and have been commented upon by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1951 case, Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, a number of organizations were identified by the attorney general as 'communist' or subversive. The concurrence in granting relief of Justice Douglas notes "[T]he technique is one of guilt by association - one of the most odious institutions of history . . . Guilt under our system of government is personal. When we make guilt vicarious we borrow from systems alien to ours . . . " And as Justice Holmes said (recited in the dissent of a companion case) "If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought - not free though for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate. . . Under our tradition, beliefs are personal and not a matter of mere association."
1
I've heard conservatives, any stripe, brand Democrats collectively as "socialists." Besides being a label voiced by folks with very low information levels, it makes the whole argument you are trying to make a wash.
11
Ross asserts that "progressives indulge a political fantasy in which the racist infiltration of the mainstream right is an opportunity to delegitimize conservatism entirely." But the thing is, modern conservatives are doing a fine job delegitimizing themselves. You don't need to blame progressives for that trend.
I challenge Ross to explain what exactly "conservatism" means in modern US politics. Not some yet-to-be-decided post-Trump conservatism or GWB neo-conservatism. I'm talking conservatism today. What are their foundational principles and policies? What does a Trump conservative stand for?
The fact of the matter is there is no modern "conservatism" as a political philosophy or set of unifying principles. There are only groups of self-labeled conservatives with differing priorities who happen to vote for one party out of convenience and because it is an essential part of their personal identity.
7
Great article, thanks for writing. Looking at the comments on facebook, people just can't seem to get their heads around the complexity of an issue. It is easier just to see one thing, call it racist, and start screaming at it.
Honestly, I blame Trump for a lot of this. I told my Republican friends when he got elected that he was just going to cause an opposite reaction from the left, I had no idea that it would get as bad as it has.
Now we are going to elect a progressive liberal, a Democratic house and Senate, and go backwards again in the opposite direction. One wonders how bad it is going to get.
So maybe not all conservatives are racist. However, the Conservative movement has use racism and bigotry as a too for obtaining and maintaining power starting with the whiplash of Democrat politicians suddenly turning int Republicans at the drop of a Civil Rights law in the 1960's, to Nixon's Southern Strategy to Monkeyman Ronald Reagan starting his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia MS where four African-American childrren burned in a racist church bombing, to voter suppression and racial gerrymandering to the dismantling of the social safety net to make up for tax cuts for the rich, etc. etc etc.
Scratch the surface of any conservative policy idea or political tactic and you find the use of America's underlying racism dating back to 1619 in the service right wing power.
No tears here for you and your buddies, Ross.
10
As the saying might go, it takes one to not know one.
Douthat is an exemplar of white privilege, thereby blind to white privilege, therefore seeing racism only in the most virulent forms.
The conservative movement was born in dignified racism, often disguised as noblesse oblige. The conservative movement believes in a meritocracy that doesn't exist, therefore politely inviting the inference that there must be some other complicated reasons that every aspect of society shows the impact of systemic and systematic racism.
You needn't wear a hood to be a white nationalist. A nice herringbone or ascot will do just fine.
11
@Barking Doggerel
Correct. As Trump-supporting white nationalist leader Jared Taylor and the Trump-supporting "alt-right" prove.
3
What makes Ross's position so disingenuous to me is that he ONLY talks about the racism running rampant in Conservative circles while chastising liberals for an over-reaction.
I would be more inclined to agree with that position if these so-called "sane conservatives" took time to write op-eds talking directly to the conservative constituency about the racial problems of their movement, but Mr. Douthat et al continue their silence around racism and openly coddling it –Indeed the very language that Douthat uses to describe open-racism in 20-something conservative circles is "flirtations with racism" rather than "openly making racist statements". That kind of phrasing IS ITSELF "flirtations with racism" and Ross, we need to hear you call THAT out for what it is. Those are the moments that you need to stand up.
So I expect nothing less from a so-called sane conservative than a series of op-eds from Mr. Douthat on tackling the open racism in modern conservatism to save it from itself.
4
The many individual Republicans who aren't racist, and the occasional unfair accusations that some of them are, don't change the fact that racism is a pervasive driver of mainstream right-wing politics and policies. All you have to do to recognize this is to consider the decades-long Republican effort, orchestrated systematically at national, state, and local levels, to deprive blacks, native Americans, and Hispanics of the right to vote. Ask Stacey Abrams if racism underpins Republican voter suppression in Georgia - and in nearly every Republican-controlled state. So fine, apologies to four guys who were unjustly accused. Now let's face up to glaringly obvious, systemic, generations-long mainstream Republican Party racism.
14
Once again we are treated to a discussion about the extremes at either end of the political spectrum. As reasonable as the OpEd may or may not be, it is an obfuscation from the main issues facing us today:
1. How are we going to reduce the cost of healthcare from 18% of GDP, the cost of which we all bear one way or another?
2. How are we going to create a sane and humane immigration policy?
3. How are we going to deal with climate change?
4. How are we going to do with wealth transfers not just to the rich but also to other parts of the world as a result of globalization, de-industrialization, communication technologies and financialization? etc
One way we will not do so is by falling into the trap of continuously diverting the conversation towards a comparison of the evils displayed of both sets of extremists.
Let's concentrate on solving some real world problems, as opposed to exacerbating social divisiveness by paying too much attention to those who promote it.
12
When "non-racist" conservatives come and decry their fellows racist and xenophobic views and voting records then I'll stop deriding their entire party. But when they keep quiet I can only assume they agree with the racism but are too cowardly to say it publicly. You lie down with dogs and you get fleas. If conservatives say nothing against their brethren they're just as culpable as those who are racist xenophobes.
18
As always, this writer takes the speck out of the Dem’s eye whilst leaving the log in his own party’s.
9
Mr. Douthat is careful not to say that liberal principles, specifically the toleration of ethnic differences, might "impose an oppressive uniformity." Rather, he blames that on "liberal universalism." So, that would be a liberalism that doesn't tolerate differences.
I fear that Mr. Douthat is making stuff up here.
On the other hand, it doesn't take much ingenuity or imagination to fear abuses from states that restrict first-class citizenship only to people who share common physical ethnicity, language, and religion.
6
Douthat makes some very intelligent, even-handed points. He is also speaking for conservatives, so perhaps can be forgiven for ignoring the highly vocal right wing sector of both media and the common citizen that does exactly the same thing to "liberals," andin my opinion to a much more inflamed degree. So-called "liberals" hold extremely divergent views on just about everything, and these view often run contrary to the so-called "leftist" version of things as inferred or directly labeled by said conservatives, or more aptly nowadays, Trump supporters. The NYTimes and NPR are both gulity of over use of the terms "liberals" or "the left" as much as (my favorite) Koch generated label of "collectivists" whatever that is supposed to mean (doesn't matter- its used to scare people into the fear of an old-fashioned, fifties-style takeover by "the Russians" notwithstanding republicans' current stand on Russia is completely incoherent). In the end I agree with Douthat that we need to get underneath the labels though I disagree with his vision of things. I also think its fantasy that if people just listened to each other, we'd do the right thing. We're way to far gone for any kumbaya moment in the near future. But we have populations of people of directly oppositional belief systems both covertly or overtly discussing "revolution." The more discerning among us need to start addressing this as the potential for damaging violence, where everyone loses except the well placed, exists.
@MB
You mean "damaging violence" such as the recent and seemingly on-going mass shootings?
I'm a Jew. I am opposed to Zionism as it is practiced in Israel. I read the Olson posts and I did not interpret them as sarcasm.
It sure looked anti-Semitic to me. Olson, was reported to have no apparent record of sarcastic political commentary. Those posts, if they were sarcastic, were 'out of character' for him.
The Trump Department of Labor has no record of promptly punishing racist or anti-Semitic public commentary. Olson's quick resignation is 'out of character' for the Trump Department of Labor.
The full story has not, as yet, been told. Perhaps it never will be. Mr. Douthat, I fear, is blind to his own biases. Is it only a coincidence that so many of the people he chose to defend are his friends?
I read him because I so often learn from him. He is so broadly knowledgeable!
8
Ross left out the part about voter suppression, gerrymandering and messing with the census.
I see no explanation for these morally corrupt political practices other than wanting to insure that white evangelical republicans have power over the rest of us. And since “the rest of us” includes brown people, and that’s fine with us, it would be hard to avoid the racism component of this oppressive behavior..
Not to mention the startling changes in a lot of previously copacetic folks when for eight years the president was brown and actually once had the nerve to wear a tan suit.
6
I'm sympathetic to the project of laying down a marker about what white nationalism isn’t, but the Ross’s actual effort reveals a bigger problem.
After every strong statement about what isn’t white nationalism, Ross has to walk back his claim. Defending an ethno-religious national identity definitely isn’t white nationalism. Except when it is. And calling for higher birthrates to totally not a creepy Nazi thing; except, you know, when racists espouse it for racist reasons. Attacking the alleged liberal cultural consensus most certainly isn’t a mark of aggrieved white privilege. Though, as Ross point out, it can be. And it certainly isn’t white nationalism simply to engage with white nationalists in order to gain the support of white nationalists. Except, you know, it sometimes can be.
If the Venn diagram of a white nationalist’s big ideas and your political movement’s big ideas is, basically, one big circle, then the problem isn’t that people are unfairly calling you a white nationalist. The problem is that you’re functionally indistinguishable from a white nationalist.
8
One feeble attempt after another at "they do it too", "Dems is just as bad", and a Brooks' fave: "it's all of our's fault". Is this all Ross, Bret and David can give us? After years of GOP race baiting, now full on in the Trump era?
7
What percentage of racists in America vote for the GOP?
Why? That is my question.
I wish you would explore that Mr. Douthat.
11
First time ever I largely agree with you Ross.
1
Sorry, Ross, but as another commenter said: live by the sword, die by the sword.
You’ve plucked 4 highly-specific, tiny examples out of the racist, xenophobic, misogynistic muck republicans have been brewing for decades. At best what you’ve managed to dredge up is a rounding error to the dog-whistle strategy the GOP has been deploying with abandon since Eisenhower.
This and so many other republican pundits’ essays follow the same tired pattern: first you claim that “most republicans aren’t racist”. Then you dig up either (a) a couple of small examples to prove otherwise, (b) a couple examples of Democrats being “racist” instead, or (c) both. Then you throw in some over-wrought commentary about how it’s society that’s sick, not the GOP. “Commanding heights of culture”??? Really??? Rinse, lather and repeat.
How about this: if you lie with dogs you’re gonna get fleas.
Trump and his ilk are a stain on the GOP and after three years of complicity (not to mention decades of tacitly stoking the fire), guess what? You’re complicit. Plain and simple.
The silence on your side of the aisle has been deafening and now, after three years of nodding along (uncomfortably or not), nothing you do is going to divorce you from the bed you’ve happily helped to make and climbed into voluntarily.
16
With this opinion column Mr Douthat provides us with a masterful sample of a red herring
8
I guess when you associate with racists, you run the risk of being thought one yourself.
Anyone who associates themselves with today's conservatives—a large percentage of whom are quite obviously racist—is running that risk.
I'm not overly sympathetic to their plight. It's in their power to walk away. They don't.
11
It is unfortunate isn't it but the old adage still holds true - lay down with dogs, get fleas. Your party has put itself in the position of actually not supporting any "ideas" that are meant to help the people it supposedly represents. Conservative ideals are currently being shouted at the top of their lungs on Fox News and it mostly involves hating immigrants and agreeing totally with any complete nonsense the president has recently spouted. So that's where you are Ross. Liberals didn't put the GOP in this place you went there all by yourselves. I'm sure that many Germans didn't agree with the policies of the Nazi regime but they sure got painted with the same brush didn't they?
First, remove the beam from your own eye.
3
Every other president has noticeably – if not profoundly – aged in office...
Your lead-in pic – obviously a computer-photobrushed rendering of the surprised expression on the Big Guy’s face, when he learns on 11/6/24 he’s been re-elected to a 3rd term...
Pushed over the top by retroactive absentee paper write-in ballots in California...
Pelosi so distraught, she threw herself on some CHSRA tracks late the evening before...
She’s still sprawled there – locomotives they ordered aren’t due in for another eight months...
2
The Republican party is going to need an army of ladder bearers to haul their party out of Trumpism's sand pit. At this point that might not be possible. A reinvention may be necessary post Trump. You can hear the rending of the divisions within the party daily.
Racism on the right is not just conservatisms problem to solve. The whole of society must work on any solutions that are sustainable.
1
"flirting with racism" "attracted to racist ideas"...sorry, there's already something foul about such people...even if they refuse to carry tiki torches.
9
A bigot, a racist, and a white supremacist are not necessarily the same thing, so maybe it's the terminology that needs to be more carefully used.
A bigot is just your typical lazy (or scared) way of dealing with someone who is different. For example, if I'm an older white Christian male, I'm bigoted against a black, Muslim young woman only because she's different and I don't trust her; it's just ignorant prejudice, and maybe sexism. A racist might take it further, and think anyone like "her" is the same-- they're all dangerous. A white supremacist takes it even further in thinking "those people" are inferior, dangerous, and something needs to be done about them.
Bigotry is just nonacceptance, e.g., of liberals, foreigners, or women, or the younger generation. Nationalism is a form of bigotry, as is sexism.
Racism and white supremacy represent the active oppression of another race.
4
Dear Ross,
You are judged by the company you keep and by their beliefs and actions. There are, indeed, many Republicans who do not follow the tenets of white nationalism and racism, but if the party itself is run by racists and white nationalists then you and your non-racist friends are smeared by their beliefs. QED.
Steve
8
It is unfortunate and sad that the overwhelming majority of comments have completely rejected Ross's arguments and instead exclaim exactly the sentiment he believes is in error, that anyone who disagrees with the progressive agenda is a racist white nationalist. That position is incorrect and counterproductive to the liberal agenda, as many who are neither a racist nor a white nationalist bridle at being labeled as such just because they disagree with the liberal agenda. Insulting those who you need to vote with you is a self-defeating political strategy.
1
Ross, your erudite explanation has some validity but doesn't relieve you from backing a cause that enables racist venom to sweep the country. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan ushered the Republican Party away from Abraham Lincoln's influence and welcomed a "Southern Strategy" that rules today's political environment, and laid out a red carpet for a fool like Trump. Your intellect cannot hide your allegiance to the grand old racist party.
5
Leif Olson's sarcastic postings were misinterpreted by some sloppy reporting, reminiscent of the suits at MSNBC hastily firing Sam Seder in 2017 over a bitingly sarcastic tweet mocking apologists for Roman Polanski, that no one interpreted as support for Polanski. After a backlash from the great majority of rational literate liberal viewers of MSNBC who all said "huh?", MSBC corrected themselves and rehired Seder.
Sadly, in "conservative" circles today, there is no great conservative rational literate majority to fix the outrageous comments and activities coming from the right. In an attempt at whataboutism, this column is a listing of a few anecdotes about the dangers of a broad brush coming from the left.
When William F. Buckley died in 2008, there was great emphasis on how he "saved" post-war American conservatives, by rejected the Anti-Semites who has been so central to pre-WWII GOP anti-interventionism. The Holocaust made that stance an embarrassment. But post-war conservatism and the GOP have continued on a path of flirtation and embrace of white nationalism from Nixon's Southern strategy, to Willy Horton ads; from Pat Buchanan to being the place that David Duke gravitated to.
To quote Ta-Nehisi Coates in October 2017 Issue of The Atlantic: Certainly not every Trump voter is a white supremacist, just as not every white person in the Jim Crow South was a white supremacist. But every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.
7
Thank you.
Punish false accusations as if the accusers had themselves committed the misdeeds of which they falsely accuse others; that's what God told Moses, and it is self-evidently just. (A false accusation of murder is an attempt to have the government murder the accusation's target, and should itself be punished as attempted murder.) So liberals who make false accusations of racism should be treated as racists. Al Sharpton with Tawana Brawley still come to mind.
As for overcoming racism, details matter--God created the heaven and the earth, not just clouds on which to float playing harps; the Word became flesh and dwelt among us--but when we forget triune Jehovah, Creator and Redeemer and Blesser of people of all ethnic groups, when we forget His grace and love, working on racism can evolve down into re-cutting an apparently fixed pie, instead of letting everyone seek bigger pieces as we grow the pie together (Jesus is libertarian); and the good work of dealing with this or that bit of racism can evolve into a barren and embittering legalism. Worship God! Love your neighbors because Christ died for them and rose up alive for them and will come back for them, at least as many as God Calls.
@Andrew Lohr anybody who seriously considers the Gospels would be hard put to identify Jesus as a libertarian.
2
What do you do about the vast swathes of our polity who believe there is nothing more evil than a Democrat (Jesus was more radical in service to the less fortunate than Democrats)? Republican snowflakes label reality as "political" to attack attack attack.
"they are engaged in an existential struggle against a wicked enemy—not Russia, not North Korea, not Iran, but rather American liberals and the left. .... Ask yourself how many evangelicals have publicly criticized Trump for his lavish praise of Kim Jong Un, the leader of perhaps the most savage regime in the world and the worst persecutor of Christians in the world."
"evangelical Christians should acknowledge the profound damage that’s being done to their movement by its braided political relationship—its love affair, to bring us back to the words of Ralph Reed—with a president who is an ethical and moral wreck. Until that is undone—until followers of Jesus are once again willing to speak truth to power rather than act like court pastors—the crisis in American Christianity will only deepen, its public testimony only dim, its effort to be a healing agent in a broken world only weaken."
FYI, the Ethics and Public Policy Center receives funds from Donor's Trust (hiding billionaire Koch-like entities). Peter Wehner's point about the blindness to bias in so-called "Christian" evangelicals is hardly "liberal", just honest.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/evangelical-christians-face-deepening-crisis/593353/
3
Your arguments are interesting but... You are a member of a political party that, until the racist in chief realized that it was okay to be overt in his racism, used dog whistles and thinly veiled code to push or at least use the racism of it's base to get politicians elected. For you to expect there to not be a certain amount of misunderstanding is naive or perhaps purposefully misleading. Reading poor Patty Davis' defense of St Ronnie's caught on tape overt racism is illustrative. As a Catholic, you should know that if you dance with the devil you will be condemned.
2
No, Ross, "liberals and leftists" have not made it difficult for your and your fellow conservatives to root out the white nationalists in your party. You all did that to yourselves. Your party let white nationalism foment and go unchecked for decades. Honestly, what did you expect would happen?
6
Douthat writes, "It is not white nationalism to recognize limiting principles on liberal universalism, and a justifiable role for particularity — ethnic, cultural, religious — in many political arrangements. A sprawling multiethnic republic like the present United States... but our democratic imperium is not the only legitimate form of political order."
That's debatable. At its heart, a liberal order -- even (especially!) a classically liberal order -- recognizes "self-determination" as an inherently individual, rather than collective right.
That pretty much rules out ethnocracy.
2
The Republicans have not adequately policed their ranks. They get what they deserve in this case.
6
I agree with all of the particulars in this essay, and I think Mr Douthat is one of the sanest voices of conservatism today. However, when it comes to "generalizations" well, I'm sorry, but the GOP and Republicans voters have created this awful image for themselves. If you're going to support somebody as blatantly racist, amoral, sadistic and incompetent as Trump, then you have to accept the fact that other people will view you the same way - as racist, amoral, sadistic and incompetent - if you support him. That's the price every 2020 Trump voter has to pay to support their man, and that's precisely as it should be.
9
OMG you cite four examples of media bias against Conservative thought. Be still my heart! FOUR! No doubt you could find more if you searched under every rock but those of us who read the newspapers and occasionally furnish on FOX media hear anti-liberal, ad hominem arguments and reports against liberals EVERY HOUR 24/7!
Our Dear Leader with his pursed mouth and simple minded tweets is in a state of constant agitation against the liberal leaders of the Democratic Party. Where are the equivalent accusations and Tweets from the Democrats? Douthat: you need to put this argument where the sun cannot shine on it because it has no validity, zero, nada.
9
What's next, Ross? "There are some very fine people on both sides"?
Yes, there are excesses and inappropriate accusations of racism, but they are on the margins. The President, himself, is a BLATANT racist, promoting racism at every turn, creating "crises" and then claiming credit for "fixing them" but only partially. Examples:
There was no real border crisis till he instigated it. Now he's "fixing it" by destroying families and sending sick kids to die.
There was no farm crisis till he started a tariff war with China and most of our allies. Then he "fixed it" by giving a farm subsidy that a) most benefits factory farms b) doesn't begin to cover losses.
He's been described as "philo-semitic" which means he believes every stereotype anti-Semites believe..but thinks they are a plus (until they are not). It's still racism.
In the light of the thousands of "hate-crime" incidents, almost universally from White racists, in light of nearly 40 arrests of mostly White racists planning terrorism, it's pretty feeble to attack the few false accusations of racism. It's like worrying about a dripping faucet in the face of an on-coming tsunami!
C'mon, Ross! Get some perspective!
8
Why is Donald trump a republican? Why is Steve king a republican? Ross, you’ve got some explaining to do, and this ain’t it. Why do all these racists keep ending up in my party, which is totally not racist?
10
You think Trump is popular despite his racism. No. Trump is popular among Republicans *because* of his racism. Racism is his campaign platform and your misguided attempt to protect mildly racist Republican opportunists riding on Trump’s coattails is part of the problem.
Is there a difference between a racist wearing overalls with a shotgun and a racist wearing an expensive suit content to look away while children are put in camps at the border? Not the hill that I would choose to die on.
15
The best way to avoid being called a witch, and the best way to get the witch hunters to like you, is to out someone as a witch, and you don't get any points or props for outing one that society has already burned. What to do? What _to_ do?
1
I have been deeply uneasy since the first Democratic primary debate and the reaction to it, even if these debates are little more than really boring theater. I am glad that polls show that, so far, they are being ignored.
Although separation of church and state has been with us (for the most part) for a very long time, this does not mean every society on Earth is capable of adhering to this in a sustainable way starting today. That it is still so contentious in the USA is a signal that it is probably not politically feasible in many countries.
Elon Musk, among others, is calling for people to have more babies even though they will be born too late to buy a subsidized Tesla. A shortage of births will limit our economy and our tolerance for immigrants, which will limit our economy further. There is no overpopulation risk in rich countries.
There is a very good poker essay titled "Why (Some) Morons Do Better Than You", which lists some big concepts that some unstudied players intuitively understood and this was enough to win more than some very technical players who did not appreciate the importance of these ideas. There may be a similar essay collection for American politics someday, and this piece could be included in such a collection.
1
An admirable attempt to rehabilitate conservatism from what it has become in the political sphere, and I absolutely agree that not all conservatives are racists and that accusations of such from the left can go too far.
But, let's be honest, the GOP and conservatives in general have culpability in that they have allowed, and even in many cases enabled, the inmates to run the asylum. And the number conservative voices speaking out against Trump and his ilk are very few indeed, and almost none of those in any position of power. Racism is present not only in the sins of commission, but also in the sins of omission.
6
The Republican Party has been a dog whistle for racism for years it did not start with Trump. The party does not care about the average American trying to raise children and afford a life. They only care that women do not have a right to control their own bodies.
4
This is every Presidential election. Democrats accuse Republicans of being racist. Democrats and their media cohorts accused McCain of being a racist, and even Romney in 2012. This is nothing new. Its quite possible they have come to realize they overused the term, so now racism morphed White Nationalism. Trump's America First platform could be considered "Nationalist", and since leftist Democrats believe America is a mean spirited racist nation to begin with, that must mean Trumps nationalism is racist. So why do they resort to this? Well, think about the Democrat candidates for a second. In the past, the most qualified candidates for POTUS were usually governors. They have the most experience, and could usually tout the most accomplishments. The current slew of candidates had 2 governors. They never garnered interest, and were vanquished from the get go. Why is that? Because Democrat policies have veered so far leftward, that their policies dont work, so those candidates had no accomplishments to speak of. A far cry from Democrat governors like Bill Clinton. Bill once said the "era of big government is over". That too would get him vanquished from todays Democrat Party. Todays Democrat POTUS hopefuls are leftist ideologues, with no accomplishments to speak of, only multi trillion dollar "plans" which would supposedly spread "equality" and "fairness". Socialism doesnt work. Never has, never will. And thats why they resort to calling Republicans racist. Its all they've got.
2
Yeah, Republican voters aren't racist. They just vote the same way the Klan and neo-Nazis vote and support the same policies white power mob supports, and when it comes time to join a side, they choose the one with the Klan and the neo-Nazis on it, even as right-wing terrorism, and anti-Semitic violence surges, but no, they're not racist at all.
3
If you want to stop liberals from calling conservatives racist, the first thing to do is stop coddling and excusing Donald Trump. The Republican (conservative) Party started its road to racism in 1968 when Nixon won with a Southern Strategy though the racism was then coded in terms like “law & order” and “silent majority”. Trump just stopped using those code words and “said out loud what we’ve always been thinking.” So spare me your delusion that Conservatism hasn’t become Trumpism. It has and it won’t end until Republicans stop saying, “Oh I can’t stop what the President says.”
9
It's history, Mr Douthat.
Two events changed Republicans from conservatives to reactionaries:
1. The defeat by Goldwater Republicans of Rockefeller Republicans.
2. The passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Acts by a coalition of Northern & Midwestern Republicans and all Democrats, except the Southern.
From Goldwater through Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1, et al. Republican politics has featured racism/bigotry as its modus operandi. How many of these Republicans have you endorsed, praised?
Trump is just a logical extension.
True, not all conservatives are racists/bigots. But those that are not have a sad history of aiding, abetting, enabling and supporting those who are racists/bigots.
5
It started with Reagan.
States Rights in Nashoba County and Welfare Queens.
People like Ross Douthat, David Brooks, and George Will did nothing for 35 years.
The result is Trump.
4
Is it possible in a country where the political party in power is overtly racist, where an entire midterm electoral strategy was explicitly race-based, where the dog whistles have turned into bullhorns, and where racially motivated crime is alarmingly increasing, that you would choose to write about peripheral cases of misplaced judgement instead of the monumental issue in front of all of our faces?
I'm not saying anyone else should decide what you get to write about, but the fact that you're pulled in this direction instead of confronting and contextualizing the disgrace that is the current Republican party is telling.
4
I hope that you and J. D. Vance who are worried about plunging birth rates are also in favor of liberalized immigration laws. Seems to me there are A bunch of people with young children knocking on the door to come here. Most would be happy to be productive tax paying citizens. I'm sure they would gladly do the tough. dirty jobs most of us college educated types run from.
8
It's instructive to review the Maddow piece as well as the actual document she refers to. Here's the link to the 13 minute episode:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-nominates-advocate-of-ethnonationalism-for-judgeship-66238021914
And a few choice quotes from the paper authored by Menashi:
"Ethnically heterogeneous societies exhibit less political and civic engagement, less effective governing institutions, and fewer public goods. The sociologist Robert Putnam has concluded that greater ethnic diversity weakens social solidarity, fosters social isolation, and inhibits social capital..."
"...These findings confirm that the solidarity underlying democratic polities rests in large part on ethnic identification. Surely, it does not serve the cause of liberal democracy to ignore this reality."
"As globalization disrupts the coincidence of ethnic demography and political boundaries, the ethnonational identification of liberal democratic states is becoming more, not less, significant."
2
Is the article suggesting that liberals need to mind their own business and stay out of conservative affairs? That conservatives will fix this all by themselves? Because that's absurd on its face.
6
Mr. Douthat often seems to present himself and his like minded cohorts as being persecuted.
7
Conservative equates to constraint.
1
Executive Summary for this article:
See, we're not as bad as you think.
3
There is no doubt that the socially revolting behavior of Trump and his staunch supporters does, in fact, rightly color the view of Conservative non social issues. Perhaps they would like to have their cake and eat it too. However, the fact the Conservatives and their base solidly back policies to rip immigrant children from their mothers does color the evaluation of their policies that also hasten global warming and threaten the future of humanity. The character of the politician colors the credibility of their platform. Those that back the liar in chief will be viewed in the same negative light.
3
"It is not white nationalism to believe that countries like the United States would be better off with more babies."
Douthat's expansion on that idea overlooks entirely my view on this topic.
Declining birth rates are caused by hostility to the needs of women, children, and young families including the fathers in those families. They are squeezed economically, and respond defensively.
If conservatives want more babies, then treat them better. Help the mothers and fathers and children themselves. Instead, conservatives object to every effort to help, and cut back as much as they can on help given in the past, from pre-natal to college.
7
I cannot decide if these lingering apologists who think there is something more to the modern GOP than bigotry are delusional... or just the dumbest people in the room. The left has great cultural power. As a top-to-bottom cohesive ideology that maximizes the freedom of all people, the left was always going to win because it always benefited the most people. What more could a political ideology hope for? And the imaginary barbarism just around the corner is what? Drag queens reading to children? Fewer guns in fewer hands? Higher taxes on higher earnINGS (not higher earners... the marginal tax rates are the same for everyone). So the incoherent screaming on the right is growing louder as it increasingly sees its imminent demise as a foregone conclusion. So what? I see no need to fix the dysfunction on the right except to survive its awful present moment in the sun. Liberalism was always the heartier ideology, and as evolution dictates, it was always going to prevail.
That said, I am tired of this apologist's distortions of reality. Powerful as the left may be, we did not affix an unfitting label to innocent right wing bumpkins. If you and yours did not so eagerly embrace overtly racist ideas, the label would not stick. Stop blaming the mirror for what you are. And it is no defense to pretend that certain conservative ideas (reparations, affirmative action, confederate monuments) are not unambiguously racist. Your racism is real, and entirely your fault. Deal with it.
7
What have right-wingers long asserted about African American? That if successful blacks don't want to be lumped in with low-class blacks, they should police their own communities?
Well, that's racist, but then right-wingers don't deserve any more fair treatment than they've dealt out.
So, Ross, certain people on the right don't like being lumped in with all the racists on the right? Let them police their own community. The sad fact is that if you're on the right and you're not racist (which is hard to believe), you're at least COMPLICIT. You fix yours, then we'll worry about who's being treated fairly.
5
Charges that conservatives are racist have proliferated within the left because they are so politically effective, regardless of whether the conservative is actually saying anything about race. They immediately put their targets on the defensive and force them to prove a negative ("Prove to me that you aren't a racist"). Any objections to the smear sound weak and disingenuous.
If we Americans really want to have a meaningful discussion about racism, we would do well to define what it is...and what it isn't. As it stands, the term is used to describe anything from a neo-Nazi belief in racial superiority to discomfort with a sudden influx of foreign language speaking neighbors with different social values or even a disagreement that slavery reparations would be a good policy for the 21st century. All go into the same basket of deplorables.
A couple of lessons here. One, don’t pal around with Douthat or you’ll be called racist.
Let me state I read none of these pieces so am forced to go on D’s descriptions.
With the Judge’s article, first it’s irrelevant he’s Jewish. Second, and let me make clear I support Israel, though emphatically not its present government, a policy accepting anyone from one religion and making others jump
through hoops for admittance is certainly “racially” ( Judaism‘s a religion not a race) biased.
The Post did not “have” to apologize for its
columnists error, it chose to (something we don’t see from conservative media). The
declining birth rate together with an aging population is indeed a problem, one that
immigration can help with. However
Trump et al have chosen a racist tack with
that.
The article on the similarity in language between some Conservatives and the slave-holders, seems to me an example of “plus ca change...” that arguments recycle and are used for and against different matters in different ages.
The wouldbe public servant’s plight shows something different, the problem with sarcasm (or satire). The recipient must understand it as such. I am a naturally sarcastic guy, and there have been occasions I’ve been taken literally. I must say that having read the whole string, especially his follower’s congratulations on his sarcasm, it does become clear. However anyone about to employ sarcasm should read the warning label attached especially re the side effects!
1
Well, I'd rather meet a liberal calling me out, then a conservative with AR at a walmart, a temple or a church.
7
Two things that are white nationalism.
President Trump.
The voters and politicians who support his racism.
5
So many comments -- the majority -- are castigating the Right as universally racist and the Left as so accommodating, even supportive of equality. A few even heaping praise of the last Democratic president, Obama.
It's all not black and white, to coin a phrase.
Let me be specific. First, important definitions:
Prejudice. As in "pre-judge". To arrive at a conclusion or adopt a belief without knowledge of the facts.
Racism: Prejudice -- pre-judging -- based upon race.
When Obama heard of an incident involving a white policeman and a black college professor, he immediately, in a live televised news conference, condemned the white officer, denouncing his action as "stupid" -- without any knowledge of the facts.
He reached his conclusion based solely upon the race of the participants.
President Obama was, then, by his own words, a racist.
OK?
2
Thank you for this. For a week or so there I was beginning to think that having white skin meant you were racist and a white nationalist -- and if you were wearing white even worse-- that's a joke!
IMO people who have been... is this slander or libel? … in this way-- deserve monetary compensation as well as any sort of apology -- if you are truly public figure I guess an apology will have to do.
Meantime, is it possible to teach Americans to think? (We spend an awful lot of money supposedly trying!) Can anyone without a PhD be comfortable saying "I don't know" or "the answer to that at the present is unknown?")
If the same old same old keeps happening isn’t it time to try something new. Vote in women
2
@CathyK ...and everything will be just terrific!
1
I’d bet that they would at least be better......
2
Mr. Douthat, Conservatism in America is a toxic, putrid stew of bad ideas. Racism is central to its very existence. I’m done hearing the “sob stories”.
5
Call it what it is: ignorance.
Oh, it is all a complicated mess, hugely complex in the attitudes and beliefs and mechanizations that have and are going on that has turned much of American, especially, into a land of adults with the emotional and intellectual acumen of a young child (with all due respect to young children who, ironically, generally are of a fairly keen mind until K-12 digs in and begins to corrupt, and then there is Mom and Dad with their mindless machines to which they are attached, thinking the New World Order is going to be All Tech, and just like on the Enterprise, absolutely EVERYTHING will be there at one's fingertips - just ask the Mighty Machine).
Ignorant. That's what we are. Quick to judge, and oblivious to our hypocrisy, utterly devoid of logic or reason.
Take away the almighty Internet, and we'd be running amok, burning and raping and screaming because Great Google is dead! Almighty Amazon is not delivering!
Zombies are no threat.
Ignorant human beings, though, that is a horror.
Ergo, Trump. White nationalists. Media that knows not how to report. Children who look to The Internet for Truth. Adults with their thumbs up their...
The New World.
1
What Mr. Douthat fails to mention about conservatism is the fact that the American variety is *** wholly based *** on propping up the institutional racism that has existed in this country since we were British colonies.
American conservatives, whether or not they support Trump, are racists, whether they know it or not.
4
A laborious and intellectually over done tome.
“In the end the recrudescence of racism on the right is conservatism’s problem to solve, and it has to be solved independently of whatever liberals and leftists happen to be saying.”
In the end?
Is there even a credible beginning?
2
douhat, you're next unless you repent, confess your sins, see the light and bend the knee to the the almighty Left and convert to the gods of Socialism! I pray for thee that you avoid their fiery wrath.
I can't think of a more pure form of tone deaf entitlement than a white person believing that they have the right to decide what's racist and what isn't.
White people should be listening. Not telling.
6
These four examples may not be white nationalism, but the idea that you need to defend against the white nationalism wave in this country is, in fact, white nationalism.
It is akin to "Not All Men!"
I also disagree with your complaints about over use of the word as well. Yes - we are dealing with growing pains and will not always label every white nationalist properly, but we have more slip through the cracks than we have caught.
Calling out racism when you see it is a step towards progress and the idea that white folks want to get in on the action is a good sign.
2
What evidence is there that these "non-racist conservatives" exist as a practical matter outside the realm of Mr. Douthat's circle of intellectual friends? Certainly they appear to have no political influence on the Republican or "conservative" party. Straddling is a difficult maneuver, and Mr. Douthat is asking a bit much to expect those who oppose the current government to go easy on him for his desperate effort to separate him and his views from the government which he, to this day, continues to support. He is, in fact, an enabler.
3
Over reach is a big problem that delegitizes serious critiques and fuels polarized distortions. This applies to #MeToo, racist accusations from the left as well as the flagrant smears by the right on progressives who question Israeli hawks, support gun reform and challenge redistributive financial scams that bloat the rich.
There is much pleasure in feeling righteous indignation; fierce adamance is a tonic for many who feel marginalized- including 'big government' phobes and wage slaves without a big equity portfolio. Al Franken was innocent, Weinstein/Epstein are criminals. Koch Brothers threaten Earth for personal profit and ideological rigidity- deploying billions to corrupt democratic representation. The tweetosphere can destroy a career through anonymous allegations.
Old men who flirted clumsily 30 years ago are demonized now; but problem drinker like Kavanaugh gets a pass.
Maybe TimesUp on wild accusations so real offenses can be clearly focused on.
1
I read and enjoyed the Eve Fairbanks piece, and don't recognize a whit of it in your curiously defensive mischaracterization.
And Ross, if your associates have to constantly address "racist flirtations" and your friends keep getting criticized for racist speech, maybe you should hang with a different crowd?
4
I agree that racism in conservative politics is a conservative problem to solve, and it starts by prioritizing it and not voting for objectively full blown bigots like Trump. Since a majority of GOP voters deny that Trump's stereotyping is evidence of anything, it appears that the rot is deeper than Douthat is able to perceive or acknowledge.
5
Russ, as a wise woman used to say (full disclosure, she was my mother), you’re known by the company you keep. Conservatism isn’t just a gateway drug, it’s full-strength Kool-Aid.
3
If half the country is irredeemable, then the country is irredeemable.
Martin Luther King Jr. recognized that, while racism is endemic in all of us, the best way to fight racism was to isolate the 5-10% who were most egregious, and who held the most power to do damage through their racism. He successfully co-opted the other 90% of Americans, despite their (milder) racist attitudes, to defeat the most racist and the laws that institutionalized that racism. You can't win the battle against right wing populism by declaring every Trump voter deplorable, racist, and misogynist. You win by taking on the worst 5% and gaining the support of those who were swayed by Trump but see his faults. You don't win the #MeToo movement by taking on all men. You isolate those who are most abusive, and co-opt the men who, while far from perfect in their treatment of women, mean well.
Think hard about that before declaring that the next person you disagree with is a racist, or a misogynist pig. You win a war by only picking fights that your side is going to win decisively.
Forty years ago my barber told me that he was voting for Reagan because "he'll keep the blacks in-line". Conservatives of all stripes, decades later, are still riding that horse. It's the wedge issue that helped them deliver deregulation of financial, environmental and work place protections to their corporate puppet masters. The so called non-racist conservatives kept their mouths shut while they essentially purchased the congress. And now, forty years later, guess who Trump promises to keep in-line? And guess who's mouths are still shut?
4
Ironically, Douthat engages in pernicious racial stereotyping *in this very column.* If you read Vance's speech, there's no reason besides pernicious racial stereotyping to assume that the African-American mother in Vance's example is a *single* mother.
2
Regarding the question of why the media considers most conservatives as being racist:
If it smells like a rat, looks like a rat, scurries around like a rat and hangs out with other rats... then it is a rat.
If you are pining for acceptance as part of the diverse and tolerant order then I have a message for you : Denounce the Republican leadership loud and clear as opposed to making a superficial show of it. Fence sitting so that one can jump over when the smoke clears is not a prime ingredient of personal character and integrity.
3
Ross, while there may be some debatable accusations, are you speaking up for principle or in defense of your friends? What if you didn’t know 3 of the 4 people you defend? . I believe that looking for imperfections in anti racist rhetoric leaves out the reality that without white republicans, true racists would not have found their way into the White House. I suggest you start with internal soul searching before worrying about others.
2
Ross Douthat, you picked poor example of unjust deligitimization by focusing on a statement in the WP about your friend, J.D. Vance.
I can only see the corrected version online where this appears as a preface:
“An earlier version of this story suggested that the author J.D. Vance lamented a falloff in white births; he was actually talking about American births.”
Marissa Brosthof’s error was inexcusable but the article is primarily about the alignment of White Nationalists with the anti-abortion movement.
The White Nationalists (WNs) do not want to protect all who are seen by the Census Bureau as white from abortion but only a fictional group of whites.
There are 3.5 million Muslims (2017) living in the USA. All whose lines of descent go back to Middle East (ME) and North Africa (NA) - the MENA group - are seen by the USCB as belonging to a white race.
The WNs would presumably show little concern about birth rate among MENAs and could care less about late abortions in that group.
My position: MB made an inexcusable error but her pointing to your friend was apparently just a small part of the article. Now that the correction has been made, would you still see this article as delegitimizing WNs? I do not.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
2
OK. I agree there may be 4 instances where a liberal has overreached in describing a conservative as a white nationalist.
I think the discussion about what white supremacy is has changed and that is what the opinion writer doesn't like. Plus, he's just defending his friends. (except for the guy who's not his friend and turns out is just a bad writer)
3
Conservatives like Mr. Douthat can't cry foul when their leaders have stood idly by while Mr. Trump has locked brown-skinned people in cages, goaded police into more harshly beating minorities, and told us about many "very fine" white supremacists. Conservatives will put up with his hateful policies as long as he signs the anti-abortion bills, delivers tax cuts to the wealthy and, oh yeah, keeps TROLLING THOSE LIBS! Can the crocodile tears, Douthat.
3
Ross, you don't get. The definition of racism is much broader today than 50 years ago when civil rights laws were passed. So yes, conservatives are racists.
1
It is absolutely false to suggest that a majority of Republican voters are racist. There is no evidence that is a fact. However, it is a fact that those who vote Republican are voting alongside the White Supremacists and racists.
Further, it cannot be more clear that the vast majority of those who choose to vote for Trump in the next election will be making that decision with the knowledge that they are voting for a candidate who is enabling White Supremacists and racists.
2
ANY form political advocacy that advocates for diminishment of rights of individuals based on ethnic, religious, cultural, or ideological grounds, is not conservatism but nationalism. Douthat continues to try to redefine conservatism away from its Hobbesian origins and bring it on to the dangerous ground of nationalism. Traditionalism isn't conservatism, it's nationalism.
1
"the lure of far-right ideas after various center-right failures"
The only thing "center" about them has been that there are even worse things going on even further out to the right.
These so-called center ideas reject the center known to actual centrist Republicans for a generation. These are the ideas defeated by Eisenhower in 1952, and then by Nixon. The Taft and Hoover radicals had lost control of the Republican Party during their wilderness years of FDR. Their last gasp was the Dewey who did not defeat Truman in 1948.
Now they are back, but they are not center.
2
Same whine in a different bottle.
6
If someone calls me fat, I laugh, because I am not. (But I could probably eat better...)
If someone calls me racist, I laugh, because I am not. (But I am sure I have ingrained prejudices as a member of this racist structure that I could work on.)
See, that wasn’t so hard.
Conservatives: you are awful sensitive. Why is that? If you aren’t racist, it isn’t a word that should offend you (but we all should reflect on). The company you keep, however, will need to change if you don’t wish to be labeled racist. You can’t be friends with neo-nazis and expect to be called anything else.
4
@me
Can you tell us why white nationalists support Trump?
2
Sorry. But Israel does NOT get a pass. It's no more okay for Jews to declare a "Jewish state," and make Arabs second-class citizens, in a geographical area where there were only a few thousand Jews a century ago, than it was for Afrikaners to create apartheid for the native blacks of South Africa. There is simply no moral difference, Holocaust or no Holocaust. Ehud Olmert was dead right when he warned Israel, as he was leaving office several years ago, that it had only three choices: a two-state peace with the Arabs, a single state dominated by them, or apartheid which would make Israel a pariah state worldwide, including in America, including among American liberal Jews (the vast majority). The arrogance of Bibi, Shel Adelson, and Likud is typical of the self-blinding cause by hubris. Clearly they wanted to use Trump to make America a fellow pariah state in the West with Israel, to join us at the hip to Likud. Too bad Trump is going to be a blip, annihilated next year by a progressive Democrat who will have as little sympathy with Bibi and Likud's apartheid plans for Israel as Obama had. Israel really needs to poll Millennials and face the fact that Israel's right-wing Jewish and Gentile Boomer fanatical backers are dying like flies. Millennials, including Millennial Jews, are very different political animals.
6
@Fred White Get 'em Fred!
1
the simpsons said it best... Fox News: Not Racist, but #1 with racists! That’s you and your party. And another thing - when somebody tells you they don’t have a racist bone in their body, that’s because that person is a racist. We’re all racists. It creeps in. What we do about it is what matters. And this op-ed does nothing.
5
Well Mr.Douthat, if you wish to call yourself a Republican, you need to realize that the current leader of your party is undoubtedly a racist. If you want to get rid of the stain of being called a racist, you need to get rid of that leader. He is the face of the Republican brand so that is something you'll have to live with until he is replaced.
3
There is no "mild" form of fascism.
2
I read the article in the Washington Post written by Ms Brostoff. It's spot on. As in it's a typical example of so much of what is written today by both sides of the aisle. The jumps from cause to effect aren't jumps. Their rocket assisted launches in which the effect can't be seen from the cause. Yet they faithfully proclaim one does lead to the other.
It's so preposterous that just disagreeing with someone on the left is reason to be labeled racist, misogynist, and xenophobic and all three at once you're a white male. Happens to President Trump very day.
But the right engages is exactly the same mischaracterizations. Twisting VA Governor Northam's comments about non-viable new borns is a great example.
2
Are there any Republicans that are non-racists? Any conservative who supports a racist must be seen as a racist herself/himself.
4
Whenever the "racism " card is thrown by leftist media, one needs to push back. Your paintbrush is so exagerrated that you equate "bigotry" with "racism". There is "bigotry" everywhere including the hate for this President. Conservatives do not have a "racism" problem; we have antithetic media problem. i.e. Your first example fumbles with some essay, Maddow, and Israel. Most people in the world don't agree that Israelis or Palestinians for that matter are "races". If you don't have "races, you don't have "racism" . Morever, Mexicans are not a "race". Muslims are not a "race" but your paintbrush doesn't have to worry about legitimate definitions. We don't have a racism problem, we have a media problem. And most Americans can see it.
1
Hey, Mr. Douthat: If you lie down with dogs, you'll wake up with fleas.
What a bunch of lame excusive hooey! Putatively "reasonable" Conservative-Republicans sat in silence as the putatively "fringe" elements of your party took over the discourse of your party over the past decade. Did you speak out against Birtherism? Did you speak out against the delegitimization of Pres Obama? Did you speak out against the demonization of Black Lives Matter? Did you speak out against the charactyer assasination of Christine Blasey Ford? Did you speak out when people like Ted Cruz try to deflect the conversation away from random mass shootings by saying "What about Chicago?"
No, you all sat in silence. You let these kinds of racist and partisan hatred trickle through and permeate our political discourse. You gladly accepted the votes that they garnered for your candidates.
In other words, you were complicit!
So spare us your lame excuses; spare us your false equivalences and what-aboutisms; spare us your meaningless mea culpas.
As a Catholic, you should know that confession only "works" when the confessor is truly repentent in both mind and heart. "Pardon me Father, for I have sinned; but so does the other side" doesn't cut it.
5
conservatism is about status quo and status protection.
The core of conservatism is now the plutocratic party
change that disrupts inherited wealth and position is verboten.
The protection of wealth is the fundamental
Passing on their wealth to their minions is at the forefront...look at the Kochs and Trumps..
All defenses in conservatism are marshaled at protecting privilege.
The core of conservatism is one dollar equals one vote
Democracy is one person one vote.
Whites who see their position reduced resort to nationalism and when they were on top.
The core now is vehement xenophobia and race based forgetting that most of us came from immigrant stock, with some coming willfully and others in the bilge of a slave ship.
Of course the American Indians were exterminated by White Nationalism.
Just more Douthat pseudo intellectual tripe...
Vietnam Vet
5
A minor criticism. But do others at times have to read more than once a sentence by Mr. Douthat to try to understand what he is writing? Too often, in clarity and elegance, his writing is much closer to what one sees in social-science journals than it is to, say, a typical column by Roger Cohen. Mr. Douthat has some interesting things to say, but reading his columns can be like a homework assignment.
1
"... racism... is conservatism’s problem to solve, ...independently of whatever liberals and leftists happen to be saying.
Of course! How silly of liberals and lefties to criticize the right! Douthat and his many very close friends and colleagues will "solve" their problem of being racists, bigots, misogynists, xenophobes. Never mind their long history of exuberant courting of them and nurturing frump into existence even though they knew he was a dodo lunatic nightmare.
Yeah, conservatives know best how to purge themselves of these dark isms, thank you very much. They will get back to a "healthy" conservatism, whatever that is.
Conservatism, by its very nature of wanting 'things' to stay the way tradition mandates, that is, white patriarchy, is racism.
Ideally, the world would be filled with only the right, Douthat and his many, many close friends, trumpites and what's left of the catatonic GOP.
The country would be just good old white boys who will never be quite satisfied with the way their axes are ground. Because there will always be the "other" for them to deal with and keep down.
3
I seldom, if ever, agree with anything that Mr. Douthat writes. But on this one he is right on. Full disclosure: I am a white liberal Democrat, and am sick and tired of the idiocy and paranoia that pervades the present-day left.
1
Regardless of what Ross says:
Not all conservatives are racist. But most racists are conservative.
Not all Republicans are racist. But most racists are Republicans.
4
Another example of the American right, Look over there tactics.
When whining about your perceived insulted heart you are not focusing on the fascist elements that have taken over the right.
Where were your voices when the Criminal Trump was stealing our democracies?
Silent.
Do so again.
1
Those who voted for the current president.....voted for a racist. And they knew it, or should have known it. He was not shy about it.
The rest is chaff, including this piece.
Are you seriously going to write a piece on how people have been "unfairly" depicted as bigots? When the leader of the free world is a bigot? I know this is not mansplaining, but its gotta be a close stupid second.
That's like trying to clean the ocean with a skimmer. "Well, I cleaned up my part!"
3
"But sometimes the normal conservative is offering a ladder back to sanity and decency, and trying to make sure that if and when a quarantine gets re-established, as many people as possible are on the decent side." What it sounds like is that Ross Doubthat is trying to put a cork back into the bottle of Conservative Crypto-Fascism, which was always there.
Now I understand why the New York Times keep intellectual Conservatives on their staff. They are sarcastically giving a platform to Conservatives to prove that their ideology is diseased.
3
Boss Ross, Israel is an ethno state at the oppression, dispossession, apartheid, and murder of the Palestinian people. The Jewish state is not on Jewish land. They took it from people who were already living there, the biblical claim aside- there were farms and villages and entire cities of Arabs on that land that were expelled for Israel to become a country for Jews. That’s why we call white supremacy and racism when judges, pundits, whatever, call Israel a Jewish state for the Jewish people. It’s just not feasible without full scale ethnic cleansing.
2
Conservatives chose to dog-whistle the white supremacist vote in order to win elections, rather than doing the hard work of running on conservative ideas and condemning white supremacists. Now they want to be taken seriously on their ideas and deny their associations with white supremacy? Too late.
5
Conservatism has done a good job of "deligitimizing" itself quite well Ross. No push off the cliff needed from the liberals.
Exhibit A: this weak defense of racists and your conservative racist policies and code words of the past 50 years that has enabled and given birth to the ugly open racism we all see now.
3
I just read the white supremacist’s bible, “The Turner Diaries”, because I thought it was timely. I’m a liberal Democrat, but I believe in understanding the position of all my fellow Americans, however stomach-turning or appealing. Only by allowing the other to speak their truth, however distasteful or agreeable, can we live in a liberal democracy, can we try to change each other’s mind, can we try to understand the mind of another.
To try to out scream “the other” is counterproductive. No one grows in their thought process without listening or reading the thoughts of “the other”. That is why “political correctness” at colleges is such a sad state of affairs. It is in those young years of learning that one should listen to everything and speak their own beliefs in turn. The marketplace of ideas should not have ration coupons.
1
I think you have to go back to Lee Atwater's confession to see just how intertwined conventional conservative ideology is with racism in America. I agree with Douthat that there is something in some conservative voices that can function as a corrective to liberal orthodoxy, which itself has gotten out of hand at this point, but Douthat needs to reconsider his simple separation of of the "normal conservative" from the racist. In truth, normal conservatism has been at best using racism to its advantage at least since Nixon and at worst, normal conservative ideology is in itself a form of racism.
3
The modern progressive is on an eternal quest to find evil hiding under every bed. This quest is based on one overriding goal: power. The power to perfect, to "solve," to achieve the elusive and never-defined goals of "equity" and "diversity," (in itself a weird variant of racism).
Progressives, churned out by our universities, have trouble with humor, sarcasm, parody, satire. To "laugh at" is forbidden. "To make fun of" is elitist and smacks of dangerous tendencies to, well...to do something hurtful. Nothing will be allowed to hurt in utopia.
The progressive future, always receding beyond the horizon, is as gray as a Soviet apartment-block. And just as badly constructed. Get used to it. They're winning.
there's too much to unpack in this article to fit in a comment, but let me hit a few.
Ross- stop labeling everyone as either Liberal or Conservative. The polarization of our society is largely based on this type of tribalism. The reality is that a lot of fiscal conservatives are socially liberal and vice versa. The problem is that people are raised to be either democrats or republicans, and then a large portion of our country will vote for whoever represents that party. A lot of republican's would have preferred another candidate to Trump, though they were not given that option.
Why does post-Trump conservatism have to be more pro-natalist? With climate change happening, and the rise of automation, many believe the planet would be better off with fewer people.
All conservatives are not bigots, though there is a lot of bigotry coming from self described conservatives and the President. Where is Mike Pence and fellow religious conservatives, and why are they not using their perch to condemn this? Where's the GOP in congress? Why are they not speaking out? Ross, what role did you have in your advancement of this?
What I see is hypocrisy. IE: a GOP that accused the Fed under Obama for manipulating rates to boost the economy, and then Trump bullies the fed to lower interest rates to boost the economy. Or a GOP opposing stimulus in a recession under Obama, but willing to pass a larger stimulus as a tax cut under Trump in a booming business cycle.
2
Wow! Talk about snowflakes.
Poor, misunderstood conservatives. How could this be?
Perhaps because over the past 50 years conservative economic and political philosophy has resulted in the kind of inequality we see today, where full-time workers for major multi-national companies resort to food stamps and other programs to keep the wolf from the door, while the fortunes of the owners increase buy the millions each day.
Perhaps because the contempt for paying government employees what they should be paid has compelled family members of serving military personnel to get in line behind the employees noted above.
Perhaps because conservatives' contempt for "The Other" has contributed to the evolution of white nationalist and white supremacy movements in the US.
4
Congrats, you found 4. I understand that "3 makes a trend" but I think it's a bit disingenuous to call this a pattern.
3
Overall, a good point. But I'm somewhat discomfited by Douthat's repeated use of the word "quarantine" to describe what conservatives need to do with white nationalism.
Conservatives need to go way beyond a quarantine and entirely expunge white nationalism and racism from our country and our politics. They have no place in our society.
1
Race is an invention.
Culture exists. History exists. What has happened to groups of people is part of the story of how we came to be. History must be respected, because it happened.
But to assign any value to any perceived race at all is to divide humanity and diminish us all.
And deciding to what degree we should find racism acceptable is at best a waste of everyone's time, and at worst, damaging to humans, ALL of whom, by the way, you are related to. All of them. Act that way.
3
There is the constant nag of who has a voice. White men run things. Their point of view is and has been considered the norm. They are fair or unfair. Ross for instance is defining and defending his position in his prestigious column. Most of the people he mentions, maybe all, are people, men, white men, in positions of power who believe they speak fairly for and about others. It would be like women being the norm, being the one's continually describing men "fairly". Or black people continuously, every night on the news, explaining "fairly" who white people are.
1
"In the end the recrudescence of racism on the right is conservatism’s problem to solve, and it has to be solved independently of whatever liberals and leftists happen to be saying. " So you are saying in effect "physician heal thyself". (The physician in this case being the white nationalist conservatives.) The physician has been ill ever since (he) was infected with the Southern Strategy and has shown no signs of wanting to heal himself - in fact the physician has allowed the disease to fester, grow, and spread to others. Trump has been the willing carrier of the" diseases" of racism, white nationalism, xenophobia, and misogyny embraced by right wing conservatives. The start of the cure is to rid this country of Trump and take control of both Houses of Congress in 2020.
Sometimes people have to be quarantined in order to effect a cure. This would do just that.
3
Ross, as with all of your sage and moderating advice, I sure hope Progressives continue to ignore you.
They're holding in deep hits from the bong of anger-based politics and, as you point out, the evidence is that this that they keep looking for a higher high.
Don't give start the intervention until after 2020, please.
Conservatives need to believe in themselves again, and take responsibility for this mess called Trump. Conservatives, who looked away as all manner of propaganda was thrown at Obama, and for many years before that, not speaking against the utter nonsense thrown out about Hilary Clinton, are swimming now in their own soup. Why did they let unfair ( I know libs did this too) character assassinations be thrown around, when good character was their strong suit, or let outright lies slip into public discourse? Why? Just to get an electoral advantage? If they thought truth could just be thrown out for expediency, how can they complain about Trump? I sure hope conservatives get it together; they are missing in our politics, and missing to the detriment of this country.
2
For each Trump, or Miller, or Pence, there are the Madame LaFarges of the left, and the ideologues who have stopped thinking that people who may be White, male and over a certain age (who aren't talking about everything being free for everyone) are worse than worthless.
However, what Douthat misses is why: that after decades of organized political pogroms (statutory, legal, financial and cultural) by the GOP and conservative "intellectuals" upon the rest of the country, those who might be called "liberal" are no longer interested in having a nice civilized conversation with those conservatives. Time's up. Bottom rung's gonna be on top.
People who think that there's going to be some sort of reconciliation between the two sides are living in unicorn land.
1
I know a right-wing conservative who tells jokes in public mocking African-Americans' supposed facial appearance, another who has a political cartoon on his home's bulletin board depicting Barack Obama as a shoeshine boy. They would both be indignant if you said they were racists.
I agree with Mr. Douthat that the left can be intolerant of opposing ideas, but he forgets that "politically correctness" was a notion originally used by liberals to make fun of such liberal excess. Or maybe he's just not old enough.
In any event, if the left is sometimes shrill and intolerant, it's a lesson they have learned from conservatives. One need only recall that a Republican President recently declared the head of the Federal Reserve an enemy of the people, or that the Clintons have been accused, with no evidence, of treason, sex trafficking, and murder.
2
So Trump's wiki torch carrying, chanting, "good people" are just a mirage? I don't think so. I think they are an infection that GOP conservatives are afraid to treat, because it will further reduce their already minority status. Abiding white nationalism for political gain is white nationalism.
2
Mr. Douthat and Mr. Stephens have shown themselves to be rather thin-skinned of late about supporting putative "conservative" positions that in the mouths of their less verbally gifted right-of-center compatriots shade into racism and white supremacy. In short, Douthat and Stephens object to even being thought of as white supremacists themselves, while keeping company with a movement that ever more vocally espouses increasingly extreme views. Rather than following the tired rightist playbook of attacking liberals for calling out conservative racism, which has a long pedigree in Republican politics, they would do better to call on their conservative brethren to renounce both the substance and appearance of racism. Douthat, you are living in a glass house.
3
The USA doesn't have a race problem. It's problem is that it has not acknowledged or dealt effectively with the problem of US racism. Racist policies and practices are the major problem we face.
if I am opposed to racist policies and practices, I am an anti-racist. If I am not opposed to racist policies I am a racist.
If I argue that I am not a racist, but at the same time. if I am unwilling to "come out" as an anti-racist. I am actually demonstrating that I am a passive racist.
1
'I’m not interested in using this sequence of smears to invite pity for the plight of conservatives in the age of Trump. '
Sounds like that's exactly what you are doing.
3
I don’t pay much attention to CNN, MSNBC or FOX. Do watch Morning Joe & Inside Politics. I read The NY Times and WAPO but am always skeptical about what is written. Most of them have an agenda like Lawrence O’Donnell. None are neutral but some more neutral than others. Mostly I find them to be complete phonies. For example, the media spent hours and hours talking about Justice Kavanaugh, little about the Lt Governor of Virginia who was accused of rape. It all depends on what side of the political fence the person is on. Sadly it also depends on your ethnic background. After watching all the pundits discuss Joe Biden’s latest gaffs I have come to the conclusion that the media wants a woman of color to be the nominee. Even better, a woman of color who is transgender. Kamala Harris is out because she is too timid and scared and low in the polls. I will have to wait until the media tells me who to vote for I guess
BTW, I never pay attention to the words racist or sexist or the other names. These words are batted around so much, they have lost all meaning for me.
My apologies, sir, but I cannot abide white conservatives telling me what is and is not racist. As a group, you have been shamefully silent about this administration's policy initiatives that are clearly and cruelly racist. How can you say with a straight face that this nation needs more babies and then be silent on the fact that the Trump administration is detaining immigrant children? Your attempted defense of your friends and colleague suggests that you may want to consider widening your social circle.
4
I have no sympathy for the Repubs whose feelings are hurt by people calling them racist. Decades after they stopped being the party of Lincoln by joining with Dixie Dems in evil coalition to unite America - under Jim Crow - William Buckley asserted "the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage." Goldwater chose the abstraction of States Rights to justify his opposition to the Voting Rights Act - and blacks voting in Alabama. (And if Goldwater's opinion wan't based on racism, the support of millions repeating his "defense" *were*.) Republican's have been dog whistling and pandering to racists for votes for longer than most of us have been alive. They could have advocated limited government while simultaneously defending people's access to rights to which they are constitutionally (not to mention justly) entitled. They might even have balanced a budget. But they almost never did this. Siding with the Klan. Southern Strategy. Willie Horton. That meme of Hillary with piles of money and the Star of David. Birthers. And now Trump. That's what you did, Repubs. It's what you are. Identifying you as what you are is not an example of Godwin's law run amok.
5
"I’m not interested in using this sequence of smears to invite pity for the plight of conservatives in the age of Trump."
Except that that's the whole point of this column
5
I'm not familiar with the particulars of your examples, Ross. Honestly, they don't seem significant enough to warrant further investigation. However, white folks (I am one) are on thin ice when they profess to know what is racist and what is not. All of the noise in the news about racists hardly ever touch the real issue of systemic racism that advantages whites and holds down everyone else. Whites have on average 13 times the net worth of African Americans. Do we really believe we are 13 times smarter and hard working?
2
Once again we hear the cry, “Vive la difference.” Another Republican retreating to false equivalence. It’s disappointing to read a practicing Catholic observing two sins, outright racism and excessive zeal, and equating them.
3
Pity the poor conservative victims of the liberal media! The overtly racist conservatives are bad enough because they inspire individuals from their miscreant ranks to go out and shoot fellow citizens who aren’t like them. Just as worse are the covert conservative racists in government, who use their positions to keep America as white as possible for as long as possible through legislation and executive actions designed to discriminate against millions who are poor, black or brown. Think voter suppression tactics as just one of many, many examples.
I can still remember Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign video, highlighting lemonade on the front porch, white picket fences, American flags waving in the breeze . . . and not a single person of color. Racism takes many forms, quite a number of them very subtle. You’d think someone writing for The Times would grasp that, but I guess not.
My apologies to readers who may think my use of the term “conservative racist” is an oxymoron. Looking at the range of conservative policies today, I would tend to agree.
4
"...the political power that conservatism obviously wields,"? What a joke. You mean the political power that conservatives steal as they ignore the wishes & votes of the un-conservative majority of Americans, while serving the 1%, right?
2
Ross Douthat, master of pretzel-twists of logic, delivers the acme of pretzel-twisted apologia for the state of Conservative America. Of course, that Liberals are worse and do it, too, is the usual and predictable theme that finally emerges when one follows the logic to the end of the column.
Mr. Douthat, Donald Trump *is* the President and he is at the head of the conservative party in American politics. Exactly what is being conserved there? And why is your finger pointed anywhere besides the toxic sludge that threatens the very existence of the USA and the global connections she must help to maintain?
You are not condemning fascism, racism, and white supremacy forcefully enough simply because you're deflecting attention to problems that pale in comparison. So, yeah, the Liberal hold on the English Department at UC Berkeley goes mostly unchallenged! Be afraid, be very afraid.
6
Ross, you are FAR too lenient on the group exposed by Splinter. They were not playing at being nazis; they were being nazis. It makes no difference that they were in their twenties. Plenty of real nazis were in their twenties. And these nazis exposed by Splinter had the tacit and financial support of much older nazis. That is horrific, not an anomaly. Furthermore, it stands to reason that this is the tip of the iceberg. Cosmologists operate on the assumption that wherever they point their telescopes is a fair statistic sampling of the whole. For the sake of our safety and collective sanity, we should make the same assumption. There are a lot more nazis out there in positions of influence and power. Downplaying and rationalizing this menace gives cover for sympathizers.
2
This piece is just a long-winded (and erudite) way of saying, “We conservatives aren’t ALL unreconstructed racists.” True enough. But telling progressives that they shouldn’t put all conservatives in the same basket and blaming progressives for sustaining the current polarization is a bit much.
4
A good apologia for a conservatism that is under fire--from the ultra right.
If we did not live in a time when neo-nazis were buoyed up by the takeover of mainstream Republicanism by the conspiracy-riddled and autocratic radical right, I would enjoy this essay more.
But any real conservative today is a never-Trumper, because they recognize in Trump's cult of personality a danger to democracy and the republic we all love.
Trumpism is an instructive study in how fascism could happen here, in the most ingenious democracy and federal system ever created.
1
Conservatism isn't so much being excluded as it is losing the war of ideas. Conservatism should focus less on "liberal imperium" and more on how to restrain the empirically imperious nature of the strongman that has come to define the right wing thinker.
There are a variety of terms for what Douthat refers to as the "self-determination of specific tribes, peoples and traditions" ... It's called political oppression, or state-sanctioned bigotry, or marginalization ... That kind of "self-determination" is exactly what Western liberalism has struggled to overcome with "cosmopolitan universalism" since the Enlightenment ...
I remember when mainstream Conservatives used to see themselves as champion of Enlightenment values ... now Douthat is arguing that the essence of Conservatism is protecting provincialism, privilege and exclusion ... And yet he's somehow surprised by how easily White Nationalism now seems to slide into the Conservative worldview ...
1
Ironic, isn't it, that three of the four conservatives Douthat is defending are his friends, and the forth used the same social-media shaming tactics that Douthat deplores.
4
Well at least you didn't write about abortion this time around!
The earth in general needs less people.
Trump is president because of gerrymandering and the closing of almost 900 voting stations in democratic neighborhoods and though the radical left can be mind boggling they tend not to beat, burn and kill like the radical right does. Call me Ma, call me cis, call me woman, call me they - it beats getting beaten. Every single person running for president on the Democratic ticket soars in vision, intellect and sound policy ideas over the buffoon occupying the White House now. Stop making excuses Republicans; W and now Trump - you should all be ashamed of yourselves.
2
:
Conservatism is sometimes abused/ utilized as a euphemism for racism. Dog whistling code words align ugliness with respectability.
liberalism is sometimes abused/utilized as a euphemism for socialism/communism, indulgence, libertinism and atheism
Ideas are much about semantics, and skilled demagogues manipulate by way of cheap labels.
I concede that I can be unfair with rhetoric when it’s convenient, ignorant, stupid and unethical.
You state “media outlets served up ‘bogus’ accusations of racism.” Well, I don't think the accusations were bogus so what does that mean? This is only your opinion. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.......it must be racist!
2
“Pronatalist??” If that isn’t anti-choice dog whistle, I don’t know what is....
7
@Bob It's certainly sexist to think women should be cranking out babies for the nation whether they like it or not.
4
"We won't organize any black man to be a Democrat or a Republican because both of them have sold us out. Both of them have sold us out; both parties have sold us out. Both parties are racist. . . ." -- Malcolm X
Using precious inches of NYT opinion space whinging about the "smear tactics" of left wing journalism? Please. The "great tradition" of muck-raking is played by every side of the culture war. Like, have you ever read the Federalist?
If you're truly concerned about ending the deeply ingrained racism of your political wing, why not commit real efforts, and real column space, to those ends?
5
When a crime is committed the first question asked should be who will profit from this? From Barry Goldwater's desire to nuke the Commies, Nixon's Southern Strategy, Ronald Reagan's Welfare Queen, GHW Bush Willie Horton, W's Total lack of Curiosity, To Donald Trump's Racist rants. It it looks like racism, and it sounds like racism you can bet it's racism. If you profit, and it advances your agenda then your are a racist too. It ain't too hard to figure that out. If you are are at the seen of a murder and you egg on the two participantons and you cover up and walk away you are part of the crime a very big one at that.
3
Who am I paying with my subscription? Is this the Douthat Times? Please, don't write articles or columns to defend your friends.
As far as the lumping of every conservative into white nationalism, of course, were coming up on the anniversary of 9/11 when we annually vilify or renew our vile hate for 1 billion people for the acts of 19. Ultimately, blah. Mob politics nonsense. Why do we expect sensible commentary on ideas when people proudly profess a bias?
3
Exactly right.
And let's not forget the race-centered ("diversity") program that describes itself as "liberal", proclaiming the superiority of certain races and basing its hopes on the supposed coming dominance in the electorate of its favorite ethnic groups. In other words, that its favorite groups will replace its disfavored groups. Don't be surprised that some members of the latter are concerned about their promised "replacement", and that this theme has become an organizing principle of white nationalism.
To the extent that a white nationalist movement exists, it is largely a creation of the left.
7
@Jonathan Katz
The demographic changes will create a plurality with no one group as dominant. There is no “replacement” because no group will have a majority.
4
The real problem is fascism, hypocrisy, ruthlessness, and irrationality from the left. It alienates people are liberals. "White nationalism or supremacy" is only dominant in the fevered minds of the far left.
31
@DG Well we've learned from Republicans over the last 35 years that those are apparently the only tactics that are actually effective in American politics. It's amazing how conservatives can throw behavioral precedents out the window, and then whine about how nobody follows them anymore.
15
@DG
So Trump's wiki torch carrying, chanting, "good people" are just a mirage? I don't think so. I think they are an infection that conservatism is afraid to treat, because they will further reduce their already minority status.
28
@DG
On the chance that you might read this - and, take this question seriously:
I've never been to find a single, legitimate, statistical study convincing me that there are more than, at most, 10% of left-of-center Americans who hold the kind of extremist, judgmental views you accurately cite.
I'm being kind when I say 10%; I've rarely found anything suggesting it's more than 2 or 3 % (you're welcome to, if you can find it, cite data regarding the population at large or simply major political figures; i can't find much of anything beyond 2 or 3 % of political figures either).
I remember back in the early 70s when I attended maybe 3 or 4 meetings of some far Left old style Marxist groups in NYC. I found them thoroughly obnoxious, conformist, and in terms of any practical utility, utterly useless.
I also recall in the early 90s, when David Horowitz and some other far right think tank buddies got ahold of some of the worst of these Marxist types and quite consciously and intentionally said, "I'll bet - particularly now that we have Fox on our side - we can brainwash Americans into thinking this is a widespread problem on the Left, even though it's a few dozen obscure academics).
And now, nearly 30 years later, we have NY Times picks having been brainwashed into thinking this is a widespread problem.
Please, if you can, prove me wrong about the brain washing. Show me credible statistics indicating this is truly a widespread problem.
www.remember-to-breathe.org
18
Racism has been the mother's milk of the GOP since the landmark Civil Rights statutes of the'60s. Since then, it has consciously and methodically incorporated racist incitement into virtually ALL of its national, state and local election strategies. Especially since Reagan, racist incitement and innuendo has been used by the GOP to divert its electorate's attention from more salient issues - issues relevant to their economic well being. The lesson learned by the GOP over these decades is that an electorate "hated up" with racist incitement is far easier to grift economically. And so, it had learned that an electorate diverted by the "shiny object" of hate, will return and return and return Rightists to power even as they loot and pillage them with policies amounting to relentless class warfare. A hate-driven electorate, to the GOP's benefit, will ultimately be wholly disconnected from rationality and critical thinking. This, is how they, nearly to a person, blame government "handouts" to the poor as accounting, almost exclusively, for our national debt. One has to wonder; where would the USA now be today if, rather than seeking advantage in hate, the GOP had worked over the last 50 years to advance the forces of American Civilization? Mr. Douthat - and other Rightist apologists cynically seeking distance their "ideology" from Trump, should contemplate that question.
41
"Left-wing orthodoxies in the intelligentsia are oppressively stifling debate". Is that really a serious statement? Do you really believe that? I'd like one concrete example of conservative debate being stifled... If anyone gets to argue that debate is being stifled by orthodoxy, I think we'd need to point to kneeling football players accused of disrespecting veterans or activist raising concerns about treatment of Palestinians being accused of antisemitism. If the (non-facist/non-white nationalist right has any examples of similar "stifling" I'd really love to hear about it.
4
4 examples that exhibit unfairness in the extreme and more than 1500 words.
How many articles and words have you written about all types of injustice, slander, birtherism, bigotry, gay bashing, etc. whereby supposed conservatives lashed out in words or deeds against others?
If you would consider more on these topics, you will note that it dwarfs the 4 "examples" of snowflake melting unfairness you spent 1500 words on.
Consider the AR-15 attacks, abortion bombings and assassinations and church /synagogue shootings as well and you may gain some perspective on "the problem".
We'll be waiting.
4
Cherry picking 4 highly specific examples of left wing “over reach” in no way dismisses the actions of the right wing political machine intent on inciting racist hatred. Overly intellectual bullying doesn’t look good on you BTW. (Could have found 4 more obscure references to make your point?)
Also- the last thing we need is the most privileged among us (hello white men) telling everyone else that we’re being too hard on you.
In the words of that wise philosopher Taylor Swift “You need to calm down.”
4
I think conservatism has morphed into
a nihilistic view of government and
leadership and has long lost any credible
voice to solve huge problems facing our
citizens.
If you have what you need already
maybe you are unbothered by
that but if you don't you are in real
trouble. And too many of us who are in
real trouble are not white.
Lets start with that before you claim that conservatism is non racist.
3
What I hear is a man saying conservatives are not racist all the time, just most of the time. Ok, I can agree with that.
5
The author is obviously incapable of accepting the implicit racism of the conservative movement for the last fifty or sixty years. He has to throw bombs at the hated liberals. Well this is not a trump phenomenon, he simply has given people support to be more open about it. Blaming liberals just helps the right avoid accepting responsibility for its racism, recognizing the problem and possibly even addressing it.
3
Here is my reductive logic:
Modern conservatism found its home in the Republican Party.
The Republican party rushed into the arms of the racist con man Donald Trump in 2016, and 80-90% of self-identified Republicans still embrace Trump tightly.
Republicanism, which includes conservatism, has now morphed decisively into Trumpism.
Trumpism is fundamentally racist, and that racisms, along religious intolerance and misogyny, is what we see how in the Republican party--its dominant traits, if you will.
As we saw at this year's CPAC conference, there is no oxygen for "conservatism" outside the Republican party.
Therefore,
Conservatism = Republicanism = Trumpism = racism
4
"discovering racism where it does not exist" ?
To stand by SILENT, to do nothing & say nothing & support this administration makes one guilty if not by association then by conspiracy.
I'll give supporters the benefit of doubt initially but after 3 yrs of Trump & Republicans turning a blind eye while they continue PURPOSEFULLY & wrecklessly with terrible policy or inaction when it is long overdue is shameful.
4
There is so much wrong in the conservative assumptions made in this column, Having a higher birthrate to make assimilating immigrants easier? Wow. If that's not racist, what is it? And why should women have babies if they don't want to? Huh? As far as the white patriarchy goes, Ross Douthat is fully signed up. Where IS the Healthy Conservatism of which he speaks? I keep looking around but silence (in the House & Senate) means consent. And they and others are consenting to many evil acts & speeches. Mitt McConnell states openly that he is a pawn of Trump (who is a pawn of ??) because he won't bring a bill to the floor unless it's what Trump wants. Where are the guts and glory? I guess Eisenhower would be excoriated as a bleeding heart liberal by now. He showed up.
3
Liberals have a real gift for alienating people these days. Racism is clearly bad. But so is careless labeling people.
1
@M Eng. Yes, we have no problem alienating racists. And we will continue to do so. That the GOP has incorporated racism into it's platform, strategy, and leadership is not the liberals' fault. If we are alienating you, perhaps it's time to look in the mirror.
2
@M Eng As you’ve just labelled liberals?
1
A whole column in 'the paper of record' to say:
My friends were unfairly attacked, and also this other guy.
As for the other guy, he resigned as a result of misinterpreted sarcasm? How un-Trump administration-like.
4
Your average liberal is going to have a hard time feeling much sympathy for "real" conservatives, who have all-too-easily allowed themselves to be co-opted by hard right wingnuts and a demented president. Beyond that, what have conservatives been doing for the country these past 20 years? Actively promoting the interests of rich people while dramatically increasing economic inequality, waging war on science and the environment, rolling back voting rights, flooding the country with guns and packing the Supreme Court with reactionary judges who are totally unrepresentative of the country as a whole. This list could be a lot longer. Suffice it to say bogus charges of racism pale in comparison. Real conservatives should man up and take their party back from the radicals and charlatans that recently hijacked it … before something seriously bad happens.
3
Who are these decent, moral and non-racist conservatives? And why aren’t they doing something about Trump?
4
"[T]he task of solving it still gets a little harder with every nonsense charge or bad-faith accusation."
If all conservatives are made to suffer and are subject to attack because of their racist allies and nationalist friends, perhaps they'll be moved to do something about them. After all, we didn't only bomb the bad guys in WW II, we bombed everyone in the countries.
This is the typical argument the right insists on making, that the polarization is because of liberal domination in schools, how conservatives are being targeted unfairly and so forth. While there are idiots on the left who blow the whistle on racism that doesn't exist, what Douthat is leaving out is that the GOP has been using division and racism to maintain power, the only difference with Trump is he says it. The GOP got the white segregationists in the "southern strategy" by telling them Jim Crow shouldn't of been made illegal ('states rights'), then they got the white, urban blue collar voter by blaming affirmative action for losing 'their' jobs, the anti welfare party line was pushed promoting the idea it was 'welfare queens driving cadillacs' (and gee, guess what racial group that was aimed at), they gave us Willie Horton, and of course the religious right and their hate.
What really happened was that thoughtful conservatism (the kind espoused by people like Buckley and the like), as much as I disagreed with it, has become the religious right/white nationalist/rural/southern , anti intellectual, hard right we see, which is divisive to the core.
As far as anti Trump conservatives go, where are they? Sure, we see GOP congressman refusing to run again, but for the most part conservatives who may not like Trump, have given him and his team of goons the keys to the party. In the UK, conservatives are leaving Boris in droves, where is the GOP equivalent of this?
3
We can add "bad-faith accusations" to the list of things liberals are doing that make it so difficult for conservatives to address the deformity that has taken over the Republican Party. As with many anti-Trump conservative pundits, Mr Douthat traffics in the notion that racism within the conservative ranks is not rampant, but aberrant, and that he and others like him are working hard to eliminate it, but are being stymied by liberal intolerance. If only we would ease up, their job would be so much easier.
I'm waiting for Mr Douthat and his ilk to publish the column in which they abjure the Republican Party in totality. Because, no matter which way you slice it, Donald Trump is the REPUBLICAN president and the leader of the REPUBLICAN party. Last I checked, he will be running for re-election on the REPUBLICAN ticket. Again, no matter which way you slice it, if you remain a member of the Republican party, that translates ipso facto into support for the ideology of Donald Trump, which is firmly grounded in white nationalist racism. Period.
I am not impressed by conservatives making the case for conservative ideology by claiming their intentional purity as being apart from the Republican party, while bemoaning the loss of their political homeland and simultaneously blaming liberals for treating them unfairly. The fix is simple: Abandon Trump and the Republican party. That is what will you wash you clean of the racist stink you smell, not begging liberals to give you a break.
3
There is nothing strange about the declining birth rate. Wealthier people just have fewer babies. Always have. Always will. Lamenting the declining birthdate of white middle class people without recognizing this fact is racism.
2
Conservatives love to overgeneralize. Here's one for Ross today "Birds of a feather...."
1
I had to stop reading when Douthat mentions ethnic, cultural, and religious binds, and then only defends the last two.
Israel is a special case. It was formed in the wake of a worldwide consensus that borders cannot be redrawn through force, and of course, the Holocaust. It suffers from being the last country to be created via colonialism, casting it as potentially illegitimate, while also retaining emotional resonance from a shared sense by Jews (of which I am one) that thousands of years of history demonstrate that Jews will never truly be trusted as citizens of another country. Israel, if necessary, will be where we make our last stand.
As for the rest of the world, no, it’s not legitimate to say you want to stay a white country (or Asian, or black, etc). This is by definition racist. Douthat can use as many words as he wants, and it will still be racist, because that’s what racism is.
1
The solution to the problem of recrudescence of racism on the right is to recognize that racism was always there and was usually covered by the right's preference for a stratified society. Racism on the right was further muddied by the existence of the most overt racism within the non-conservative party where it did not belong but prevailed due to history and political allegiances.
Conservatives accepted members of the black elite who identified with the elite and sought to differentiate themselves from the black non-elite, but rejected any members of the elite who saw themselves as leaders of the masses rather than individual exemplars of escape from the masses.
2
"But sometimes the normal conservative is offering a ladder back to sanity and decency." I love that. Douthat has really found his voice over the last couple of years. (And he correctly predicted how Trump could/would win.) Pay attention people.
I am a progressive Democratic voter and I see people like Ross Douthat’s voice as a “...ladder back to sanity and decency...” for conservatism. Unfortunately, there is nobody like him in the leadership of the Republican Party.
247
@Randall
Hilarious that you think Douthat is a conservative. :)
This comment (and I'm not making fun of you) is an example of haw far left some
Democrats are.
10
@Randall Is Ross like a David Brooks conservative then? FYI: listen to the podcast The Argument with Ross, Goldberg and Stevens - quite good!
4
@Raz Well then, will you or someone please define for me, exactly what a conservative is? I am old enough to recall the late Conservative, William F. Buckley and his conversations vs. the equally late Liberal, Gore Vidal which were characterized by their wit, wisdom and occasional respect for one another. Above all, they were men who could be respected for the expression of their points of view, if not the actual content of these views, depending on your own inclinations.
20
Why does anyone care anymore if he or she is branded a racist? Why even write an op end on this topic? You're giving to much credence to the very small group of professional racism detectors who see explicit and implicit racism everywhere they look. The people who are quick to brand everyone and everything as racist do not even represent most minorities' views on these topics.
The term is thrown around so much it has lost its meaning. Actual racists (e.g., KKK supporting white nationalists) are now lumped together, for example, with parents who don't want to eliminate screened middle and high schools.
People need to stop apologizing for insensitive things they've said decades ago or things that were misinterpreted and eventually the grievance pendulum will start swinging the other way and more normal views on racial topics will prevail.
1
"It is not white nationalism to recognize limiting principles on liberal universalism, and a justifiable role for particularity — ethnic, cultural, religious — in many political arrangements."
Until someone says "Black Lives Matter," I suppose. Then, there seems to be little "justifiable role for particularity" on the right.
1
NPR had a story on anniversary of Emmett Till's murder. It included an interview with a former Mississippi prosecutor whose daddy defended one of Till's murderers. Quote "He(Till) overstepped the bounds. He was cured of it" This interview was current. Take a trip through the rural South and you will find this type of thinking/expression is common. In the words of a comic="I have" Look back at the Charlottesville March. Plenty of well dressed, well groomed young white men there; then tell me we liberals are overplaying the white nationalist card.....I am still waiting for Republican leadership to show that there is some decency left in the Republican Party. Trump and his supporters and followers are the exact opposite of the Party of Lincoln.
5
“... recrudescence of racism on the right...”
Recrudescence, by definition, implies that an undesirable condition/behavior had, at some point, stopped and has now reoccurred.
I am not aware of any stoppage of Republican racism since the Southern Strategy, which Republicans implemented in the 1960s... considering racist law and order policies, voter suppression efforts, gerrymandering, accusations of “welfare queens,” anti-immigration efforts, etc. Please, explicate the time periods from the 1960s to present day when Republicans did not engage in racist behavior to, at a minimum, win elections.
I know that many people claim they are not racist, and, perhaps, they are not personally prejudiced. However, when these unprejudiced people tolerate and go along with discriminating policies and discriminating strategies/tactics in order to achieve some social, political, or economic goal, these people ARE discriminating against the targets of those policies, strategies, and tactics.
It’s called “Convenient Discrimination” and can take the form of racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. So, yes. If an unprejudiced person tolerates and goes along with racist policies, strategies, and tactics because they will receive some benefit, they ARE “convenient racists.”
7
The Democrats are less uncomfortable with Louis Farrakhan than the Republicans are uncomfortable with David Duke. Glass houses.
1
@Sense and. Irrelevant in numerous ways. What is relevant: republicans are comfortable with trump. Love trump. Voted for trump. Will attempt to reelect trump. Conservatives live within the GOP (where else?). The GOP has openly welcomed outright racism into the party strategy.
1
Republicans are more comfortable with Donald Trump than Democrats are with Louis Farrakhan.
That is the proper comparison.
Republicans elected Trump President . Louis Farrakhan has never been elected to any federal office.
2
@Sense and David Duke was elected to office. Louis Farrakhan never was.
1
The American left has a racism problem as well but no one wants to talk about that. Asking a Democratic candidate a question while black could become a hashtag except the candidates are either literally running away from any black person who asks a question (looking at you Bernie and Kamala) or only allowing "screened" black people to ask questions or pose statements such as the black woman who gave Biden a personal coin. Um ok.
2
If conservatives strive to “conserve” the past and uphold tradition, and this past and tradition were basically built via genocide, slavery, racism, and theft, then how can they be seen as anything but racist, immoral, and requiring complete political/social obliteration? Wouldn’t you distrust someone willing to insist that we should conservatively flee a burning building? Especially if you know that they don’t feel the heat of the flames, and in fact, they actually set the fire?
2
The problem with conservatism is that, for the most part, it doesn't exist. Modern "conservatism" is built on a foundation of white grievance, and many of its leaders are nothing more than anger pornographers who stream self-pity and resentment to their followers.
2
How interesting. You have written a column essentially saying watch out liberals , stop saying things you’ll regret after trump is gone. So we’re all supposed to be scrupulously fair waiting for you and your conservative friends to clean up the racist mess that is ruining life under trump? When exactly will you be getting around to that? In 2020? In 2024.? I think you’re working the refs.
6
I would be interested to hear why Ross thinks the Eve Fairbanks piece is "peculiar," particularly since this OpEd reads a bit like the genre she is describing (i.e., "yes, there are conservative racists, but the real problem is those 'mean' liberals"). Calling someone out for using racist tropes is simply not the same as calling someone a racist. We all use these tropes, sometimes unknowingly, and we all need to do it less. If you're not willing to recognize that, then you're probably not a "healthy conservative." No one is quashing discussion and debate by saying, "hey, I think that was racist." They are inviting you into a discussion of what racism means. So please, Ross. Quit changing the subject and join the discussion.
1
If you think that either liberals or conservatives have a monopoly on solutions, you are part of the problem.
Conservatism needs to return to its intellectual roots. See the writings of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, and others.
Following a period of introspection, true conservatives will be able to re-animate and redirect the Republican Party.
Jasper
An example of bringing up race where it isn't relevant was a comment in the NYTimes a few weeks ago, which said that Trump as a candidate was given a pass for his notorious sexual boasting because of "white male privilege". I would be inclined to call it a case of "rich and powerful" privilege, having nothing to do with race.
1
@Charlesbalpha. Your inclination does not reflect reality. Consider if trump were trump black and making those same boasts...
2
@Charlesbalpha
Certainly race matters. Bill Cosby couldn’t use the “rich and powerful” card to avoid prison or even to choose where he is serving his sentence. Jeff Epstein (the late?) certainly used white privilege to be out and about during the day and confined to his private glamour “prison” in Palm Beach at night.
2
Mr. Douthat defends the defensible from his tower. I have no problem with that. Sadly, though, many of his ilk left the tower and voted for Trump. I don't know how Mr. Douthat voted, but looking at the conservatives in Congress, they're licking, for the most part, the President's boots. So too their counterparts in the state houses.
So, Douthat-Conservatives, hang your clean souls out in the hate-filled wind blowing off the border, hang them over the filthy cess-pit of lies and greed, scent them with the stink of foul air and toxic water: Yes, that's where you put your votes , and please, do not protest too much.
4
Yes Ross, conservatism’s racism problem is real but it wasn’t born yesterday.It has been cultivated and nurtured from within for at least half a century. You pose the question of what a healthy conservatism would look like if the racist strain were quarantined. Do you think Reagan would ever have been elected without a “southern strategy” or GHW Bush without Lee Atwater?
Unsubstantiated smears from any quarter are problematic and obviously counterproductive to any substantive policy dialogue and the left has no monopoly on them as AOC and Ilan Omar can readily attest but if the perception, indeed stereotype of a racist Republican Party is going to be dismantled it will have to start with factual criticism from the right, a rare occurrence.The silence on the right at congressman Steve King’s frequent racist comments is deafening.
3
It's always kind of interesting to watch Mr. Douthat tie himself in knots. The ultimate result: confusion on all sides, disguised as discourse. Four hundred years of slavery firmly established some rancid ideas in our society. He needs to explore that concept and stop ignoring and/or excusing all the things that these ideas carry with them.
1
Sorry, Mr. Douthat. All the lovely anecdotes and high faluting double talk can't create any space these days between the GOP and white nationalism. Call me when the GOP stands up to Trump on a matter of urgent national security. Like gun control. Or getting an immigration bill passed. Or any reasonable legislation in the country's best interest for that matter. And where is this media bias against conservatives coming from that is SOOO bothersome that one must parrot Trump with constant attacks? Not the NYT. Not t.v. Not radio. Not the internet. Oh, wait. You're upset with late night comedians making you look ridiculous...by using your own words and pictures. Whose fault is that? Well, at least, Fox News is fair and balanced. Like Pravda, an equally respected media outlet. Hey, just following the party line is an economical approach to journalism. No need for research or journalists or fact-checking. Who needs the truth when we can have raw anger instead. Keep up the good work.
4
Douthat has a talent for presenting a thesis that he simultaneously undercuts. Birth rates and babies are subjects that regularly get his attention. This phrase involving babies caught my attention “ . . . the natural family’s strange decline.” What is being implied by that curious phrase? Global human populations first passed 1 billion around the turn of the 20th century. By the turn of the 21st century, human population had passed 7 billion. No decline there! I’m reluctant to read anything into Douthat’s curious phrase that may imply something racist. Perhaps he’s talking about some subset of the global or US human population. Thoughts from readers or further exposition on this question by the author would be helpful.
4
I grew up in the South during segregation. Not one person - black or white - were not aware every single day of rampant racism. For many, it was simple things such as shopping and seeing two water spigots one marked White and the other (often broken deliberately) Colored. It was in the grocery stores where, if a white person reached the clerk after the black customer, the white customer was always served first.
From Huey Long to Eugene Talmadge Sr. to George Wallace to the murder of four innocent black children in their church, racism has been warp and woof of conservatives in the South.
When the Civil Rights Movement was signed, all those racist conservative Democrats became Republicans.
Please don't tell me how conservatives aren't tarred with the brush of racism.
6
You know the drill: If a journalist wants to divert attention from the question of "Did Mr. Smith shoot his wife?" s/he need only write an article asking "Why did Mr. Smith shoot his wife?"
Similarly, Mr. Douthat wants to divert attention from the question of "Is growing ideological uniformity in the commanding heights of culture making American politics more polarized?" (the answer to which is "no") by asserting that "It is not white nationalism to believe that growing ideological uniformity in the commanding heights of culture makes American politics more polarized."
Mr. Douthat is right. It's not white nationalism. On the other hand it is STUPID to believe that growing ideological uniformity in the commanding heights of culture makes American politics more polarized.
2
Nice try, Ross. Your ability to use complex arguments to obscure the elephant in the living room continues to impress. We are not like any country that did not import a huge minority population into oppressive contempt lasting centuries, always legitimated by "conservative" thinking. I feel your discomfort under the oppression of all those shallow liberal kids who put you down, but what's wrong with them is not what's wrong with our nation's health. Retire.
5
"highbrow white supremacy"
I relate to Menashi's article "Ethnonationalism and Liberal Democracy", not in terms of content, with which I agree, but in terms of procedure.
The article appeared in an Ivy League law journal:
Menashi, Steven, Ethnonationalism and Liberal Democracy (2010). University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, Vol. 32, No. 1, p. 57, 2010 . Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1592560 (I provide the academic citation; Mr. Douthat provided a link in the article).
It is peer-reviewed. It underwent numerous editorial stages and as academic articles usually are, was probably revised a few times. Yet none of those readers at all those stages saw "highbrow white supremacy" or even lowbrow white supremacy.
The study is available today from numerous academic search engines. Each of those search engines also states how many downloads there were. Just looking at one (!) I see there were 1,000 downloads. Thousands of scholars and lawyers in general have read this, and they all missed the white supremacy. Amazing. Thank God for the research staff of the Rachel Maddow show.
The common thread in all of the examples is shoddy research and scholarship of those who do and would cry "white supremacy" on what is clearly not so and that is evident to anybody who takes the time to actually check things out.
1
If the Rachel Madow/Hillary Clinton types -- Wall Street liberals -- are what so distress you, Ross, the solution is obvious: join forces with the actual "left". the one which isn't offered op-ed slots and ism't represented on MSNBC or PBS
These are people who see conflict in America is largely one of class and class interests, rather than race. Or Russian influence.
Get out of the bubble and try it sometime. If you listen carefully you may even hear it from two of the current presidential candidates. You know, the two you can't endure.
1
Conservatives claiming victim status (you're borrowing from the Donald's playbook here). I was positively agog for the first few paragraphs but by the end, the dreary, hackneyed refrain had emerged. Yes, please outline all the ways in which wealthy, influential, elite whites who still hold the majority of power on all local, county, state, and federal levels, as well as within the private sector, have been victimized. My eye-roll is virtually audible. And if those mean students on college campuses are hurting your friends' feelings they should be spanked with a copy of "Hillbilly Elegy."
7
So the people who are concerned about the birthrate in the U.S. are hoping for more children across the board, all races and mixes of races, not mostly concerned about having more white children born? Hmm! Have whites ever been the numerical majority race in the world? In the last 150 years, we certainly have held the most wealth, controlled and consumed the most resources and until recently, made the biggest environmental messes.
4
Many conservatives call for rule of law and enforcement of immigration laws. However not one non-Hispanic undocumented person has been captured by ICE, caged and deported although there are about 700,000 at large. If that is not racism what is?
4
Your comments on Menashi's defense of Israel miss the obvious. In this country the talk of a unified ethnic identity is code for white supremacy. Furthermore Netanyahu's administration has used the idea of Israel's existential threat as a means to persecute anyone he sees as a threat, whether they are or are not.
And "particularism"? What is that? It is another word for Identitarian, which is more code for white supremacy in this country.
Then there is the birthrate thingy. One comment I hear from time to time from a group of Pro-Trump "conservatives" (they're really not politically driven conservatives) is the fact that people of color - generally blacks and hispanics - are procreating for 1. lack of self control sexually and 2. religious reasons, both of which end up with the idea that they will take over this country due to the fact that they out pace white birth rates. FYI, this is also espoused by some with regards to both Arabs (if given the chance) and the Jewish Orthodox in Israel (an interesting contradiction.)
4
Ross, you doth protest too much. Defending a few friends and acquaintances of yours doesn’t matter in the big picture.
With words as carefully chosen as possible, you say that the President of the United States “race-baits”. But you fail to mention that this race-baiter has nearly unanimous support from the GOP in Congress and around 90% support from the Republican electorate.
Judge people by what they do—not by what they say. And, it’s not as if Trump started the GOP on this path. He saw, just as the GOP from Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, Sr. that welfare queens and Willie Horton solidified the Republican votes. Trump decided that adding Mexicans, Muslims, Arabs, and women of color would be even better.
7
Any association with Israel automatically marks Conservatives , as supporters of Trump & will be attacked by the liberal media.
As a Supporter of Israel & a Conservative i am not a supporter of Trump, and strongly oppose another 4 years for Trump. After saying that, it does not mean I support the Democrats that represent the DBS nor radical Socialists that are Anti Semitic, like the self hating Sanders.
In 2020 I will vote for Moderates of both Parties, which includes Biden.
1
Interesting. I heard about the Olson piece from a left wing site:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/3/20847587/leif-olson-department-labor-anti-semitism-paul-nehlen-bloomberg
Of course Drouhat left this out, because it interferes with the whining about people pointing to the pervasive racism in the American conservative movement as it exists today.
4
My, my.
The problem is not that we don't know what sound conservative policies might look like. The problem is that the political class in the GOP has lost all semblance of credibility. If you sleep with mongrel dogs, you get fleas.
As for the notion that the senatorial GOP remembers its Oaths of Office, understands the least thing about Anglo-Americn history since 1688, or is fit for anything but the dustbin of history, just who are you kidding. The time for them to grow a spine was about two years ago.
The Congressional GOP is composed ot KnowNothing neofascists and the spinelessly silent, who are terrified Trump will primary them. If you think the media are unjustly punishing your fellows for the grestest copout in modern history, buy a handkerchief.
The GOP has been a stinking cesspool of lies and cynical manipulation since Richard Nixon, far surpassing the normal levels of deceit and corruption that are part of standard American politics. My family, staunch Republicans since the Civil War, has abandoned it for moral reasons.
There is room for a real conservative party in American politics, but it will be born from the smoking ashes of the GOP. You might try to organize it, instead of bewailing the injustice of the media. Ever watched Fox?
4
" . . .recrudescence of racism on the right is conservatism’s problem to solve"
NO, it's not. Definitely not. Why? Because the body count by people acting on the Republican president's racist words is too high.
Because only a few conservatives speak out against the racism and xenophobia, and they always, like Douthat here, minimize the problem and broader conservative views complicit in it.
When the president refuses to condemn men chanting "Jews will not replace us," when he demeans whole groups as sub-human for political gain, when he calls out judges as unfair because of their ethnic heritage, all of us need to rise up to fight it.
Conservatives hate comparisons to 1930s Germany, but at this point, no one can deny the alarming fascist trends.
3
Douthat cherry picks 4 isolated pieces, as opposed to thousands extolling the great Identitarian Trump, to argue how unfair the media is to poor principled conservatives like him who supposedly valiantly oppose Trump.
Douthat insists he "can confirm anecdotally how vigilant conservatives are in dealing with "racist flirtations". It fails in the face of actual data. Every survey shows 90 percent of conservatives insist Trump has never said or done anything racist.
Douthat pretends racist incitement by Trump, the GOP, millions of Trump trolls and followers, and a host of news outlets like Fox News and Brietbart, is merely "flirtatious", not objectively dangerous.
Douthat, like Trump, exploits Jewish Americans to argue how unfair the media is to supposedly principled Christian Conservatives like him. Conservatives say nothing against Trump, or shift the conversation (as Douthat does here) to pretend Trump's critics are the real villains.
Like Trump's accusations of Jewish Americans being disloyal to Trump, to America, (and Christian plans for Israel), this piece exploits Jews to benefit right-wing Christians.
Douthat doesn't even address that the greatest concern of Jewish Americans is white Christians with assault weapons trying to kill them in synagogues. (3 major plots to massacre Jewish Americans were foiled in the last 2 weeks alone).
How can that possibly compare to Douthat's grievances at 4 pieces arguing conservatives are complicit in perpetuating Trump's hate?
5
Mr. Douthat,
I summarizing your opening appeal for pity over the plight of conservatives in the age of Trump. you wrote, "I’m not interested in using this sequence of smears to invite pity for the plight of conservatives in the age of Trump."
You and yours created this mess. Solving it does not entail this ridiculous attempt tomato this some kind of cultural smear job engineered by Democrats. Atwater, Manafort, Stone, Rove, Bannon, and now Miller. Racists all and all yours(and that's the short list). It's taken you fifty years to arrive here. Your candidates began their national campaigns in Mississippi with veiled appeals to "real" Americans to retake what was theirs(Reagan), created villains like the Welfare Queen and Willie Horton(Reagan and Bush), labeled John McCain's adopted daughter his inter-racial love child(BushII) and rode down escalators spewing accusations like "drug dealers" and "rapists"(you know who). They gut the VRA and cull the voter rolls of tens of thousands of legitimate black and hispanic voters.
That's who Republicans are. That's how they win. Not on ideas. On fear and hatred. They're not the victims of Democratic smears. Even if they don't wear the robes and hoods and burn the crosses, they're buying the sheets and paying for the gasoline.
Racism in the Republican party isn't a bug. It's a feature.
5
I saw the Maddow piece on Menashi, it was not as you characterized it in your piece. Every time you mischaracterize media coverage in order to prove a point that poor conservatives are under attack, you delegitimize your argument. Ross - the bottom line is this...any intelligent person knows that Trump is a racist AND that the conservative movement has ALWAYS included far right white supremacists and nationalists ideologies. You might want to split hairs and say that Never-Trumpers represent "good" conservatives, but the public doesn't see it that way. You and your ilk allowed conservatism to be taken over by extremists and you want us to feel sorry for you? Nope.
5
The approval ratings by Republicans for Trump — keeping in mind that many moderate conservatives have left the party, leaving those on the far right as the party base — say they are fine with his obvious appeal to nationalists and supremacists. Not true? Then they have to call him out on this, not remain silent, like the feckless congressional Republicans. The rest of us see silent approval for what it is.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
1
Mr. Douthat, Your column teeters on the premise that there is going to be a post-Trump conservatism. Why should we think there will be?
4
Mr. Douthat, I think the title of your article says a lot. It's difficult to pick through today's discourse and name the things that AREN'T a response to having had eight years of a non-white president. None of the ugliest aspects of human prejudice evoked by Donald Trump are new, but they've been given a new legitimacy by the insulting way in which he speaks of and to minorities. The day after he was elected, my daughter went down the stairs of the NYC subway, and a man screamed after her: Another JEW! She said: Yup! and kept walking. Brave girl. The man continued: No more Jews! It's TRUMP time now!
You've written in defense of a number of your friends, no doubt fine, decent, intellectual people with good intentions. What. you've skipped over lightly is that Donald Trump, the leader of the free world and the president of the United States, has tremendous power. His words shake the world. And his words are often racist beyond any argument. Telling four Americans to "go back where they came from" because they aren't white sends a message with a virulent power:
It's ok to hate anyone who isn't white and Christian.
349
@anon, My daughter had a similar experience as your daughter did the day after the 2016 election in Charleston, SC. As she was walking into work, a white man yelled at her from across the street, "Hey pretty n-word girl. Trump is the president now." Needless to say, she was overwhelmed by this unsolicited comment. Do not tell me that the racists' support of Trump is a figment of my imagination.
30
I eagerly await a companion column: "Four Things That Are Not Communism" 1. Campaign for laws that make it easier to organize labor unions; 2. Respect for science including evolution and climate change 3. Favoring higher tax rates for the wealthy and 4. Affordable food, housing and health insurance as well as free public education for all through the university level or equivalent trade or technical school.
15
Your point is taken and I agree. I also think that the right hurls accusations of "socialism" when the left raises issues of equitable opportunities for everyone. It seems we are living in the "Nasty Comment" age. Our political discourse has deteriorated to the level of irritable and badly motivated trolls hurling insults at one another. What is the path back to civilized discussion? I was taught to respect opinions I did not agree with and to fight for everyone's right to speak up. That seems passe' in this world. People behave like they must protect their last ration of food in a world where everyone is starving and attempting to steal that last ration of food. Individuals cling to hate-based polemics and refuse to enter rational conversations or work to govern together. I grow more hopeless as the weeks go by.
2
Mr. Douthat's use of the term pro-natalism has been co-opted by conservatives as a code word for white people aren't having enough babies, thus allowing for a minority majority country.
Until a single elected Republican can stand up to Trump and say I cannot support any of his policies because I think he is promoting racism, there is no hope for the Republican party.
9
The Washington Post piece Douthat mentions could be construed as promoting a false equivalence. Of course conservatives who take positions contrary to liberals are not necessarily white supremacists, but that piece doesn’t really argue that they are. Bari Weiss is not a white supremacist for criticizing Ilhan Omar’s criticisms of Israel and US policy toward Israel. But this is not really the issue. To ask “Is so-and-so a white supremacist?” is to miss the point. It’s like asking whether or not Trump is a racist. He probably is, but no one in their right mind is going to say, “Yes, actually, I am a racist, an especially aggressive one.” It’s more precise to say that the rhetoric the WaPo piece points out promotes a kind of creep of racist and white supremacist ideology, normalizes it, you might say, under the guise (consciously employed or not) of pleas for civic discourse. The simple truth is that what we say and do either helps to overcome prejudice or contributes to it.
3
I find this whole essay to be a disingenuous grasping at the straws of false equivalency.
In the case of the essay that mentioned Vance, the author immediately was notified of the error, and retracted the statement. It took less than half an hour to make the correction. Faulting that piece, and hiding behind Vance's honor, does nothing to address the very real threat of White supremacist replacement theory doctrine, which was the whole point of that essay anyway.
Ross, arguing that there are real reasons people want "white women" and "True Americans" to have more babies, is akin to arguing that there are a lot of legitimate reasons for strangers to want to sneak into your house at night while you are away. I wish I had time to spend on this, because you are wrong on a hundred levels.
Conservatism believes they have a problem with academic orthodoxy, but their real problem is with scientific evidence that consistently contradicts the goals of the conservative agenda. Your real problem is with proven, reproducible evidence that most conservative policy goals have negative outcomes for the majority of people. That is why academics are so often aligned against you! Grow up, and stop whining at God!
5
I initially was upset reading this article until I got about 2/3rds the way through it and I realized why I was upset.
I actually agree with Ross — conservative voices must be heard in order for more conservatives to be pulled back from the edge. I realized that it made me upset that I see so few conservatives talking about racist problems and dog whistling when they come up. So Ross, please write a series of op-Ed’s reaching out to conservatives on this issue. It seems I don’t read many op-ed’s from you about the subject so I want to see a lot more from you on the topic.
But also understand that I have been watching this issue draw conservatives closer and closer to the edge for 20 years now. Trump is just another step (a big step I grant you) on the same path, but he is not some crazy aberration from where I sit.
4
An article that wastes both newsprint and time. Citing a few individual examples of your friends being criticized does not change the facts or the reality. (And while I did not view the Maddow episode, I've seen her enough to know that she does not wantonly throw out accusations. Her research and reporting are in the vast majority of instances, without peer.)
The Facts and Reality show that the GOP and conservatives supported, campaigned for, voted for and continue to support a blatant racist with a bull horn who on a daily basis continues to prove his racism with both words and policy. To come to the logical conclusion that the gop specifically, and conservatives generally are thus racist is not a stretch.
5
I think you may be right in some circumstances, but with all due respect I think you -- and other conservatives -- are missing the point. Racism is more subtle and complex than announcing on Twitter "I'm a white supremacist!" Racial identities are more deeply ingrained than most realize, and loyalty to those socially constructed groups runs deep. The thing I see as being widespread among conservatives is not just racialism (shared with liberals), but an outright refusal to take seriously one's obligation in a racist society to engage in self-examination and self-critique. Conservatives by and large just want to ignore the issue, which just perpetuates the underlying racism. Hence, the sweeping allegations that you're racist because you can't be bothered to care enough to address your racism.
4
Ross,
If a conservative voted for Trump the first time, I give them a
pass. But if they vote for him next time, they are at least giving Trump a clear racist pass. There is really no way to do that without owning some racism in their own psyche. So next election cycle we will get a precise count of how many Conservatives are indeed racists. I would ask you which is a greater mortal sin: racism or misrepresentation by the Left.
2
"What a healthy conservatism would look like if the racist strain were quarantine" answer: It wouldn't exist. Modern conservatism without racism would be a minor party that would not hold the White House. Conservative is not a "gateway drug" to racism. Racism is a gateway drug to conservatism.
6
Isn't this just about collateral damage? Do you think that conservatives are debating evidence that unjust delegimitization is happening to progressives, regarding anything? Doubtful. The bottom line is that for far too long conservatives have been willing to tolerate unjust and inappropriate racism. Branding that tolerance a flirtation does not remove the fact that such levels of tolerance fall into the grand bucket of racism.
3
Your passion has resulted in some fairly overloaded sentences, though on the whole the argument is sound.
"...progressives indulge a political fantasy in which the racist infiltration of the mainstream right is an opportunity to delegitimize conservatism entirely." Actually, this is the whole point, all the rest is noise. The Left wants to knock conservatism back into defensiveness so it can deliver a decisive, killing blow. It's not a fantasy, it's a strategy. The backlash against all Republicans, regardless of their Trumpist or nationalist leanings, will be terrible. Winter is coming.
2
Your arguments are absurd since liberalism believes in tolerance and in diversity and the legitimacy of holding almost any belief.
What is undeniable is that the Republican Party has been using racism for electoral success for years with extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression.
It has created the false Fox News claim of voter fraud as an excuse for undemocratic legislation. It has refused to support immigration reform legislation because it feels it benefits politically from anti immigration hysteria. It has used libertarian and conservative arguments
2
Ross, you have argued your point articulately and have researched well your premise and belief. I would love to discuss this essay further with you, but a comment section is limited by space and time. So, what I will say is short: I do not agree with you. Where you perceive and defend conservatism’s general quest for acceptance of the non-Christian, of those of a different skin color, I see hypocrisy entrenched and disguised by pretty words, spins, and manipulation of vulnerable minds. Here in the world away from print and the media, I meet neighbors, relatives, and acquaintances who are indeed racist and bigoted. Even in a liberal SF Bay Area, they are aplenty, particularly in our Catholic (I am Catholic) and Protestant churches. No I will not be convinced until domestic murders, terrorism by the White man, ends; until immigrants and refugees are treated with dignity and respect; until the Muslim, the Jew, the gay, the Black and Brown skinned, the woman, are able to live free and equal lives. I will not be convinced until we rid our democracy of the worst POTUS of modern times, if not history itself. Enough with excuses. I am done listening...for now.
5
First, full disclosure this might be a bit more reasonable if in nearly every problematic situation someone was not a friend of yours. You understandably have to site something in order to write an article but perhaps go further afield than your circle of friends. I do not understand if you are upset because someone you say "cherry-picked" Vance's speech and now you in response "cherry-pick" the offending Op-Ed. I still think Op-Eds are meant to express the "opinion" of the writer. I am sorry that your friends in your opinion got "dinged". However, something big is currently happening in this country that surpasses being liberal or conservative. Yet on some level I think you do understand this. Those on the right are being asked to as never before to be rigorous,clear and knowledgeable in exactly what it is they are and are not supporting. Silence just won't do. Being a conservative with a big "C" always meant a series easily explained policies... e.g. fiscal conservatism/no-taxes. Today that is not true. There are many people settling around your campfire and those that are clinging to its warmth have an agenda that includes racism. I also do not understand how someone of such intelligence cannot understand how Charlottesville, et al changed everything.
4
Mr. Douthat's anecdotal exceptions to white nationalism are embarrassingly trivial. The only consistent meme of the modern Trump McConnell Republican party is racism. That is what binds Trump to his base, and his base is, for all intents and purposes, the entire party now. McConnell and his Congressional Republicans have all silently acquiesced to the racist meme, and this acquiescence has normalized it for the Republican party. Their increasingly explicit aim is to preserve and augment the unearned and unmerited entitlements, prerogatives and dominance of white conservatives, especially white conservative males. Do I believe that Douthat's conservatism can or will solve, on its own, the racism plague that they themselves have foisted on the nation over decades of lies, conspiracy theories, gaslighting, dehumanization and propaganda? No. Not for a minute.
4
With apologies for conflating Conservatives with Republicans: The Republican Party is a minority party that came to power by suppressing voters of color and activating its base by encouraging fear and hatred of people of color. Between the 2012 and 2016 elections, Republicans suppressed POC voters by voiding important protections of the Voting Rights Act and adopting voter identification laws in 32 states (Trump won in 25 of those states). Trump just exploited that strategy.
Regardless of how you personally feel about people of color, you are a racist if you exploit people who hate or fear people of color to come to power.
3
Valiant effort, perhaps, but every Democrat in office or vying for it are fixated on labeling anyone, and I mean anyone, who has differing views as RACIST! Ask Nancy Pelosi or Bill Maher to name just a few extreme examples, but this paper, and especially the comments section are chock full of the indoctrinated view that all conservatives, white people, Republicans, Southerners, gun owners and on and on are racist. It’s a label without real distinction, thanks to the mob who finds it around every corner. And most unfortunately, as Mr. Douthat documents, it is regularly invented by the media, which used to include journalists. It means nothing.
This piece claims that racism and white nationalism within conservatism is a new phenomenon but I have watched it’s existence my entire life. Growing up white and working class in an overwhelmingly white rural community, I recall discussing Ronald Reagan’s racist dog whistles with my fellow 8th grade cafeteria helpers.
I’ve heard them all along because they are designed to be in my frequency. White Nationalism is inherent to American conservatism. Given the foundations of America how could it not be.
What was the common characteristic that these liberal 8th graders possessed in 1980 that inoculated against the dog whistles? Our parents, were all Union members who taught us to understand that the greatest divide is between the haves and the have nots and that only solidarity would give us better lives.
4
Ross Douthat's defensiveness serves no purpose. He's defending people whose histories are highly dubious and controversial.
What does it matter whether they are "white nationalists" or not? Word games can't hide the ugliness
behind motives.
4
"I’m not interested in using this sequence of smears to invite pity for the plight of conservatives in the age of Trump."
Ol' Ross doth protest too much, methinks.
4
Ross, the False Equivalence stuff grows old. Until the GOP formally condemns racism in all of its forms and calls out its own racists (start with the top and work down), you don't have a logical leg to stand on. Racism has been part of the party's tool kit since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and LBJ knew that. Over 50 years later, you have yet to acknowledge it.
5
Ross,
You won’t get much sympathy from the far left readers of this paper, but as a centrist, I agree with you.
Well done.
Douthat's piece in effect equates the Israeli Jews with the Awá tribes of the Amazon jungle because both are discrete cultural groups who want to preserve their political identities.
However, A FAR MORE HONEST ANALOGY would equate the Awa, who are being forced out of their habitats by Bolsonaro's forest burners and the Palestinians, who have been forced out of their homes by Israeli conquerers and occupiers.
By turning logic on its head, Douthat once again - and again and again and again - discredits both his thesis and his "reasoning."
But for racism, the modern Republican Party would not exist. But for their multi-dimensional bigotry (that begins with conservatives' disdain for the primitive "human nature" of their lessers) most conservatives would not be Republicans.
If anything, the depth, pervasiveness and corrosiveness of conservatives' bigotry is too timidly understated by their critics.
Modern "conservativism" is morally and intellectually bankrupt.
4
I’ve recently heard a name I hadn’t heard for 30 years. Herbert Marcuse and his elevation of intolerance as a democratic value is now in vogue among pseudo intellectuals. Scary.
After a career of Hard Line Ross, particularly on issues of religion and political economy, we get Squishy Ross pleading for the Misunderstood Right.
We get Usual Ross, given to power statements of pseudo-fact in support of his thesis.
The overwhelming power of the Liberal Cabal on campuses and, in of all places, newsrooms across America for example.
Religion is one thing, fantasy worlds a whole other, and Ross's bombilates with Libs in every nook, around every corner.
How to address this idea that media conspires against Trump/McConnell when the biggest, loudest media conspire to support/whitewash the sins of Trump/McConnell?
Or this college campus thing. It seems Ross hasn't taken the tour in some time.
Campuses reel under pressure from the Right to "become more like business". And they do, dumping faculty like last year's textbooks, making way for provosts, student issues specialists and strategic planners, deans, assistant deans, sub-assistant departmental deanish assistuaries.
The money goes to the bean counters (Right), away from faculty (Left, somewhat), along with the power and the hiring decisions. So...
Ross omits unrelenting charges of Anti-Americanism from the Right (thinly disguised racist rants) as in the frenzy against Ilhan Omar, who asked they consider funding for Israel in terms of American interests rather than annual boatloads of unconsidered cash.
There's hysteria on all sides; it needs to stop. Blaming one or the other is not productive.
1
The issue here may be that when we see Trump pick those loyal to him alone, as we did with Barr (who dems went along with like sheep to the slaughter), who turned out to be the AG who wasn't one, who instead choses lawlessness and is Trumps Roy Cohen, when we see these things happening again and again, we expect that Trump's choices are to serve him, not the country. And thus far, we have not been wrong, tragically. So before throwing stones, consider that! You are correct that it is over the top in some instances; but, should we be complacent, and give his picks a chance, until it is too late to walk us back from the edge of total autocracy? It is a fine line, and there are no easy answers until some sort of justice is arrived at.
1
Conservatism was delegitimized by the increase in prosperity and national strength resulting from the rise of progressivism 100 years ago. There's no need for any further efforts at delegitimization.
1
Great piece. I say that as a liberal who believes strongly in free speech, and has seen the shutting down of conservative or other perspectives by self-appointed monitors.
1
Eve Fairbanks' WaPo essay that Douthat references here is a brilliant piece of writing. I can see why Douthat felt threatened by it - and why he completely mischaracterizes it here.
Fairbanks does not accuse conservatives of "somehow adopting the rhetoric of Confederates and slaveholders when they argue that left-wing orthodoxies in the intelligentsia are oppressively stifling debate." She _demonstates_ it.
She traces and identifies, through antebellum primary sources, a specific "antebellum rhetoric" that was used by slavery apologists to defend the peculiar institution and the Southern "way of life" that did not rely on racism or racist tropes but presented itself as the scientific, reasonable and morally superior position defending itself against the excesses of abolitionists. Then she meticulously traces parallels in the rhetoric and conservatives of today:
"All of this is there in the reasonable right: The claim that they are the little people struggling against prevailing winds. The argument that they’re the ones championing reason and common sense. The allegation that their interlocutors aren’t so much wrong as excessive; they’re just trying to think freely and are being tormented. The reliance on hyperbole and slippery slopes to warn about their adversaries’ intentions and power. The depiction of their opponents as an “orthodoxy,” an epithet the antebellum South loved."
Douthat calls her essay peculiar; I imagine it must feel peculiar to be exposed so.
6
If you really look at it, this is the same article that Mr. Douthat has written before. He is making the Grand claim that it is possible to impose a religious identity onto a democracy, he is defending the right of Israel to be the Jewish homeland, but not addressing the issue of how to prevent a two tier system where Jewish identity makes you a first class citizen and anything else a second class citizen. "This land is mine,
God gave this land to me." The first lines from the theme from Exodus, really? Which god is that? This is really the Zionist attitude, and the attitude that dominates Israel now. Anything that criticizes the land grabs, the lack of voice for Palestinians, and the blatant disregard for other religions, is considered antisemitic.
I think it is comforting for Mr. Douthat to believe that you can place a religious stamp on a country and that this is okay. He is a good catholic, and perfectly willing to make abortion illegal. It does impose his religious/moral beliefs on others who do not share his beliefs. If you find enough like minded catholics and put them on the Supreme Court ...
If you look at countries around the world, you can see countries like Ireland that have rejected a special place for religion with fairly positive results and places like India that is defining itself as a Hindu nation with deleterious effect.
In my opinion, there must be complete separation of church and state for a democracy to exist and survive.
4
It's no mistake that the GOP is predominantly white, male, hetero and evangelical. Through its rhetoric, actions and policies, the party has alienated everyone who doesn't fit those descriptions. And let's not even get started on the party's fealty to the NRA and the straight line that can be drawn from there to thousands of unnecessary guns deaths every year. Time after time, the GOP has been wrong on the whole gamut of policy issues: fiscal responsibility and taxation, deregulation, foreign policy, campaign finance reform, gun control, privatization, health care, education, infrastructure, defense spending, reproductive freedom, civil rights, etc., etc.
So what great ideas does conservatism have left, Ross? The answer to that rhetorical question is nothing. Unless you're okay with subverting the democratic process to exclude those who don't agree with the GOP's perennially wrong ideas, many of whom are non-white, non-male and non-evangelical.
By the way, I'm very progressive, and Maddow's posturing and yes, propagandizing, annoys even me. Not to mention that Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough are utterly clueless. Chris Hayes and Lawrence O'Donnell are about the only hosts worth my time there.
1
I suppose I have two well-formed thoughts after reading this essay:
(1) Eva Fairbanks' piece examining pro-slavery antebellum rhetoric was interesting and informative. There are many ways nowadays that people give rhetorical cover to things that are in substance bad. The "it's just history or heritage" rationalization for Confederate statues is one such rhetorical fig leaf for what is a relic of Jim Crow propaganda. Fairbanks' essay is a useful part of a fairly intellectual debate about the historical use of language to to make bad things seem palatable.
(2) By now we should all know that humor, irony, sarcasm and satire often do not convey on social media, in online comments sections or in many online discussion forums unless the writer is particularly skilled. Heck, some people don't realize that Jane Austen has a satirical edge, but no one is going to write her a reply that invokes Godwin's law or fire her. Attempts at irony, nuance, humor can get you skewered online unless clearly labeled. Don't attempt them on serious or controversial subjects.
4
Ross, this piece is what is known as a "Gish Gallop". It makes so many assertions that are questionable, that is becomes nearly impossible to refute them. there's always "Yah, but whatabout..."
Let's take a look at Vance. "The most important way to measure a healthy society is by whether a nation is having enough children to replace itself". Which society is Vance on about? It is not the Mexican American subculture. It doesn't seem to be the African American sub culture. It sounds just like the replacement meme of the white supremacist. The problem is not a lack of replacements, it's the lack of white replacements.
Now comes the "whatabout".
7
Please tell me what conservationism is. All I see is a group of people who believe in depriving people of health care, keeping wages for workers as low as possible, promoting the pollution of our water and air, spending ten time too much on the military, starting unjust wars, transferring wealth to the rich, promoting economic policies leading to recessions, promoting exorbitant government debt, and promoting racist (even if they are not one). Please someone tell me a single positive attribute of a conservatism. I am want to find one.,
3
@Casey
1. Support of private markets driving prosperity, 2. personal responsibility, 3. pragmatism (contrasted with politically correct)
1
I couldn't read past Douthat's first defense, of what he calls "particularism." It's the idea that some people are more equal than others, based on their race, religion, or "cultural" features, whatever those mean to him. He says it's "not white nationalism" to form a government around such a distinction. It's only wrong to form our government around it, because we're supposed to be pluralistic. But "particularism" of the white nationalist variety is exactly what justified slavery here in our country. It did not merely "lead to chauvinism and cruelty" but rather to a mass system of enslavement for people of color. "Particularism" has already proven itself to be a dangerous and racist line of thinking.
Douthat follows this paragraph with the galling argument that pluralism, not "particularism," is what oppresses distinct identities. That's right, he argues that pluralism, governing with race/religion/culture neutrality instead of favoring one group over others, squelches diversity. Wow. Time to stop reading.
If this is Douthat's vision of "what a healthy conservatism would look like if the racist strain were quarantined," his whole party is in trouble.
74
@Julie
Obviously you did not read his essay. He acknowledges that the United States is a pluralistic country and this is part of our identity. But he also acknowledges that many liberal democracies are NOT pluralistic, and have a deep basis in shared culture, religion, and ethnicity.
This does not mean that they think their culture or race is "better", just that it is what it is and has a right to exist.
And yes, pluralism taken to the extreme does oppress diverse cultures and identities when it denies them the right to exist be denying them the right to define their borders, boundaries, or themselves in attempts to flatten everyone into the same commercialized, secular, monoculture. There is nothing "galling" about acknowledging the right of diverse cultures - including European cultures - to exist, and to have their own nations. Many European countries and ethnic groups, such as Poland and Ireland, fought hard to have their own nations, based on their own cultures, free of oppression from stronger imperial powers.
This might not be easy for arrogantly "cosmopolitan" New Yorkers to understand, but many people have a deep attachment to their homelands, tribes, and traditions, and this attachment is a normal and natural part of being human.
Not everything is about the United States, and not every issue related to culture or ethnicity is about the oppression of "brown" people.
ALL particular cultures have a right to exist, including the cultures of Europe.
7
@Julie Amen. Could not get past that "particularism" nonsense either. Douthat is an apologist with no core principles.
2
@Julie
He really can't help himself: That's just how he sees the world. Extremely intelligent and well-educated, he just can't see over the top of the box he built and lives in. The upshot? He's more of a problem, a demagogue, than a solution. All his energy points at the wrong target. Sometimes I think it's just smoldering anger and disdain for the hoi polloi, those who see the world more humanely and less intellectually. His attitude reminds me of 17th-century British royalty, just cold-hearted. It's etched into his face.
4
Like many who have risked friendships and even careers opposing Trump, his policies and his Republican allies, I am tired of "never Trumpers" like Douthat trying to argue that once Trump is gone the Republicans will be the party of freedom and values once again. Nonsense. We could go back farther, to Reagan and his embrace of Philadelphia, Mississippi but need look no further than the Obama years. The hard core racist underbelly of the Republican party was on full display. Frankly, the celebration of "conservatives" like Douthat for their anti-Trump views is tiresome. I'm willing to stand by the adage-"Not every Republican is a racist, but almost certainly every racist is a Republican".
11
Just another example "whataboutism" being used to distract from the real issue.
5
Conservatism’s racism problem is that you can’t vote for Trump without a tacit approval of racism. Not everything Trump does or proposes is racist, but you vote for the whole package. The article is interesting, but avoids the larger problem.
5
"Non-racist conservatives" is an oxymoron. At this point, If you are signing on for conservatism, you are also signing on for the racism; that means you too, as uncomfortable as that may make you feel. That the Republican Party was hijacked by zealots is well documented. That the current Republican administration speaks directly to white nationalists (signaling acceptance of their reprehensible views) is irrefutable. One cannot legitimately distinguish conservatism as it exists in politics today from racism. You should consider owning that Ross.
2
The rolling smear campaigns by “progressives” have reached the level of McCarthyism.
Cut it out!
You are going to destroy America.
1
Can we all stop grouping people together as if we are all part of some monochromatic social and political network? Voting is the single most personal way we express ourselves, and people vote for a candidate (or against a candidate) for a variety of reasons. So long as we have only two political parties we are left to vote for deeply flawed candidates who often don't represent us very well. It is possible to abhor Trump, but rationalize voting for him. One example would be a voter who believed deeply in limiting abortion rights. Another might be someone who opposes Medicare-for-all and wants to keep their private health insurance. Stating that these are unimportant issues or should be secondary to Trump's overt racism is simply a point of view, not a fact. And lumping everyone who may opt to vote for Trump into a racist bucket is tantamount to calling them "deplorables". It's wrong and must be avoided.
97
@John -Point taken...now in the case of those 2 examples you provided and thus votes were (as the lesser of two evils) cast for Donald Trump for president; in your estimation-are those voters more or less secure in having "their issue" safely secured?
It is complicated and single-issue voting is rarely effective as a strategy to protect/secure any ONE desired outcome.
19
@AEF
I agree completely, and I am not advocating for another 4 years of Trump. For what it's worth I didn't vote for him either. What I am trying to point out is that people ignore flaws, sometimes huge flaws, in candidates all the time. It may very well be shortsighted, but it is not in and of itself, novel. If people truly want to beat Trump, they need to start appealing to a portion of the 63+ million Americans who voted for him. And calling them all racists isn't a good start.
23
@John Just adding the obligatory clarification that Hillary's whole quote was making the point that not all Trump voters are "deplorables". She said there's a group of Trump voters you can't reach -- let's call them a basket of deplorables -- and then a whole bunch of other people we need to understand and find common ground with. Just another way the right misled and misquoted to turn people against her. She was making the exact point you're making here.
91
It would seem that Conservatives have three choices. They could vote and support a Democrat. They could not vote and allow the Democrat to win by de fault. Or they could vote to support the bigot in the White House. Apparently if you are a Conservative, supporting racism is less onerous than allowing a Democrat to become President. If Conservatives are really decent people, maybe they ought to consider the meaning of their options. Better yet why don't Conservatives find a candidate to run against Trump in the Republican primaries? The proof of whether Conservatives are racist or not should be judged by their actions.
5
Rather than dispute the racism by Republicans it would be more constructive if Mr. Douthat actually gave an honest critique of it. Then he could critique the other forms of bigotry on the right such as misogyny and homophobia. He could critique the blatant Republican hypocrisy by comparing its behavior during the Obama years with its now expedient abandonment of all those previously deeply held principles. Ross should critique his Party’s denial of human caused climate change and critique the Republican embrace of trickledown economics to showcase his Party’s delusion in the face of evidence discrediting both. A terrific critique underscoring all of these ills would be the Republican embrace of authoritarianism and how it enforces adherence through social and political ostracism. All of these are suggestions for Ross that could be constructive toward helping his Party wake up and join the rest of America as we try to move into the future.
3
Douthat may well be right to defend Vance and Olsen. The Fairbanks piece was indeed ridiculous. But I have to defend the critics of Menashi.
I challenge Douthat to name a contemporary country where ethnic particularism is as formalised and essential to state character as it is in Israel. Israel is a state for a particular people. Its Rabbinate does not welcome conversion or assimilation into Jewishness, which would anyway require giving up one's original religion. Assimilation to Israeli-ness is possible, but Israel is by its own admission not a state of all its citizens. The Law of Return welcomes Jews who have a a distant and, in the case of specific individuals, unprovable connection to Israel-Palestine, but excludes millions who have direct, provable descent from its recently forcibly displaced indigenous population. The flag, anthem and now official language are Jewish. Only Jews, Druze and Circassians are conscripted into the military - a dubious but real privilege, since resources flow to veterans.
I could add of course the countless de facto oppressions suffered by Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line (especially the voteless millions under permanent Israeli occupation), but here I'm referring simply to the formal character of Israel within its internationally recognised boundaries.
2
@Daryl Glaser 22 Arab league nations with the same ethnic/religious policies, if not far more restrictive, than Israel. why do progressives never hold them up as examples of what "not do do"?
I have three beautiful very blond little boys, twins age 3 and a six year old. I wish their complexion was darker, for the obvious reasons, primarily related to sun damage and associated ailments. I love them more than anything in the world, and any viewpoint claiming they should receive anything less than equal treatment, equal opportunity and equal preference with everybody else's children is intolerable; anyone who argues for such a viewpoint needs to understand no parent, white, black or brown, will accept such a viewpoint for a moment. The argument will fail, catastrophically, and so those advocating for racial and other justice should stop making it, since it's a fast road to making opponents rather than supporters. Just stop. It's not that hard; imagine what you want for kids, and assume that others want the same thing for theirs. Easy, right?
For full disclosure, I'm generally progressive, support Elizabeth Warren and have two Ethiopian/Somali nieces who I love dearly and for whom I want exactly the same things that I want for my sons, except of course the complexion part...they are very dark (and very beautiful) already. I also believe that the easiest way out of the idiotic, identity-obsessed egotistic mess in which we find ourselves is miscegenation, so I hope my kids and my nieces marry outside their respective tribes, so to speak, just as my sister-in-law did.
1
Good essay, but your focus is all wrong. Racism on the right will ultimately destroy the Republican party. Right now, it is viewed by some (including Mitch McConnell who should know better) as a feature, not a bug. This is, of course, a mistake in the long run, but for now, Republicans can celebrate their majority in the Senate, their victory for the governorships in Florida and Georgia, etc., etc., etc. However, racism as a policy does not work in a globalized, interconnected, free-market-based world. The people in khaki pants and polo shirts who were screaming and yelling in Charlottesville, about getting replaced, are being replaced by Indians, Filipinos, and robots. I am not sure you can build a wall to stop that. Meanwhile, Republicans will be left with anachronistic policies that don't work: more tax cuts, more babies, more settlements in the West Bank, and more debates about Confederate monuments. Good luck with that.
1
Mr Douthat is right and nonsense charges are too common. Damaging to both of our political tribes and, even much worse damaging to the social fabric of our country and I am sick of them.
What our hopelessly optimistic columnist gets wrong is “when the quarantine gets re- established. “. I don’t see that happening. The GOP let the Trump “let me use racism to get the crowd cheering for me” toxin out and I am sorry for the conservatism I used to love, but the quarantine won’t be re-established.
2
I think it is fine to push back where you think people have made a characterization that is not valid. Looking forward to your column identifying conservative pundits who have inaccurately labelled center left Dems as "socialists." Hint, it will need to be a lot longer column.
2
Although I would like to be sympathetic to Mr. Douthat's argument, the current situation does not lend any credence to it. The four Republicans who represent my state have all been informed by me that the leader of their political party is a racist and makes racist declarations. The last of them to respond to me, Mike Simpson, made great efforts to play down Trump's racist declaration, all the while trying to straddle the fence and say that it was not that bad and that others had done the same things. Until conservatives as a whole and Republicans specifically actually come out and start condemning Donald Trump, then these individuals cited in the piece, will probably have to suffer being painted by the same brush of racism that Republicans have chosen to try and whitewash Trump's statements and policies.
2
Thank you for providing your perspective, Ross. Let me briefly share a couple of observations. When the president of the United States wants to bar Muslims from entering this country and his party leadership doesn't respond, they are endorsing white nationalism. When he smiles as a crowd chants "send them back" and his party leadership remains silent, they are endorsing white nationalism. When Trump informs us black people should be afraid of being shot as they walk through their neighborhoods, and his party leaders remain silent, they are guilty of white nationalism.
So, I see a party leader and his leadership team giving both loud cheers and quiet acquiescence to racial superiority. When this group does everything but bring back signs of "Whites Only," then courageous heroes among non-racist conservatives seem exceptionally few and far between.
2
"This is worth emphasizing because there’s a strain in progressive commentary right now that assumes that to try to understand the appeal of toxic ideas is to justify and elevate them, and that if you can establish a six-degrees link between a normal conservative and a YouTube racist, then the conservative must be just a gateway drug. Which, admittedly, sometimes is the case. But sometimes the normal conservative is offering a ladder back to sanity and decency, and trying to make sure that if and when a quarantine gets re-established, as many people as possible are on the decent side."
Okay, this is a fair point, Ross. At the same time "normal" conservatives have been courting the votes of the racists for decades. What might be defended as offering a ladder back to sanity may also be a cynical play for support for positions that one may hold for "normal" reasons or for racist ones. Take the border. The "normal" conservative may say we need security, but he's not sufficiently willing to condemn putting children in cages, because those cages fire up his racist allies to vote. The children, Ross, remain caged.
3
Good try, Mr. Douthat, but the screaming silence of American conservatives (or what now passes for them) in reply to Trump's incessant race-baiting tells a different story. That silence is a sin of omission; the sin is racism.
1
Point made. Not all Republicans or “conservatives” are racists and some have been unjustly criticized by the media; the examples are specific and detailed. Undeserved condemnation can happen on both sides and we need to remember that. But it seems to me that your article, could go further and deeper into the issue.
Some accusations of racism are definitely over the top or disingenuous but there is certainly enough genuine white nationalism in the Republican party right now that Douthat discusses it with all the young conservatives he speaks at length with. I totally understand that if you are a member of a group you would want to deal with ugliness internally and defend the group externally. But I think Douthat would get more traction from his criticism of over zealous if he occasionally reflected on what he as a presumably reasonable non racist republican intends to do about the rampant white nationalism in his party (which he acknowledges) and not just making apologies for his party or attacking liberals who miss the mark in their accusations of racism. Maybe he has written on that somewhere but i read the times regularly and read his article in the Atlantic and I can't recall it. Many liberal public figures discuss how we address the problem of a virtue signalling call-out culture in liberal politics as they should. Where are the Republicans willing to talk about ways to clean their own house of the far more serious and dangerous poison of white nationalism? All the ostensibly non racist Republican pundits ever talk about is how the perception of conservative racism could hurt their party or agenda, why not spend a little column space on how you might put your own house in order?
1
The focus here is wrong. The GOP's commitment to it's own solipsism is as impressive as it is disheartening. It's both difficult and exhausting to engage with people who's primary response is consistently along the lines of: "But what about me? Me. Me. Mine. And why MY wound is the most important."
The reality is this: A Republican president, exceedingly popular with the GOP electorate and party leadership, is openly bigoted, racist, and enjoys overwhelming support of white nationalists. More substantially, current GOP policy aims from immigration to criminal justice to voting rights are deeply and transparently racist. Perhaps, the greater emphasis, Mr. Douthat, should be on the impact of those actions and policies on people of color.
Or you can write another, predictable column about how the REAL victims are conservatives.
I remember when the GOP branded itself as the party of personal responsibility but it seems the only thing they are more afraid of today -- other than people who don't look and think exactly like them -- is personal accountability.
3
Others have made this observation before me, but just in case Mr. Douthat didn't get the message, here it is, one more time: the Republican Party has actively embraced and profited from the racist vote since at least 1968. The dog whistles have gotten more and more audible for the past half century. Now that they have become full-blown air raid sirens, it's a little late in the game to be claiming, "not all conservatives ". Find me one who has not benefited from the support of racists, either overtly or passively. That includes you, Ross.
Ross Douthat continues to be obsessed with labels. I'm not sure who "conservatives" are or what they think since that changes radically with context. "Conservatives" are in favor of keeping government out out your business unless sex is involved; small government "conservatism" means tax cuts for rich people. I can keep this up. I prefer to talk about an objective category, people who vote for Republicans, and it is very clear is that the racism is at the core of the Republican base. The Republican Party flipped the South starting in the '60s, and the appeal was overtly racist. I was there; I saw it happen. That spread, and today, the Republican base is composed largely of whites with less than a college education who also profess a number of other bigotries. (Real Republicans are still the small core representing the interests of the rich.) What changed was that Trump came along and used racist language overtly while most earlier Republicans had used code words. Sorry Ross, what passes for "conservative" these days is overtly racist and will be until the Republican Party rediscovers a soul.
Calling American media culture an ecosystem cheapens the word ecosystem. It's precision in describing the land is reduced in every instance of literary license. Please stop co-opting this word. Work harder for descriptions of culture.
Instead of bemoaning what is NOT white nationalist racism, Mr. Douhat would be a better pundit by acknowledging what IS racist by acknowledging that Trump and the new-conservatives are harkenng an era of intolerance. Witness the Supreme Court upholding a ‘Muslim’ ban. Religious beliefs being held up as an excuse to deny services or accommodations to ‘others.’ Walls , or security barriers, built in Israel to keep an Ethnic minority from having to deal with its own disenfranchised majority population can never be seen as anything but a failure to achieve a political solution.
Cherry picking examples of other pundits called racist and whose screeds are only appreciated by a racist minority seems to me to be disingenuous. Does Ross worry when one of his colleagues tries to get an American Professor fired because he didn’t like a tweet aimed at him? No comment from the snowflakes here. And snowflakes are white.
So Douthat's article boils down to this: Conservatives hate that their hypocrisy is called out by the 'culturati'. He laments, as all conservatives seem to, that 'the Left' has ownership of our cultural identity. The truth is that no group holds the reins of cultural supremacy. There are conservatives in every aspect of cultural production - conservative artists, filmmakers, writers, actors, etc., and certainly at every level of sponsorship. If their ideas are not culturally ascendant, then maybe it is because nobody buys their poppycock. It is not because they cannot get their ideas out there into the marketplace of ideas, but rather nobody is buying their tripe. If Conservative ideology were so good, there wouldn't be any problem selling it.
1
Douthat doesn't engage with WHY racism is common among conservatism and how the Right's history of dog whistles and coded (and increasingly not-so-coded) racist appeals has contributed to that problem.
The modern Right is built on the foundation of the white backlash to civil rights. That is incontestable. The whole edifice of the modern conservative movement rests on a foundation of racism.
Even "respectable" conservatism stands on that foundation. And that foundation is important for conservatives because it is the way they reach working class whites for whom they otherwise offer nothing of value. Conservative economics are dedicated to subservience to the rich and corporate power. It is nothing but negative fallout for working class people of all colors. So the conservatives divide the working class by making appeals to white people based on stoking fears that "the other" are getting something that white people aren't—that the cascading problems of the white working class aren't due to conservative economics but rather to Black people getting "welfare" or immigrants taking "their" jobs.
Maybe instead of wasting column space whining about liberals making unfair accusations of racism against conservatives, Douthat should concentrate his efforts on delving into the history of his own movement.
He knows there is a problem and kudos to him for acknowledging that. But he still wants to deflect by talking about how mean liberals are.
1
I think it's true that white nationalism as a threat to our democracy is overblown.
Do white nationalists pose a terrorist threat? Yes.
But is there any risk that white nationalist laws will be passed? Like a new Jim Crow? Legally mandated segregation? Racial discrimination under the law?
No, not a chance (other than affirmative action, which is of course legally sanctioned racial discrimination).
Do I equate the failure to adopt a "woke" mindset to racial oppression or a perpetuation of Jim Crow? Nope, don't think so. I believe the "woke" worldview is generally incorrect--for minorities assimilated into into the norms of meritocratic American culture, the sky is the limit.
So when Tucker said white nationalism is a hoax, he was literally wrong. It exists. It commits acts of violence.
But as for white nationalism political aims? They are DOA. No threat whatsoever.
2
It seems to me that "racist" is a label that has become so ubiquitous and indiscriminately applied as to have lost any clear definition or meaning. Soon (if not already) to be joined by "socialist". They mean whatever you want them to mean. I have started to cringe whenever I hear either term used, much as I have done for way too long now whenever I hear anything (or should that be everything) characterized as "amazing" (or, if you still prefer "awesome").
1
If "healthy conservatives" want those illiberal liberals to stop reacting to their otherwise (allegedly) innocent ideas, then they need to do more than offer lofty conservative thoughts in the face of this very racist administration's efforts to dismantle civil rights (and our democracy); and they need to do it in a way that is as forceful, coherent and direct as any progressive voice.
Conservative politicians and intellectuals - especially the healthy, fair-minded ones - need to, as a group, actively protest this administration with unceasing and high-profile zeal. They haven't. And until they do, they will be judged as an ally of Trump and his racist brand. They can't expect the rest of us to tease out the nuance of their conservative notions while their man in the White House is virtually burning crosses on the South Lawn.
The problem, Ross, is that conservatives have always aided and abetted racism and other forms of discrimination in their zeal to gain power. The fact is that conservatives are a minority cannot win power by sheer majority, so they cultivate the suppression of opposing voices,many of them people of color, non-heterosexuals, immigrants - especially legal ones, and thwarting fair voting any way they can. If some conservatives get tarred with the justified brush of accusation, perhaps they ought to look more closely at the company they keep and change that, or work more actively and aggressively in changing those anti-democratic forces around them. But whining that you're being wrongly accused will fall on deaf ears.
The plain truth Ross is that the "discrimination" you complain about is pathetically small compared to the real and destructive discrimination waged by your peers for centuries.
Conservatism cannot prevail in this country without racism. The only way conservative ideas can take hold here is by exploiting underlying racist sentiment. Thus, the GOP, through its "Southern Strategy" explicitly decided to adopt racist ideology.
This follows a long history of exploitation of underlying racist attitudes having their roots in antibellum 'culture.' Racism was the primary motivation for poor southerners to fight for an institution, slavery, which hurt them economically.
And conservatives eagerly voted for a man, Donald Trump, that they knew was a racist. I would argue the same of Ronald Reagan.
I don't care what was in those voters' hearts; their actions spoke much louder than their words.
As a progressive socialist living in a liberal enclave, I agree. In part, anyway. Racist-shaming has become ubiquitous, as has many other types of shaming on the left.
I certainly agree that trials in the court of public opinion, the prosecution often spearheaded by journalists, has been disastrous. 'Leadership' is assumed by the loudest voices, the highest podiums, without regard to merit or responsibility.
That said...
Trump was the natural culmination of decades and decades of conservative leadership. He's a symptom, a byproduct of the conservative ideology that a divided culture in which the powerful continue to consolidate power is preferable to the monoculture that is the advocacy of the left. (Diversity, in many progressive circles, is a group of people who look different but think the same.)
The left bears much of the blame for Trump. In our (sometimes) singular obsession with proportionate representation of every group in every aspect of life, we've ignored cultural differences; and, in many cases, spewed hatred at specific members of the electorate. Perhaps all we are able to do at this point, absent a willingness to see our contributions to Trump's election, is to just continue with name-calling.
1
I feel like if these conservatives who are accused of being associated with and enabling racist leaders would disassociate themselves from the racists and stop enabling them...then they wouldn't be accused of associating and enabling racists.
425
@Erick Tatro How do you know many don't? Only a very small percentage of us have our views heard by the masses through traditional or social media.
7
@Rich Because we just read an article by a white Trumpist who was fine voting for a racist, but felt the need to complain about how some other people get called racists, without at any point every condemning the racism or the racist he voted for.
36
@Randall You're answer answers my question. You don't. Your answer mentions ONE person.
2
It’s nice to stick up for one’s friends.
3
I don't think people like me criticize Israel because it is a Jewish state. I welcome the idea of a Jewish state.
We criticize it because it was imposed by colonizers on the native Palestinians without their opinions taken into account. We criticize it because it ethnically cleansed the area (read Ilan Pappe). And ever since the creation of Israel, Israel has slowly and steadily eaten up any remaining land that Palestinians could lay claim to.
1
You have anecdotal evidence that the party led by an open white racist is not openly white racist? Reagan talked about welfare queens and H. Bush talked about Willie Horton, but the GOP has not evolved from subtle white racist dog whistles to open white racism? The 90% rejection rate black people have for the GOP is just blacks having subhuman minds? One of my favorite articles in the NY Times (by Charles Blow) dealt with this so well with this topic and title said it all: Denying Racism Supports it." When do you admit that your white denial is really you enabling hate? White American racism is real and all the white lies and denial in the world won't fix it or erase the fact that you belong to the party that maintains it. In fact, this is just another shot against non whites and Martin Luther King. Too bad being on the wrong side of history does not bother you as much as your "anecdotal" evidence.
3
Except that the "more babies" argument is almost always used to mean, more "white" babies, the reason "white women having babies" is always part of white nationalism manifestos.
1
The Conservative Right's problem with Racism isn't on the Left.
Your problem is with the fact that most 'Decent' and 'Non-racist' conservative white Americans SAY NOTHING when the Racist stands next to them and smiles as they spew their hate.
Your Problem is similar to Libertarians-- Racists don't really bother you...especially if you're white. And Free Speech! And you tell yourselves, privately and quietly, Of Course, I Abhor what the racist says...
But you SAY NOTHING out loud.
Racists don't CARE what you think about them 'Privately'. All that matters to them is that you provide them cover and tacit permission with your Silence. You remain SILENT as the Racists attempt to transform their views into 'Just another Point of Discussion'.
As a Black American, I see hear resounding Silence everywhere. Especially in the Republican Party.
You are like the faux friend at a party when someone says something incredibly and stupidly racist to me...and then smirks. And instead of standing with me... you step back, go quiet and 'Just Watch'.
I have no use for 'so-called' friends or Fellow Conservatives who will Stay Silent and 'Just Watch'.
3
Picking a few examples does not mean that the entire left is out to cry “racist” every chance they get. The Republican Party has been the party for racists for decades. The defensiveness from those such as Ross adds nothing. By playing this card they are trying to diminish the facts when racism is correctly called out.
Take a look at your party. A long look. Why are white nationalists drawn to it and not to the Democrats?
It is not enough for conservatives to be only disputably non-racist. Unless Republicans clearly stand up to oppose Trump, they are tied to him, hook, line, and sinker.
The Trump agenda clearly is powered by white nationalism, lying about, abuse of, & hatred toward: Congresswomen of color, leaders of the Democratic Party, & the mainstream "Fake Media" as Trump insulting calls them.
Why do liberals tie conservatives to an allegedly racist, lying, incompetent President? Because conservatives themselves went there and appear to be very comfortable staying there, while making pro forma efforts to dissociate themselves from the Trump offense of the hour.
Conservatives cannot deny racism while employing racist tropes & dog whistle language, and supporting the most demagogic and white nationalist President who has little regard for the rule of law, since Andrew Jackson.
There is no moral equivalence between fascism and anti-fascism. None.
Alleged media smears against non-racist conservatives?
Cry me a river.
This is whataboutism.
The problem is a President and Party, the US Republican Party, who have abandoned all notions of truth-telling & civility. If Trump would not declare himself a "genius", insult any woman who doesn't swoon at his feet, insult blacks regularly, put refugee children in concentration camps, & borrow from Ibsen, Stalin and Hitler by using "the Enemy of the People" trope, liberals might not be so mean to Mr. Douthat's very sensitive & not racist, friends.
2
In 1968, the SDS kids used exactly the same rhetoric as todays establishment leaders. And thats natural, since todays leaders are exactly that same generation, all grown up now 50 years later still using the same rhetoric!
Their minds are closed. They engaged in a limited amount of "free thought" while in their youth at Harvard and Yale, Univ of Chicago, Berkeley, where-ever....as they plotted the overthrow of the Establishment, convinced that various conspiracies of the times were real.
Oh how the tables have turned in the past 50 years.
Dont trust anyone over 30...lol.
“Normal conservatives” will quarantine white nationalism by extending a ladder to decency?
Then they came for the decent.
Good try defending your buddies by attacking liberalism and Rachel Maddow. Your defensive contortions show good effort
but are not convincing. Racism is defenseless.
you seem worried that a few artifacts may become sooted instead of focusing on the people in the house who are dying because the entire house is ablaze. your argument is academic and goes no small way in further obfuscating your central role in supporting racism and its institutions. smh...
1
Well said.
Feeling defensive, Mr. Douthat? What's under THAT?
1
Time to stop letting the "RIGHT" (for decades now, always WRONG) refer to conservatism as if they know how to conserve anything other than their own position and power. They are NEVER conservative on monetary and fiscal policy - have not been since (and including) Reagan. They never conserve any of our natural resources, human rights, personal rights (other than for the NRA), nor our precious constitutional structures separating church and state.
Now under an ignorant, thin-skinned, power-mad iconoclast, they are using their greed and remaining control to UNdo all our investments and expenditures of American blood and treasure over the centuries in eradicating the KKK-and Confedarte Treason, the Nazis and imperial communism. Through their short-sighted self-interest we are now throwing away all of our leadership, power, and influence worldwide. We will all be worse off this way.
Clearly, to them, rights and privileges in this country are a matter of inheritance NOT freedom or true equality.
I read your column because I read everything in this paper but your incessant disingenuousness bordering on out-and-out dishonesty (I am being charitable as to your motives here) is wearying. You, and all so-called "conservative" adherents, don't seem to have a coherent world view with any kind of goal or object - you only seem to have an ever changing menu of unsupported beliefs, prejudices, grievances and fear. It's very tiresome.
4
The stain of racism covers today’s conservative structure. You are not successful whitewashing it, Douthat.
Yawn. Don't try to blame your side's problems on a few loonies from the other side. The problem, Mr Douthat, is that you and yours have embraced hate in order to get more power. You can't change that by whining about people who haven't embraced hate.
1
Golly gee willikers, until this morning I had never been told that America is a "democratic imperium." This column is really a reach.
Thank you for your critique, especially of the Fairbanks piece in the Washington Post. Reasoning by “historic analogy” is often, as in this case, flawed and (in this case) inflammatory.
The left (like your colleague Michelle Goldberg) uses anti-Zionism as a cover for blatant Jew hatred—especially since it holds no other country to the same standards— especially since Israel is daily threatened with genocide by Iran and Iran supported fighters (including Hamas).
And what are boycotts of Asian owned grocery stores in African American neighborhoods, and DeBlasio’s advocacy of “quotas” in specialized NYC high schools that have become overwhelmingly Asian. Is this not anti-Asian- American. Indeed the latter sounds all too much like the Ivy League quotas that kept qualified Jewish Americans “out” until the 1960s.
This country is being irreparably torn apart by the zealots of the right and the left. Sadly, on the left, the bigots run for office on a “liberal” agenda which is all too often “excused” or “ignored” by the major media. The racism on the right is quickly spotted and exposed by the Washington Post and the New York Times. Thanks to your column(s), the Times may do a better job of exposing the problems on the left.
1
If you'd been a German citizen living in Nazi Germany I'm confident you wouldn't have been a Nazi yourself; but to what extent would it have been fair to consider you responsible for allowing Naziism to flourish? Fair or not, you would have had to pay a steep price for being even remotely associated with it.
At this point the Republican party is in a similar boat; the xenophobic extremists have virtually completed their putsch; the party is now effectively in their hands, and if you claim that you represent "traditional conservatism" and you wish to be taken seriously you'll have to join the resistance; is there still any room for splitting hairs? At some point one has to stand up for what is right.
And by the way (speaking as one who loves Israel myself) I have to admit there is a serious problem with the idea of a nation that gives preferential treatment to one ethnic, cultural or religious tribe over others; it may have been feasible at an earlier point in human history; but one could make the case that it is no longer workable.
1
"At the same time, the American right in the Trump era faces a liberalism that’s eager to discover and condemn racism where it does not actually exist."
I would argue that the left could say the same. After all, Bret Stephens just published an essay which implied that the mild Twitter joke a GWU professor made calling Stephens a "metaphorical bedbug" was, according to Stephens, relying on old anti-Semitic tropes and "the rhetoric of infestation" associated with Hitler and the Nazis. Nevermind that David Karpf, the GWU professor in question, is Jewish himself; or that he was referencing a literal bedbug problem at the NYT offices; or that a quote Stephens used to "prove" his point, googled from an obscure book on the Warsaw Ghetto, was taken completely out of context and was also about literal bedbugs, not Jews. Or that until Stephens made a big brouhaha over it, no one but nine people from Karpf's small circle would have even seen what was a pretty lame tweet. Now the Jerusalem Post has taken up Stephens' charge, asserting: "The insult level [sic] at Bret Stephens has with it some antisemitic tones which must be addressed." Again, reminder: KARPF IS JEWISH.
And there is the exaggerated conservative claim of a rise in anti-Semitism on the US left, with even we Jews being dragged into it, being described by the president as disloyal (to the tribe) if we vote Democratic.
This is all, of course, for political expediency, just as much as Nixon's southern strategy was.
1
Well, thanks. I am a former liberal, whose beliefs haven't changed much, but who saw his party move so far to the left that I am now a center right conservative.
I despise Trump, racism, endless wars, and corruption.
In the SF Bay Area, I am sometimes considered a Trump deranged Nazi, as I can't keep track of what the latest PC sayings are.
1
To paraphrase an old German saying: "If a racist sits down at a table with ten Republicans and no one objects there are eleven racists at the table."
523
@Jim
63+ million people voted for Trump. To win the next election Democrats are going to have to win over at least some of them. Calling 63 million people racists - either explicitly or by association, isn't a good strategy.
25
@Jim
Thus begins the slippery slope toward smears based on guilt by association.
25
@John . Thanks to our Electoral College Democrats just need to win over a fairly small number of those voters in some select states.
17
Calling people racists and sexists seems to be the last card left in the "progressive deck.” It is neither a just nor effective card.
2
What does it say about an op-ed writer who claims his brand of conservatism is not at all racist that in describing non-Muslim's criticisms of conservatives, he refers to those non-Muslim's criticisms as "fatwas"?
3
Another article written by a Republican claiming that the problem with America is the Democrats. Yawn.
4
Douthat's complaint about the repression of conservative views on campus is a complaint about an environment that promotes science over superstition, compassion over selfishness and a resistance to the obscene economic disparities in this country.
As for racism, his cherry-picking of examples of over-reactions does not belie the fact that the Republican Party as a whole has relied on racist tropes to motivate its members for decades. But it fits with the current conservative defense that in effect says calling out racism is racist.
5
This appears to be Mr. Douthat's version of "there are good people on both sides." It would seem he is trying to blunt what the GOP has become as a whole, part & parcel, by citing a few examples of criticism of fringe elements of the GOP of old.
As well, like a lot of his fellow conservatives, he seems to not be distinguishing between journalism and editorials (Hint: Maddow is decidedly the latter).
7
I'm afraid if you buy into Trump, you have bought into his racism and his nationalist agenda whether you claim them or not. This is not a menu where you can pick, or choose, he's that toxic. If you are a conservative who stands against him that's another matter altogether.
6
Ross,
I would like to see you do a book review of Jill Lapore's "This America."
Your rhetoric always makes me laugh, as you claim being misunderstood, misjudged, or not given enough credit for labeling yourself as "anti-trump." Hogwash, what you regret, actually all you regret is the trump rhetoric. Nothing more.
1
I find it interesting that Mr. Douthat feels put upon by unfair accusations from the left. I find it equally interesting when I hear conservatives/Republicans cry out with what about-isms while they espouse policies that ARE intolerant, bigoted and racist. It's also interesting that the damage done over centuries by bigots and racists to people of color somehow seems to be equal in the mind of Mr Douthat to liberal overreaction? The old story of the boy who cried wolf comes to mind as I read his opinion.
Since the percentage of Republicans in office and in the general public who are willing to stand up and speak out about intolerance, bigotry and racism is so small you can't seem to find any, I find this article almost laughable.
This old adage keeps popping up in my thoughts...Not all Republicans or conservatives are intolerant, bigoted and racist...BUT...almost all bigots, racists and the intolerant are Republicans or conservatives. Mr. Douthat, until you can find an equivalency of hundreds of years of oppression, that did the damage that was done to people of color by those on the right, I find your complaints laughable. I suggest using your pulpit to try and get ONE Republican from this administration or ONE talking head from the right to stand up and condemn the racist, bigoted and intolerant dog-whistles that are part and parcel of your party and this administration. Your party and it's inhabitants are the home of intolerance, bigotry and racism. The shoe fits. Wear it.
2
I think a lot of the arguments about who is "racist" is really a just word choice problem. I think those discussions are really about who is a bigot and who isn't. Most white people do, in fact, have at least a vaguely racist outlook on the world, simply because we benefit so much from a system that greases the skids for us, holds back others and works to blind us to that fact. However, that tinge of racism does necessarily not make us bigots. Most white people are not bigots, but we are racist. A discussion about what is means to be racist is a somewhat different one from a discussion of what it means to be a bigot. There is overlaps of course, but there are differences.
2
Mr. Douthat would like us to know that liberals need to be perfect while the Republicans try to rein in the racism that has been part and parcel of their election strategy since Kevin Phillips invented the “Southern Strategy”.
It used to be a dog whistle until Trump showed up with his bullhorn and cages.
My gosh, it’s like Douthat thinks racism just showed up with Trump. It’s a kinder and gentler soft sell, one Lee Atwater could appreciate.
3
Opinion: Four Things that are not OVERTLY White Nationalist. There, I fixed the headline for you. Douthat would prefer that conservatives mask their racism with some highbrow language and the cover of think tanks like civilized racists, not march through the streets declaring white power. Ultimately, we know the effects of the policies they promote and enact - help the rich and white, hurt the poor and non-white.
2
Conservatives fear a shrinking population because why? Because our economy is a pyramid scheme that demands each generation shoulder more and more debt and produce more and more goods on and on until our resources are exhausted and we blow up.
Stop. We can see that we're going to blow up. We're destroying our climate, flora, and fauna. We're killing our entire ecosystem. Just because humankind is intelligent enough to adapt to a harsher environment doesn't mean we should make it so.
Perhaps this is too off-topic. But when I hear people talk about birth rates being too low, I just think that's fanning the flames of all that is burning our nation and world.
2
Ross’s attempt st defending conservative racism fails on many grounds. To name a few: blacks are in the best position to identify white racism, but Ross is unfamiliar with us except the paid wsj/fox types. Second in a tsunami of trump inspired white racism, to cherry pick a few arguable instances is an absurd proof of Jesus’s admonition to stop talking about the mote in someone else’s eye instead of the beam in your own. And third it is a feature of white privilege that it can indeed adopt confederate/slaveholding modes of thought while allegedly advancing a liberal argument.
The democrats and the media have done a great job of projecting both Mr. Trump and republicans as racists. This characterization couldn't be more wrong. Just because we can see the difference between legal and illegal immigration, doesn't make us anti immigrant. We may be against racial preferences, but favor equal opportunity for all. Is that racist?
I have heard many republicans argue that it is democrats who are racists, because they believe that minorities cannot succeed without preferences and handouts. Furthermore, they perpetuate policies that keep minorities poorly educated and dependent on government. Does it make us racists to oppose these policies? I guess in today's world in does.
The real problem, is that this lumps most republicans into a basket of deplorables with the few real racists who taint our party and our country. The media knows we are not the same, but one would never know it.
1
Two recent developments on the American left has totally alienated me from this political movement where I used to find my natural home. The first is flirtation with socialism. The ideology that killed more people than fascism is now openly embraced by a presidential front-runner! (And no, social democracy is not the same thing, so please leave Norway alone!). The second is what is described in this essay: casual and appallingly ignorant accusations of racism. The left used to stand for national determination - now the very idea of a Jewish nation-state is racist! Pointing out the high rates of crime in African-American community is racism! Nowadays even wanting the best education for your child is racist, since it somehow highlights the failure of black and Latino kids to achieve the same educational results - see the insane proposal to abolish programs for gifted children in NYC. If there is no push against this left-wing radicalization, Trump will win and the left will - deservedly - lose the support of all true liberals.
1
Kudos*, Ross, on another thoughtful piece. However, I have to take issue with the claim in Mr. Menashi's law review article (as summarized by you but edited by me) "that Israel’s status as a Jewish homeland is normal ... [and thus not] dangerously illiberal, because liberal democracies the world over often have similar ethnic identities and foundations" (full disclosure: I am a Penn Law grad, which published Mr. Menashi's article) (fuller disclosure: as a practicing lawyer, I don't read law review articles on principle) (fuller fuller disclosure: my understanding of law and culture in Israel is based on a trip I took there 5 years ago and whatever the "lamestream media" deems worthy of disclosing to us peons [sarcasm]) (fullest disclosure: I am a Jew but also an atheist with no particular fondness for Israel, so who knows how that cuts).
Anyway ... comparing Israel as a "Jewish state" to "liberal democracies the world over" seems really inapt to me because (unless the "lamestream media" and the CIA are hiding this from us) there are no other liberal democracies in which the population of the "relgious out group" is so large that the only way to maintain the religious nature of the country is to deprive out-group members of basic civil and political rights.
*Fullest fullest disclosure: to anyone who agrees with me, I say "thanks, you are a genius." To anyone offended by my comment, I say: "Sarcasm (DUH!)." Or, in the words of Miss Emily Litella: "Nevermind."
"Then move to Vance’s plea for pro-natalism and higher American birthrates. It is not white nationalism to believe that countries like the United States would be better off with more babies. That belief can be held for racist reasons by racists, but it can also be held, reasonably and righteously, by people who worry about the economic consequences of demographic decline … or by people who worry about the social consequences of shrinking family trees and a widespread unfulfilled desire for kids … or by people who regard a higher birthrate as a cure for ethnic division because it actually makes assimilating immigrants easier … or by people who just think babies are good and societies that can easily afford to rear more of them should do so."
You're right Douthat. This is not white nationalism. This is complete and utter stupidity. To argue that higher birthrates are necessary or even remotely DESIRABLE today in the light of climate change and the overpopulation of this Earth is as nonsensical as living life based on fiction. But then again, Republicans have a lot of practice in this area, having invented our current post-truth world.
1
The "American Conservative Movement," almost exclusively Republican, has as one of its core tenets, White Nationalism. Every white person struggles with racism against people of color. I think only those who make a concerted, daily effort to overcome their life-long indoctrination, and who work for the equal interests of ALL people, can claim to be "non-racist," although this is not usually a claim they make. This just proves, once again, that YOU do not understand, nor accept, institutional racism, and are a racist yourself. This is another case of "I'm the least racist person you know."
1
Liberals first knee-jerk reaction is to justify their actions with past Republican grievances. Look at all the top rated comments here for proof of that assertion.
Dave Chappelle’s special is the newest example of the hilarious outrage, woke and virtue signaling journalism culture that has also turned the word ‘racist’ and ‘white nationalism’ into a joke. His special had a 0% rotten tomatoes critic’s score and 99% audience score.
The fissure between what the journalist saw through his or her lens of identify politics/racism and the audience saw is because he hit hot button issues that are verboten to find enjoyment in as a journalist. Personally, he or she might’ve enjoyed the comedy. Professionally, the twitter mob stands ready to crush any descent.
There is no nuance, as Douthat alludes to; there is only you are incorrect and it is my moral duty to stand up to it if one of the sacred topics is breached.
Spread this concept out to every single aspect of journalism on left-of-center sites (NYT, Post), and you get to a group think mentality around certain ‘rules’. Some things aren’t allowed to be discussed in any scholastic manner since the dogmatic left has deemed them ‘racist’. So, a few moronic racists are in the Rs, and now everyone is racist. That makes life simple and easy. No nuance. Nothing. I can go on about my day.
With regard to the Menashi controversy, it looks like the hit pieces were the ones aimed at Maddow. She took seriously his writing about ethnonationalism and delivered a liberal critique. Rather than engage, rightwing media accused her of an unfounded attack and even anti-semitism.
The rightwing responded to criticisms of Menashi's views by smearing Maddow.
Sorry Douthat, you're example here fails.
1
Not all conservatives are racists but all racists are conservatives. Conservative politicians have courted the far right racists, bigot, misogynists and xenophobes for many decades. Trump is the most obvious example but there are many others. So now conservatives have to take ownership of this fact and need to work very hard to distance themselves form the above in order to reclaim their conservative roots (most of which I disagree with). Cutting taxes when we are declaring war, cutting taxes when the economy is doing well instead of paying down debt (like Clinton did), caving to the NRA in light of mass shootings, cutting taxes for the wealthy who do not need a tax cut, cutting environmental regs when pollution is a serious problem and dong nothing to ensure ALL Americans have access to healthcare, and the list can go on but I believe you get the message.
Conservatism is an abject failure on many fronts. Denouncing racism is a start but conservatives have much, much further to go.
1
If Russ Douthat's house was burning down I suspect his first move would be to pause and critique the fire hose's design.
1
Ross, you're cherry-picking tiny examples. [Insert metaphoric reference to moving deck chairs on the Titanic.]
Mr. Douthat: “conservatives,” before Donald Trump, went out of their way to educate the public that a “conservative” is a racist and vice-versa.
Go back to Barry Goldwater; Richard Nixon; Ronald Reagan; Bush pere et fils; Mitch McConnell and Newt Gingrich and John Boehner. Please recall that in 2012, Mitt Romney crowed that “Ann and I can produce our birth certificates.”
The Republican Party has been quite adept at using racism as the oil in their “conservative” platforms. On a time, the idea that conservatism, as both a political and social framework—by themselves—did not, a priori, condemn non-whites as unworthy of citizenship and genuine contribution to the public good.
The John Birch Society, under Robert Welch, took hold of Nixon and Goldwater and Reagan. The formerly Democratic South rallied to the Republicans not because they were “conservative” but because they were appalled and frightened by the quite modest—if epoch-changing—civil rights landmarks: Brown vs. Topeka; the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act enacted under LBJ. The GOP turned the civil rights argument into “freedoms” wrenched away from whites; e.g., the “freedom” to discriminate. The GOP did nothing to deter this rightward shift; in fact, continues to benefit from it today.
“Conservative” ideology is, unfortunately, in the public mind, the same as racist or nationalist. And when, since Goldwater, have Republicans gone out of their way to combat the argument?
You’re whining, sir.
1
"Donald Trump is president in part because of a toxic interaction between the left’s cultural power and the right’s bunker mentality!"
This is the weakest part of the column. There is no evidence to support this, though the claim is common among the concern-trolls whom Fairbanks rightfully excoriates.
In fact, Douhat's criticism of Fairbanks's fascinating piece is puzzling, it's logic is almost exactly the same as pieces Douhat has written about the pro-choice movement and others. In fact this piece is a perfect example of the kind Fairbanks's story was about.
Four, count them, four highly selective examples of purportedly liberal “smears” of, primarily, the columnist’s own right wing buddies does not make a compelling argument. Not close. The saturation of the right wing by systemic racism is clearly not conservatism’s sole responsibility to correct as the undeniably racist Trump and his cabal of Congressional Republican enablers/sycophants collectively sit on their hands in near total silence. Give me a break! This societal cancer must be vigorously called out and combatted by all Americans, irrespective of party allegiances. How about doing your duty, Mr. Douthat.
1
Political conservatism in the United States is overwhelmingly the fiefdom of white Americans, and in that sense will always be inherently racist at its core simply because white Americans are, every one of them, inherently racist at their core. To say otherwise is to exercise the essential denial of the alcoholic who claims an ability to stop drinking without admitting the illness of their addiction or being in a lifelong program of recovery. Racism is in our cultural, societal, educational, economic, systemic, historical and memetic DNA, and DNA always demands its own expression. Extinguishing racism is like playing whack-a-mole in that pounding down one form of it simply gives rise to some new expression. The best we can do is become recovering racists, working to dismantle racism through some form of the 12 steps. Of course, white political liberalism in the United states is no less inherently racist, and no less in need of recovery.
In case you don’t want to read Ross’s future columns, I can summarize what you’ll be missing: Trump and white supremacy are bad, but liberal intolerance and liberal ideals are worse, and they created the environment for Trump to flourish.
It is interesting in the Era of Trump how conservatives are compelled now to parse their movement, their colleagues, and their supporters to exclude white supremacists, crazed xenophobes, and other right-wing fanatics. When an explanation is necessary to differentiate your standing from that of extremists, perhaps it's time to reevaluate your position? When your movement has so many racists, xenophobes, and other unsavory characters isn't that a clue to its true nature?
"In the end the recrudescence of racism on the right is conservatism’s problem to solve, and it has to be solved independently of whatever liberals and leftists happen to be saying."
The time to deal with it was way before now. As with every other issue you pretend to care about, this one only interests you insofar as it has political implications for your party and its ability to wage culture war. The fact that the left is now making a fool of itself in a lot of ways may be convenient for you, but it doesn't change the fact that the problems of racism in American conservatism go way beyond the just parts that can be accurately described as white supremacy. And you have been lying about that fact for your entire career.
We are tearing ourselves apart and I don't see how it ever gets better. But it is hard to stomach a lecture from someone who has spent as much time defending the indefensible as you.
Most Republicans may not be racists, but one must admit that they enable racism and the other myriad cruelties of the Trump administration in exchange for their tac credits and/or slates of ultra-conservative judges. I think I’d rather deal with the out and out racists, thank you very much
1
Douthat's proud adoption of victimhood is transparently misplaced. He's digging deep to find issues with a few progressive takes on recent events, rather than doing what he should - focusing on the blatant racism of his party - and his party's blindingly obvious use of racism to attract voters.
Douthat, stop using your obviously impressive intellect to ferret out ways your friends are mistreated by the opposition. Instead focus on ways your fellow travelers are wrenching apart our nation, and call on them to stop destroying our country.
1
As long as conservatives condone and encourage racists to maintain their power, I see no problem of accusing ALL of them of racism.
It’s their problem.
They created it.
If a few well-meaning individuals get caught in the crossfire they can thank their god that at least they’ve had the benefit of white privilege all of their lives.
2
Typical Douhat. The right has no racism problem. I've worked directly with more people of color in conservative coalitions than I did when I was lobbying for the Democrats many years ago.
In Atlanta.
Where is the evidence? Charlottesville? Those people with torches aren't conservatives. Isn't it curious how they have never surfaced anywhere else? That we don't know who they are?
Anyone familiar with the way contentious public protests occur knows that some portion of that handful of marchers and also some on the Antifa side were undercover law enforcement. The rest represent their entire movement -- what, fifty guys? Take a good hard look at Nation of Islam's size and rhetoric and good standing on the Left and get back to me about bearing responsibility for the nutcases.
Is it that we talk about immigration and crime? Sorry, but you don't get to use false accusations of racism to shut down necessary debates about issues. We're done tolerating or being cowed by such nefarious behavior. You don't dictate the terms of the debate with false allegations anymore. Get used to it.
Mr. Douthat,
The flaw in your logic is revealed by the statement “if the racist strain [of conservatism] were quarantined.”
It is far from and continues to contaminate the whole.
There hasn't been an effective, honest, modern conservative politician in 35 years or more. Conservatism is by definition a thing of the past. In this case, an American past. From vote suppression in Georgia, to the NRA and police violence conservative ideals are the death of America. Douthat tries unsuccessfully to cherry pick greyer areas of conservative opinion to make his point, respondents have put these "apologies" for conservative righteousness into the intellectual playpen they deserve. Douthat perhaps should just say he doesn't like it when his retro conservative mini rascist friends get tarred with the same brush as his more open and ugly modern conservative colleagues. Ross always comes across as blinkered and defensive. Like his ideology.
What I get from this is that if you're going to post anything on Facebook, stick to cats.
2
I just finished reading Hillbilly Elegy, and came away stunned by J.D. Vance's naivete. He grew up in a dysfunctional family, and was raised by the the village, but refuses to admit that "it take a village." He never mentions that his white skin gave him opportunities unavailable to his dark skinned neighbors, and still unavailable to most. His family was devastated by capitalists, first coal mining companies, then profit-centered industrial corporations. But he blames the government for poverty. Because he was more intelligent than his peers, he was able to escape the trap that destroyed his family, but never examines the structure of that trap or recognizes the reasons so many remain there for their entire lives. Though trained as a lawyer, J.D. Vance now spends his life moving money from one account to another, skimming off the vigorish from each transaction. He is the absolute last person in the world anyone should take advice about raising children from.
2
Just gives credence to the old adage: "Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear." Idol bloggers and writers who are NOT journalists, using the modern "twiiter machine" to muck things up.
Brother Douthat, you are correct that liberals cast racist aspersions to conservatives and Republicans.
But it's also an electoral fact that Republicans could barely win an election anywhere in America based on their core Reverse Robin Hood and theocratic public policies.
What makes Republican political power possible for the last 50 years is not their public policy - which is universally misanthropic and bad for society - but rather their sustained wink and a nod to America's neo-Confederate voters to validate their Whites R Us sensibility.
After all, Trump is President because he's an accomplished Birther Liar who championed the trafficking of the thoroughly racist Birther Lie....and because the Republican Party worked hard to disenfranchise minority voters and discourage minority voting throughout Republistan.
The Supreme Court is Republican-rigged today because Monarch McConnell was thrilled to tell America's first black President that his two Presidential elections were meaningless.
Brian Kemp is governor of Georgia today because he worked hard to minimize minority voting as the Georgia Secretary of State, a white man rigging the defeat of a black woman in good old fashioned Dixie.
So yes, Democrats too easily call Republicans racists.
And yes, the Republican record of using racism to rig, tip and gerrymander elections is real.
I'll take the sin of overgeneralizing Republican racism over the sin of actual Republican racism to rig elections every day of the week.
2
Ross has drunk the Kool-Aid on college politican orientation. Students have a wide variety of politics opinions, and roughly equal numbers identify as right or left. Here's a poll from not-so-long-ago: https://tinyurl.com/y6yk4prz
There is a slight liberal bias, but only slight. Most students don't identify eighter way.
Douthat accuses liberals of what he is doing to campus politics.
2
I cannot think of any society completely free of racist and xenophobic sentiments. We happen to live now at the time of an openly racist bigot President. As a believer in the dualist faith of the medieval Manicheans and Cathars -- Life is Eternal Struggle of Good and Evil -- one can only look forward to Good regaining eventually the upper hand. "Hope springs eternal".
As was stated by Mr. Cleaver years ago " If you are not a part of the solution, then you are part of the problem." Half measured comments and half baked condemnations of the blatent racism that permeates this country clearly leaves one on the problem side of things.
Conservatives gave us Saddam has WMDs and the wars of aggression that we are still losing. They gave us legislative homophobia and misogyny and theocracy, and abolish the EPA/drill baby drill.
Yet let us be polite in criticizing them as they bring on the apocalypse, waving their confederate flags.
Ross, you need to read your own paper’s “1619 Project.” You seem thoroughly unaware of the ways in which America’s politics and ideology is thoroughly compromised and riddled through with the past history and present continuing reality of a white supremacist system. The information is literally at your fingertips - why obfuscate and avoid self-reflection unless it is to avoid accountability for holding a fundamentally compromised system of political beliefs?
"It is not white nationalism to recognize limiting principles on liberal universalism, and a justifiable role for particularity — ethnic, cultural, religious — in many political arrangements."
Took me fifteen minutes to parse that. Fyi.
Mr. Douthat is an apologist for the far right. He "chides" we Liberals for accusing his "conservatives" of being racists, misogynists and sexists. But the shoe fits. Not one, yes, not one, prominent Conservative has come out against the fascism, sexism and down right hatred of the Conservative movement for everyone who is not just like them. Even Mr. Douthat, whose columns I enjoy reading refuses to accept responsibility for the American Conservative movement hatred of all things that don't match their narrow, sexist, racist and bigoted view of America. You all created Trump and his corrupt, hate filled government. Trump is the road to American Fascism but the American Conservatives seem to think that is a good thing. Now we Liberals have the task of removing that stain on the American Ideals. We would love to have you Conservatives join us in taking back the true American but know that you want politicians and Presidents like Donald Trump.
Racial preferences were voted to be unlawful in California by a popular referendum. That referendum used to be called racist but now it is pretty deeply imbedded in California culture.
The chief beneficiaries of no racial preferences are people of color
from Asia, and California of course is now the bulwark of the liberal Democratic Party.
That policy now has very broad acceptance in California.
Was it ever fair and accurate to call proponents of the referendum making racial preferences Unconstitutional in California racists?
Forget the right and left labels. When an American votes for a man whose behavior clearly demeans women, African-Americans, Hispanics, American Jews, Muslims, the disabled...anyone who he determines is not straight, able-bodied, and white, then those trump supporters are facilitating the spreading of institutional racism and discrimination. Does that signify "White nationalism" ? Probably. Does it signify "White supremacy" ? Certainly!
Only a small percentage of racists will openly acknowledge their racism.
A much larger percentage know, in their heart of hearts, that they are racists, but remain as deeply in the closet as they can manage whenever in public.
But the largest percentage are racists who are blind and deaf to their own racist beliefs and statements and desperately challenge, rationalize, and excuse anything that threatens their self-image as “fair-minded”.
Ross, your elaborate rationalization of what are clearly racist policies and actions and your defence of repressive faith-based governments put you deeply in the middle of the last group.
“In the end the recrudescence of racism on the right is conservatism’s problem to solve, and it has to be solved independently of whatever liberals and leftists happen to be saying.” Douthat begrudgingly admits that conservatives have a racist problem. He states the obvious. Who tends to be more racist – liberals or conservatives? Conservatives tend to be more tribal and suspicious of anything or anyone who falls outside of their tribal norms.
But to claim that it is a problem that must be solved independently of what liberals say sounds like just another conservative excuse to sweep racism under the rug. Even the conservative staple of religion can’t overcome racism, in fact, it has historically encouraged it. Racism affects everyone – liberal and conservative – it weakens the social fabric. To say it is not a problem that concerns everyone is irresponsible.
It is interesting that Douthat focuses on Israel in his discussion of racism and not on American racism or the 1619 Project which has forced us to look at the problem even more. And yes, the momentum of the 1619 Project, as well as the reaction to ongoing racism and the white supremacy eruption, has produced some collateral damage in its occasional scattershot enthusiasm. But it’s better to have to apologize than to hide an ugly reality – which is what conservatives do when they say: “ it’s our problem; let us handle it.”
Conservatives want their tribalism, and yet to claim “All men are created equal.” Hypocrisy.
1
Seems like Ross cherry picked 3 straw men (and boy, did he have to scour the week's news to find 3) in order to smuggle in and discredit Fairbanks' piece, which was spot on and could not be discredited on its merits.
What a well-reasoned, sensible opinion.
Your criticism of Eve Fairbanks's essay is unjust: it focused on rhetoric, and how rhetoric can cynically enlist emotions to persuade when the core argument itself is unpersuasive. We all need to be explicitly aware of rhetoric's power - and to use that power honestly.
Just as cherry picking four examples is a rhetorical device that you have used to imply a vast problem, so is it false rhetoric to claim - without evidence - that racism on the right is conservatism's (not all Americans') problem to solve.
So quit whining and tell us how to solve the true vast problem of racism. If we do that, the vast problem of (accurately or falsely) charging "racist!" will go away.
Not everyone who is labeled a racist is one; but every person who is genuinely a racist insists they are not. We learn nothing from their denials except that they are in denial.
Nothing works better for demagogues to chase after hatred votes. GOP is the expert. That's built into universal suffrage democracy - each person is entitled to a vote, including racists, white supremacists, fascists, bigots. The hate vote is not a rarity.
Look at the evidence: Brexit & Donald Trump are just two of many examples around the world.
Facts speak louder than opinions.
Douthat needs to go back and reread Eve Fairbanks piece: he missed the point entirely. He is working overtime to get it wrong. So what else here and in other pieces does he simply not get and then misrepresents?
If Douthat really wants to stop the proliferation of hateful rhetoric, he should focus first and foremost on his own party and its leaders that enable and support the current administration. There is simply no more integrity, patriotism, respect for the rule of law, or genuine conservative philosophy visible in today's GOP leadership. This is only possible with the tacit approval of pundits like Douthat, Brooks, and Stephens, all complaining regularly about Trump without acknowledging or articulating the real problem: i.e., the party leadership that enables and supports racist, deceitful, proudly ignorant Trumpism.
Oops, sorry. In the constant barrage of white nationalism, it's quite possible that a few punches thrown in self defense have landed on the wrong people. These are simply the exceptions that prove the rule. The Trumpy conquest of the land has made us all paranoid, all ethnicities.
1
"I’m not interested in using this sequence of smears to invite pity for the plight of conservatives in the age of Trump."
Yes, yes you are.
You could have written a piece about the obvious and destructive white nationalism in your party and among the people with whom you associate. Instead, you waste time delving into the details of unimportant outliers.
You right-wingers simply can't accept that your positions are wrong and unpopular. Embrace that and you'll be a lot happier.
Fairbanks's point is that conservatives are being devious. They're defending right-wing racists' "right to free speech," thereby avoiding the question of whether they agree with the racists. They're pretending these poor conservatives have no power, when they actually control the White House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.
1
I eagerly await ross’s comment on the rights tendency to label every idea and politician to the left of Ronald Reagan “socialist” and then use that to scare old people and generally try to discredit every single democratic politician by comparing them to Stalin.
The only differences are that “socialism” as defined even by supposed leftists like Bernie isn’t communism, and the right is actually chock full of actual racists and whites supremecists, including entire state governments who happily suppress minority votes and gerrymander their voices out of existence.
How about if you don’t want to be accused of being a white nationalist, don’t associate yourself with openly white nationalist politicians?
Everyone is walking on eggshells these days. Everyone is looking to be offended so they can point it out on their social media feeds. A nation of whiners is not an exceptional nation.
1
Conservatives delegitimize themselves by supporting Trump in a thousand ways that have nothing to do with racism.
What do conservatives believe in? Guns, being anti-abortion, Putin, cheating, and whatever Trump says.
Furthermore conservatives were racist long before Trump. It was their racist gerrymandering and anti minority election policies that gave us Trump. They only have themselves to blame.
Poor conservatives. The media is calling you what you've been way before Trump. And you think it's not fair. The hard-core 30% of Republicans who are descendants of the John Birch Society are racists and sexists. And that hard-core segment of the GOP has been covertly courted since Goldwater, and yes since Reagan. The GOP needs these deplorables even though Trump is the first President to make it so obvious. So, Mr. Douthat, stop blaming the media and look inward at your own party. GOP leadership, who may not be racists, are not just complicit in fanning the flames of racism but they welcome the racists' votes.
1
I don't know anything about "a pattern of media smears against non-racist conservatives". What I do know is that a lot of race-based institutional norms are defended as "conservative" when they are actually reactionary.
Defending our arcane (to put it gently) electoral system as somehow an appropriate defense against majoritarianism is one such example. And how is it "conservative" to ride the patriotism bandwagon condemning entertainers that take a knee during the national anthem? I thought it should be laudably "conservative" to support a non-violent and non-verbal protest. Guess not.
So what kind of "conservatism" ignores the racial component of those two issues?
Most of what passes for "conservatism" today is really just a reactionary response to the movement of society away from protecting certain special interests (religion included) where those special interests seek to continue doing harm to other people's freedom. The assumption that powerful entrenched interests didn't have to justify their arbitrary oppressive actions is losing traction among the growing population of better educated, evidence based citizens. It doesn't sound like a media smear to me.
1
Mr. Douthat seems to be arguing a rather fine technical point, to wit and considering just the first of his four examples: Given that all white nationalists would "recognize limiting principles on liberal universalism, and a justifiable role for particularity in many political arrangements," it is not logically correct to deduce that all who recognize limiting principles on liberal universalism, and a justifiable role for particularity in many political arrangements are white nationalists. Although this argument is technically sound, as a practical matter it seems to me that anyone who harps on those limiting principles and roles for particularity in the public sphere is indeed likely to be a white nationalist.
1
Douthat ignores the fact that Rachel Maddow is Jewish while criticizing her for expressing her views on Israeli politics and national emphasis on giving preference to Jewish residents and immigrants. Yes, there are non-Jews living in Israel, including Muslims and Christians, but they are in many ways considered second class citizens. And Douthat, a Catholic, could be expected to stand up for Christian rights in Israel as much as he does for Christian and Jewish rights in Muslim countries.
2
The reality is that even if you do not see yourself as racist, supporting today’s GOP is supporting racist rhetoric and racist policies.
3
I appreciate this piece very much. I hope for a reshuffle of conservatism in its modern meaning and legislative practice in the future, because as a more liberal/progressive person, I want to see sincere, well thought out constraints from many angles, fiscal sanity being an important one.
Who knows? If our present GOP melts down into a defeated, unrecognizable muck then it is conceivable I could join a refreshed version. Imagine.
It is conservative to not reproduce when doing so means less independence and self-determination. It is conservative to distrust narrative leads in schlock headline news, and to take the time to read long articles from many sources. It is conservative to separate the current policies of Israel's government from the synecdoche "Israel." It is conservative to acknowledge the US has a physical border which should be policed. Etc.
I hope Elizabeth Warren or her handlers are reading this because I hope for those intelligent pivots to recall conservatism, and genteelly dust off a loyal opposition. Because if she gets in, she's going to need one. I hope she is making smart calculations in what she can afford to let go of, with greater-good arguments.
2
I appreciate the nuances of Mr Douthat's discussion, but one interpretation of his piece is that" there are good people on both sides," as Trump so infamously declared after Charlotte.
4
Extremism in any form, left or right, is dangerous not only for the ideas of absolutism and a disdain or fear of the "other" that it tends to espouse, but perhaps even more so for the unrealistic dichotomy it introduces into public discourse. Too many people conflate conservatism with racism (though there is surely an argument to be made that preserving antiquated values or traditional power structures inherently bolsters the racist ideologies from those times) or liberalism with an intolerance of religion and/or any insufficiently "progressive" philosophy, up to and including the belief that liberalism exists directly opposed to capitalism. The wedge this drives into our political system at any level, a considerable number of people on each side of the divide viewing those on the other as irredeemably foolish, immoral, or unworthy of even engaging with in thoughtful argument, can only further the dangers of the division; the less interaction and therefore understanding between people, the less likely we are to treat each other as nuanced human beings rather than nothing but adversaries.
Today's lack of respect for differing opinions and the severe mistrust each side has of the other's ideas (even if for good reason, given the far right's history of violence and racism and the historical failures of some of the economic ideologies the far left extols), alongside the conflict created by this, damages the potential of our society to address some of its most pressing issues.
2
If we are to complain about the absurdities and accusations from right-wing media, we must accept that left-wing media also. gets a number of things wrong.
The issue I have with this article (full disclosure: I am not familiar with any of the referenced articles or authors), is that it assumes that there still is a conservative movement in US politics. I was a Republican for many years but then was forced to leave the GOP for the Democratic Party because of the failure of the GOP to adhere to truly conservative values - fiscal conservatism - while maintaining the Bush-era "big tent" toward social moderation. Remember compassionate conservatism?
The fact that the GOP has subserved conservative values for Trumpism (and Trumpetism) only adds to my point. There is little room in the DNC for Blue-Dog democrats, but there is no room in the current GOP for true conservatives. The entire party has been co-opted into blindly backing the horrific policies of the Trump Administration.
So okay, liberal reporters and commentators got some things wrong. But it isn't their mistakes that have divided our country. After all, there are "very fine" people on both sides, right? (full disclosure: that was sarcasm)
11
Yes! I for one am so so tired of being labeled a racist or a homophobe if I don't adopt and adhere to the left's ideology. If one is politically, economically and/or socially conservative the automatic knee-jerk response of leftists is to assume one is a racist, hates all "brown people" etc etc. I have given up trying to talk with leftists; I'm tired of being tagged this way and treated with contempt.
7
@Greenie I moved to your lovely state to escape being called the N word and being treated like a 2nd class citizen. Imagine my horror and surprise when I was called the N word a few years ago. I have been visiting Vermont for approximately 20 years and to be called that was heartbreaking. I had always been treated kindly and now it seems that I am being ignored in shops, treated with disdain and sneered at by people in MAGA hats. The best being the pickup truck with the MAGA 45 license plate and the sneering truck owner in the store with the MAGA cap and Trump 2020 shirt in the store who stared me down like he was daring me to say something. I didn't I just smiled and continued on my way. The rise of Confederate flags is alarming as well. If you are tired of being tagged and treated for your beliefs think of how I and others must feel for being treated as less than a human being for simply having brown skin? I do not label all conservatives as being racist or homophobic and I do hope that you call out people who say hateful things. If not your silence just gives their ideas validation.
1
@Greenie It must be exhausting. Almost as exhausting as being labeled a "socialist" or "communist" by people who have no idea what those words even mean. However, I think we can agree that it all pales in comparison to being called a "Kenyan" when you're not actually a Kenyan. Or being called a "Mexican judge" when you were born in America. Or being told to "go back where you came from" when the United States of America is where you're actually from... And conservatives like to label progressives "Snowflakes". Oh dear...that doesn't actually seem to be the case in this instance, does it?
1
Whew. You sure are opening your self up to,the loonies. Very courageous although pointless. Conservatives need to understand that we will need the Federal Government to protect us within 20 years. The massive predominance of so called “liberalism” in almost all media, most large states, academia, and so on will be turned upon conservatives. Conservatives are already being equated with racists. Soon, hate speech laws will follow and the commissars will be trying to jail conservatives. Laugh if you will but it’s coming. Best keep the Supreme Court in safe hands. 🤔
2
The Democrats are getting desperate and it shows. What ever happened to "It's Mueller time?" Now it's back to bleating about racism that doesn't even exist. Don't they realize how pathetic they appear to the American public?
3
@Johnny
"The American public" is far more than just Trump supporters. Never forget that Trump got fewer votes than Clinton.
2
@Johnny.....The guy in the White House has proved by his words and actions that he is a vulgar bigoted narcissist. What does that say about someone who cannot find a better Republican candidate to represent their views in 2020.
@Johnny Which American public are you talking about? The minority that blindly support Trump or the majority who believe he's a lifelong conman who's committed a slew of criminal and impeachable offenses? Surely, it's not the former. That would be...ridiculous?
Ross, the big issue here is overt racism on the part of the GOP. It is not subtle, or a fringe group. It is a national political party. Are there some individuals who, rightly or not, seek to find racism and expose, on the Left. Sure, but no one is calling White people "vermin" or "rapists and criminals" because they are White. El Paso was the inevitable result of White nationalist talking points. As most right wing pundits, you are really flailing with "Whataboutism" and not seeing the boulder in your eye.
486
@james doohan I am a Democrat and detest Trump but to suggest, essentially, that all, or most, of the many millions of Republicans in this country are racist is ludicrous. You are accusing them because of the views of some in the party. Do all Democrats think alike? No. It is the pervasiveness of labeling everyone and painting everyone with a broad brush that has this country in so much trouble.
8
@Rich
If you can utterly isolate the people who consistently have voted for Republicans in the past 3 years, in the Trump party, you might have a case.
But at this moment, if you're a Republican, and you support Trump, you are knowingly supporting a racist.
Another commenter said it best:
To paraphrase an old German saying: "If a racist sits down at a table with ten Republicans and no one objects there are eleven racists at the table."
28
@james doohan
"Sure, but no one is calling White people "vermin" or "rapists and criminals" because they are White."
No but they are calling large parts of the country deplorable, or "bitter people clinging got guns and religion"
rural American sees the dislike and disdain coming from large parts of the left and reacts.
5
This article should be required reading in every J School as a lesson in why "full disclosure" is necessary when writing about one's friends. Kudos to Mr. Douthat and the Times for requiring it, but shame on both for not recognizing how such bias can infect a piece.
Rachel Maddow did not call Mr. Menashi a white nationalist. She simply quoted liberally from his article, which does indeed argue (regardless of Israel) that ethnically diverse governments cannot be sustained, and offers that even democratic, egalitarian societies can and should strive for ethnic homogeneity. Maddow's criticism was legitimate.
Similarly, the piece "attacking" J.D. Vance no longer includes reference to him, and only included him because Mr. Vance was less than clear when he lamented that "our people" have a falling birthrate. And in her criticism of Bari Weiss, Eve Fairbanks simply observes that the language Weiss and other "reasonable" conservatives use reminds her of the arguments and rhetoric of southerners in the antebellum south defending the old ways.
Mr. Douthats' complaint that his well-placed friends are somehow treated unfairly because their writings or public proclamations are criticized seems to be exactly thing he claims is happening to them: unjustified sensitivity.
Mr. Douthat's argument is there to be made, especially in the way some conservative speakers are driven off college campuses. But in defending his friends he fails his thesis.
16
@Josh
And why does Fairbanks "simply believe this" and state it:
"And in her criticism of Bari Weiss, Eve Fairbanks simply observes that the language Weiss and other "reasonable" conservatives use reminds her of the arguments and rhetoric of southerners in the antebellum south defending the old ways." Josh you are either very naive or dissembling. It's a clear aspersion.
Where is this non-racist conservatism hiding out? Where are all the opinion pieces written by the "good" conservatives? Where is the political activism of the "good" conservatives against Trumpism?
13
Talking about “playing at white nationalism” and “racist flirtations” does you no credit. Racism and white nationalism have killed untold millions and threaten to do so again. You have consistently enabled Trump and have blood on your hands. The last concern I have right now is the hurt feelings of a bunch of right wing snowflakes. You are a clear and present danger to this nation and the peace of good people everywhere. The only thing you deserve is to be dismissed and forgotten with other failures of history.
6
Trump is a overt and open racist (and then gaslights by saying that he is the least racist person in the world).
Trump is a white nationalist (which he also denies since he is a pathological liar).
Douthat and NYT conservative columnists are all never-Trumpers, but the vast majority of conservatives support Trump. 90% of Republicans support Trump. Majority of white Americans support Trump. Supporting a overt racist and white nationalist makes one a racist.
That’s the racist problem Douthat needs to focus on instead of being a snowflake and needing safe spaces from liberal false charges of white nationalism. Stephens and Weiss constantly complain about liberals being snowflakes and needing safe spaces, but when they are attacked, they have meltdowns - Stephens’ full on nuclear meltdown at being called a satirical bedbug being the latest example.
It is deeply wrong to accuse every conservative or every conservative idea as being racist or white nationalist. But the conservative movement has had a racist and white nationalist problem for decades and that cancer is now stage 4 metastatic in the Trump era.
15
I think people are afraid to say what actually happened recently: a mass murder was committed on behalf of an American President, using his language and "in his honor". Speak out, loudly, plainly, passionately about the racism, hatred and division that is being unambiguously espoused by the most powerful man in the world- before you cherry pick some examples of the admittedly over-the-line reactions to these offenses.
"Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but because out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
-Julius Goat
(In other words, and in the plainer language of my mother, "Lie down with dogs, you get fleas.")
8
This whole piece is just disingenuous or plain naive. Arguing about ethnic homelands, the declining birthrate are all classic dog whistles. Specifically about why we should keep immigrants out.
Same goes for “intellectual diversity” or being snarky about white nationalists. These are racist white nationalist tropes par excellence. Racist white nationalists complain about a lack of intellectual diversity. But why should we apologize for instantly dismissing racist dog whistles?
Racist white nationalists are often snarky about their own movement. Because they want to hide just how racist they are, and not scare off “the normies.”
If you didn't know, then now you know I guess.
5
Tell you what, you get Fox News to stop branding all Democrats as Socialists who want to ban all guns and religion and we'll talk. True socialists make up a small minority of Democrats, whereas white nationalists are a major part of the Republican coalition, and those who may not be white nationalists but are OK with them make up 88% f the Republican party, by the latest polls.
12
Sorry Ross, this is whataboutism in a 600 word essay
21
Shorter Douthat: Quit being mean to my friends when they engage is casual racism.
36
No sir: I reject your false equivalencies. The racism in your party is rampant, and the arguable excesses on the other side, which you had to go to great lengths to even discover, are few and far between. Besides, racism in the White House is and should be of more concern than any unfairness you find elsewhere.
26
@jh2 Maddow's accurate and detailed analysis of Menashi's ethno-supremacist paper is hardly a liberal excess.
3
I will be one to say that the Democratic Party is not without faults, 2016 proved that with the DNC mishandling of the primaries. But the Republican party long ago lost it's hold on denying racism, white supremacy and right wing talk. It surely started when people like Strom Thurman crossed over and has escalated in the 2000 and 2016 elections and the support of the Electoral College system, the last great holdover of slavery.
Having grown up in the south in the late 50's, 60's and 70's, I watched how the apologist theory of the Civil War continued into mainstream 20th century thought, taking hold and redefining the party of Lincoln. We have arrived at a point in time in this country that has not been seen since the 1850's, where life, not just parties, are polarized and no one is willing to listen to anyone else's point of view that doesn't align with theirs. Where everyone lives inside their "tribe".
But liberal or conservative, there is no room for racism, no room for white supremacy, no room for ideas that denigrate and dehumanize others whatever their race, creed, color or any other difference. To make excuses and pretexts of any kind is not exceptable. To lay the blame on "the other side" is not acceptable. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are all responsible for where we're at. But we can change, and that has to start with how each one of us acts towards ourselves and our fellow human beings. Don't point the finger at anyone, just take responsibility.
2
Racism is natural. It is who we humans are, protective and defensive beings afraid to lose our possessions. We don’t have to work at this.
Liberalism includes the conscious decision to overcome our natural impulses in favor of justice for others. We have to work at this every day.
It’s no surprise then that it is conservatism that has embraced chaos and racism these days. Conservatives demand “freedom” of the “individual.” They want justice for themselves, not others. They define justice and freedom by their “in-group” success.
No way this concept takes control of America. It’s a fever, and it will pass, because it will fail politically. Just fight against these ideas in our own communities. And vote.
3
Racism is not "natural." If you define natural as inborn behavior. From primitive eras into the 21st century it's a mindset and behavior that is introduced to humans in childhood and from there forward so impressed on each individual that it becomes a natural component of who they are and by extension the society they live in. It is learned behavior that rejects the process and value of human enlightenment.
Reasonable arguments here, but they will likely fall on deaf ears - on the right, as well as on the left.
Douthat's opinion piece should be a wake-up call to the right, as well as the left. But it won't be. Why?
The right in the US has vast appeal, but it is and remains a minority that rules primarily by getting all its people to the polls, while discouraging the left from bothering to voter, all aided by a heaping bunch of gerrymandering..
In other words, start undermining any small piece of this formula and the left starts to win more and more - in fact becomes more representative of the actual population.
Why don't conservatives pitch the wilder, more wacko elements of their coalition aside?
They cannot afford to alienate the white nationalist vote at the ballot box. The need every vote they can get to maintain minority rule.
1
I agree with the general point of this article, that we shouldn't be took quick to condemn someone as a racist, but let's be honest, much of conservatism is based on the southern white racist reaction to the civil rights era. Racist southern whites wanted smaller federal government and promoted states rights precisely because the federal government was forcing integration on them. Racist whites wanted judges who would interpret the constitution narrowly for the same reason. So you should not overlook racism's roll in much conservative ideology.
More particularly, while agreeing that the diminishing birth rate combined with an aging population puts programs like social security and medicare at risk, the answer is obvious: immigration! Immigrants are generally young, almost always work, and have more children than those of us born here. Our liberal immigration policies, which conservatives so vehemently oppose, place us in a far better place to deal with an aging population than western Europe, with their concerns of maintaining their ethnic identities (yes, not so different than Israel, but not racist).
So the only possible reason for conservatives to oppose immigration while being concerned about the birth rate is racism, pure and simple, and utterly deplorable.
3
I have said this before, and I will say it again. Not every conservative is a Republican. (In fact, a fair number are Democrats)
Not every Republican, even, holds racist views, in themselves. However, and this is key:
The Germans have a word for people who were not party members, who did not openly identify as supporters of the party, but still supported it by other means, whether voting for party officials or even holding the attitude of 'well I don't agree with everything they're doing, but they're doing some things right'. The people who, for whatever reason, whether it be fear or misplaced loyalty or partial agreement, supported the Party in a million understated ways.
I don't think I have to tell anybody what that word is.
If conservatives are really so righteous, there should have been people leaving the Republican Party by the hundreds of thousands over the past three years. Where were the Republicans who refused to support Trump after he called immigrants rapists and murderers? Where were the Republicans who screamed for his blood when he admitted, on camera, to groping women whether they wanted it or not? Where have the Republicans been who looked at camps that actual Holocaust survivors have compared to concentration camps, saw children dying in them, and called for the Grand Old Party to flay the President alive for the atrocities his policy enabled?
The Republican party has shown that party loyalty, that solidarity, matters more than basic human decency.
3
The author makes fair points, but these are mere trees in what has become a forest of racism. Will liberals sometimes overshoot their target? Yes, of course, and that's obviously unfortunate for those directly harmed. But the fact that we are no longer ignoring "dog whistle" appeals to White Nationalists is positive and necessary in this political moment.
1
Wow, are Conservatives this thin skinned. Even Ross has fought Universities for the right of any invited speaker to speak his or her mind. If and when Conservatives get their own base to stop the bigotry, then liberals might just heed his request. But one cannot hold out hope when Ross uses words like quarantine for bigotry instead of expunging. As a somewhat wealthy WASP, I can tell you many conservatives have espoused bigotry in my presence because they assumed I was like minded. So forgive me if I don’t take Ross fully at his word that some Conservatives are not racist. They have not proved that by me. The country club mentality has no place here or in the world order.
2
It may well be true that many of the sixty three million people that voted for Trump are not racists. But why would we spend any time defending those who supported this con man and continue to support him despite the obvious fact that he is unfit for the office. Republicans own this chaos and there will be a reckoning.
3
The problem for liberals is that we must be accurate every time (impossible due to human frailty) while Trump's constant lying and ignorance have been normalized to the point that they have become a danger to the Republic.
Haven't read the Olsen piece but your other examples support your point. Anyone who thinks JD Vance is racist thinks any deviation from their own personal view is racism. We already possess the cure for a declining birth rate, immigration. It brought my Irish great grandfather here before the Civil War. fleeing famine and British oppression. And it is Trump's MAWA (Make America White Again) which is trying to put Hispanics, themselves a rainbow, into a political and cultural ghetto.
I have no idea whether Mr. Menashi belongs on a federal appeals court. But it is possible that Mr. Trump in his efforts to craft a federal judiciary which will support his move toward a de facto monarchy, can mistakenly appoint good, independent minded people. Menashi's views about a Jewish homeland, if I read them correctly, are not much different than those which motivated Harry Truman to recognize Israel.
Those of who want a "more perfect union" should not take our eye off the core challenge, reducing Trumpism to a footnote to history, much like his intellectual forebears, the racist, anti-Catholic "Know Nothings" of yore. Demonizing people who might otherwise agree with us detracts from the effort to "keep the Republic" in Franklin's formulation.
2
The issue of racism is very complex, and modern media is soaked in charges, attacks, and more. First off, it is no longer a technical term, so leave your dictionary definitions behind. It is a pejorative, a term of attack, used with increasing frequency. Technically, we are all racist in that we recognize racial differences, some good, some bad, and we naturally empathize more with those closer and likely similar to us. The racism charge, which is highly charged, must include hostility to another racial group and a desire to harm. Douthat too easily condemns racist strains in conservatism and Trump, that fail any reasonable test. I reject the accusation that America, conservatism, Republicans, even Trump are fundamentally racist. Compared to the rest of the world, we are doing reasonably well. Quite frankly, we are in a frenzy of racism charges, somewhat similar to the frenzy of the McCarthy period and the child abuse charges of the 1980's.
1
"In the end the recrudescence of racism on the right is conservatism’s problem to solve, and it has to be solved independently of whatever liberals and leftists happen to be saying. But the task of solving it still gets a little harder with every nonsense charge or bad-faith accusation."
So rather than deal directly with the admitted "recrudescence of racism on the right," Douthat focuses on the "little harder" his imaginary version of "liberals and leftists" are making of conservatives' pathetic efforts to address that recrudescence? No wonder it's not getting better. Work on that beam in your eye before you worry about the mote in mine.
4
Bravo Ross, you've found three examples of Republicans wrongly accused of racism. Sadly, your months of research don't disprove the 60,000,000 counter-examples, which can be seen any time you care to leave the city.
2
Mr. Douthat, you mention just four instances in the media of unfair references to conservatives as racists, in one of which the WAPO issued an apology. You are engaging the in the same kind of broad brush name calling that you accuse liberals of when you refer to these instances as a "strain in progressive commentary." Really? A "strain"? Does the newspaper you write for belong to this club?
You, like many other conservatives, bemoan the fact that conservative thought does not have a enough of an influence in our culture. Well, maybe "intellectual" conservative thought but certainly not in mass media. Just look at the influence of Fox News, Clearview, etc. And how about all the print/written digital media, like the National Review, The Blaze, The Washington Times, etc.
As for conservative intellectuals, I would suggest that more of their ideas would be welcome on college campuses if they were more accepting of cultural and social norms that were different from their own judgmental, and often hypocritical, ideas of family, economic security, unions, etc.
For me, the essential reason that public or political conservatives are often thought of by liberals as racists is that unless they have come out as "never-Trumpers" they almost never call out Trump's racist dog whistles or the racism of others. This implies tacit approval, or at the very least, acceptance.
So, I do appreciate that you recognize the failure of mainstream political conservatism to address these problems.