I never understood why the national anthem is played before sporting events. The only time sport has any national significance is during international sporting events such as the Olympics. Add to that the use of war planes flying over football stadia -- for what? To excite the crowd? To incite us to patriotism? To create a sense of unity? I don't think so. I had season tickets to an NBA team for 17 years, heard every version of the anthem one can imagine (most tedious and self-indulgent). I stood respectfully, but wondered why we were listening to this 18th century drinking song instead of watching basketball. I also had tickets to the city's symphony orchestra and, notwithstanding its musical mission, it never played the anthem. Hmmm.
16
The culture wars did not start with President Trump but seem to have escalated since he was elected. They were apparent during the Bush and Obama years but people want to put the blame solely on Mr. Trump. Bill O'Reilly wrote a book on this subject called The Culture Warriors back in 2006 that was a best seller.
We have not been this divided politically and racially since the 1960s and seem to be losing ground on the progress we had made during the civil rights era. The blacks feel oppressed, the whites feel disenfranchised and each blames the other. We need to have dialogue before things get really out of hand. The two sides must sit down and talk and try to see the others point of view. This is something that is not easy and there will probably be disputes but the discussion must take place. A town hall forum might be the best way to accomplish this with a well known moderator leading the discussion. We really must not wait until it is too late and there is a point of no return. The time is ripe and we must not delay. Our differences and concerns must be aired if we are to solve our differences.
It may get testy but it has to happen. This is the only way to help us heal our divide and lessen our differences.
3
There is no issue abovethat of showing the world, that despite our differences, all Americans are united in loyalty. The flag and Anthem best represent that.
5
It is comical that a person like Trump, who is a draft dodger, disrespect and name call others, for what he calls disrespecting the flag. Trump should look in the mirror, if he is looking for a person who has disrespected this country and its flag.
15
I don't think Mr. Trump cares, per se, about racial wars. He, and his ilk, has figured out a brilliant (albeit completely devoid of morality and ethics) strategy straight out of the classic imperial playbook: Divide and Rule. As long as masses fight over leftover crumbs, they will not notice the massive wealth transfer to rich (taxes, wealthcare, and so on). Suddenly, deficit and wasteful spending (private jets for honeymoon) matter no more. Let the folks at the bottom blame each other for their problems, while rich help themselves to even more riches.
18
Better to argue over taking a knee for the anthem than to have white cops murdering unarmed black men and bigoted juries cowardly failing to convict the mutderers.
14
A draft dodger decades later gets elected president, then starts ranting about mislabeled unpatriotic individuals.
The most important reasons to re-instate the draft:
Everybody needs to have skin in the war game (the main source of pressure to end Vietnam).
We need to permanently mark for life all faux patriotic hypocrites such as Trump.
Congressional republicans are trying to sneak through an oligarch tax cut windfall bill. Need to distract the credulous unwashed masses with some idiotic fake issue such as disrespect for a flag or anthem by football players. What next? A Muslim ban, or how about that Great Wall of Mexico, or .... sigh ...
15
Now if you want really offensive lyrics try Maryland My Maryland, which is a call for secession.
3
"No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave"
--lyrics, usually unheard, to the national anthem
6
I read these lines as a reference to the British army, both in 1812 and in 1777-83.
3
If, like out of some kind of dystopic sci-fi novel, ours were a country where the law prohibited anyone from cheering or even applauding at political events, and required the audience to sit in silence, Donald Trump would have never run for president.
There's no culture war going on with Donald. I doubt he's even a white supremacist because he's not wired to be capable of committing himself to anything but himself.
He is a genius and his genius is singular -- he knows how to identify a pre-existing group and then appeal to what they want to hear.
And then he gets to bask before the cheering crowd. Must be quite a thrill.
8
For starters, we need to amend all laws involving Qualified Immunity to state that a person who has killed another person may be found "Not guilty by reason of qualified immunity, but unfit to serve further in any capacity as an armed officer of any Government agency." Shooting someone while your partner is tazing them would be a good example. Or shooting someone who is threatening you with a knife from fifteen feet away. Etc. etc. Police need to be trained to stop shouting at everybody and listen for once. And they need to be trained that they do not have the right to demand instant obedience from everyone around them at the top of their voices.
18
The last part of your statement indicates, you have either no understanding of policing, or no compassion for the safety of police officers.
2
Trump rants about these things because to him appearances matter more than substance. Therefore if he says he's not a racist he's not. If he says that both sides are equally guilty of racism they are. If he says that all Mexican immigrants are criminals, well he must know something. In reality the only thing that Trump and his cronies know how to do is run their mouths off. They don't know how to govern. Ranting and raving and threatening are their substitutes for governing. So is Soviet style propaganda which when translated was usually a lie piled on top of another lie.
Trump and the GOP are bullies, liars, cheats, and completely uninterested in America except to use it as a cash cow.
19
@Hen3ry: If u were to make make a "tour d'horizon,"an overview of the presidencies since 1960,u, second person, could point to 1 c-in-c whose tenure was untainted by scandal, who seldom said anything he did not mean, whose character was unimpeachable, that would be Jimmy Carter.He left the presidency no richer than when he assumed office. Carter and Henry Scoop Jackson, late US Senator from Wash. were only two men in public life who sent their children to a public school in the District, unlike Obama,"l'homme du peuple, "allegedly, who insisted his daughters attend at public expense the ritzy almost all white Sidwell Friends School.Carter was too honest for his own good. When informed by press secretary, Jody Powell ,that a sit down with Joseph Kraft, a well known journo from that period, was on the schedule, Carter answered that if talking to Kraft was necessary, he, Carter, no longer wanted to be president. Carter's religious faith informed his life and his presidency. Honest to the core in word and deed.Recall being in Plains in summer of 1976, and waiting interminably outside Carter's home for candidate to emerge. Recall Sam Donaldson standing alongside us, I was on assignment for LS, saying "this is where we separate the boys from the boys,"and never understood what he meant.Both Carters were tea totallers, and when reporters showed up at the WH, Rosalynn locked up the liquor cabinet. Could not even get a Billy Beer!
3
Just this week I dialogued on Instagram (yes IG!) with a true red conservative from Oklahoma who started following me a few months back. He loves my image feed and often likes/comments on my posts. As a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, he posted a question asking what this taking the knee business was all about. Long story short, he and I engaged in a very civil, respectful dialogue (albeit on IG comments) about the current situation. He did agree with me that firing a person based on political beliefs and peaceful protest was anathema to our 1st amendment. My point is that we both came away feeling good about our interaction. We don't have to hate one another, and we don't need to be engaged in a perpetual battle - I urge all Americans to use some empathy, engage with someone who thinks differently, and don't feel threatened by that difference. My friend in OK is a human being who cares about his country and wants civil discourse as much as I do. The culture wars have been used (in an exponentially expanding manner) by politicians (right and left) to divide Americans - our current situation didn't just happen. We all have to be intentional and mindful (sorry for the liberal blather) about bridging our divides, focusing on commonalities, and creating a better reality than the one we are stuck in. American citizens didn't declare a culture war, politicians did. But it is up to average Americans to call a truce and work together for a better nation.
14
Great to hear. Yes, we have to find ways to talk with each other, hear each others' perspectives without resorting to name calling and denigration. Agree to disagree with civility?
1
The woman wearing the flag is one of the most insulting things to our flag that I've seen.
18
for the last 60 years or so it has been open season on people of color. we just did not know about it. that is those of us who did not lose a family member to the race based extra judicial killings by police. but with the advent of the camera equipped phone these murders have been brought to light. so while the culture wars battles have come and gone a real war has been waged on blacks and other people of color in this country. i would wager to say that if there was a march on washington by all the relatives of those extra judicially shot by police at least 100,000 people would show up.
12
But the dirty little truth is, Ross, that the GOP has long cherished "culture wars" as a way to advance what has essentially been a racist agenda for many years now, long before Trump came along. Let's recall Reagan's "welfare queen," as well as George Bush I's Willy Horton campaign ads. The GOP has solidified its hold on the majority of the white vote in this country, not through better policy ideas that benefit the average white voter, but due to long-standing implicit, and occasionally explicit, appeals to white grievance as the primary motivating factor to get especially older white people to the polls. You can trace Trump's rise all the way back to Barry Goldwater. Where the GOP goes from here, with their one-trick pony strategy for an aging, declining demographic is anyone's guess.
21
Mr. Douthat did not include lack of acceptance of scientific fact as a criterion of a bad culture war. For example, measurements do show that the planet is warming. Chemists have shown that CO2 and methane are heat trapping gases. If facts are not accepted, there can be no rational discussion.
18
"... we need a social and cultural debate focused on the substance that Colin Kaepernick’s choice of protest unfortunately obscured .."
It wasn't Colin's protest method that obscured the much needed debate. It was Mr. Trump's response that did the obfuscating. Instead of addressing the substance of the protest, Trump ignored the pertinent principles and resorted to his default strategy, namely, racism. Whenever he needs a boost with his base, racism is his intuitive play. No method of black protest would be acceptable to this mob that believes that only whites are patriots and real Americans.
15
Why do you assert that Kaepernick's protest was a "calculated offense"? I see no evidence of calculation to offend. And why does it offend anybody? I'm serious, I really don't understand this. It was a peaceful, civil, silent, unobtrusive protest designed to bring attention to an important issue. Why are conservatives acting like he desecrated a flag or sang a parody of the national anthem in drag or something? Not a single conservative I've talked to could give me a satisfactory answer.
29
"He is not the only figure pushing American arguments in that direction — cable news, reality TV, campus protesters and late-night political “comedy” all have a similar effect these days."
Interesting choice of bad actors pushing American arguments toward stupidity and emptiness.
Seems to me that right-wing talk radio, evangelical Christianity, and Fox News (along with its progeny, Breitbart and Infowars) would be more likely candidates for the dumbing down of American discourse.
20
And you know what is really shameful here? Mr. Douthat, you are giving credit to a cretin. And guess what, no one likes loosing a war, cultural or otherwise. You enter war to win. And no, Donald Trump is no master, virtuoso, or capable of finishing a sentence. You praise by faint, and feint of condemnation.
6
Colin Kaepernick decided to call attention to the slaughter of unarmed black men by police officers sworn to "protect and serve." Last Sunday, when more than 250 players, and some of the team owners knelt, locked arms and stood in a near-unanimous voice of reason, a voice that Kaep' started last season, some fans started burning their team souvineers in their protest. Apparently, smartphone videos of murder by the police didn't affect them, just the picnicing crowds of Deep South racists took lynching for granted; some made a party out of it.
As a 73 year old white man from Los Angeles, I seen a lot. My progressive roots begging for racial equality go deep into the 1820s when my great-great-grandmother joined the abolitionist movement in the Missouri Territory. I admired Kaepernick for his courage from Day One. He knew it would affect his career track.
Donald J. Trump, the boy who wants to be king, fired up a base of racists, yes, they are. When the addled and aging rocker, Ted Nugent, went to the podium at the RNC convention and urged the throngs to lynch President Obama and assassinate Hillary Clinton, the tone of the Trump campaign was carved in stone and I cringed with each Trump rally. And he is still conducting rallies as if the race was not over. He demands the house lights be on him at all times.
Impeachment of this sexual predator, business fraud, and narcissist will not end racism or death by cop for black men in America. But it will be a start.
35
Okay to say that 2/3 of minorities thought race relations were better because they weren't being lynched, their children didn't need a national guard escort to attend school, and they had mostly figured out how to prepare their children how to navigate an 'integrated' society without getting shot? Or because our executive & judiciary leaders at least indicated that they would protect them from white supremacists in para-military gear, armed and chanting in our streets? Before Trump.
10
Slavery, the Civil War, foundational events in our country's history, still sear in everyone's mind. History is the nightmare that I try to escape from - James Joyce. We have not escaped. Southern whites are still seething over their loss in the Civil War. They still seethe over any benefit given to black people. They show up today as Trump supporters.
Black folks ,whose slave labor help make the country an economic power, still want a piece of the pie and not to be killed by the police. They take a knee.
Trump vs Kaepernick. Indeed a nightmare.
21
Your scorn for late-night comedy TV disappoints me, Mr. Douthat. The voices emanating from those shows are the voices of the majority, and the nation needs satirists the caliber of Stephen Colbert as much now as they ever have before. Those voices are needed to combat the vile rhetoric of a loud, unprincipled and amoral minority whose outsize influence on the current sorry state of affairs is the cause of endless misery - misery that will outlast their bleating, if you take a hard look at the type of wretched public policy their ugly shouting has helped bring about. Shame on you. Colbert et al. are the front line of defense against what ails us. Long may they run, in the best tradition of Ida Tarbell or Mark Twain.
21
I would have agreed a few years ago, but not anymore. Satire can be and often is the refuge of the smug.
Though I did generally like Colbert when I watched him.
I've read all the comments -- and once again Americans, like their president, are tip-toeing around the 'race-elephant' in the room.
This has nothing to do with being Republican, Democrat, or even being a "patriot".
It's time to finally get real and realize this problem is going nowhere as long as you live in denial.
Wake-up, America.
12
One possibility is that Trump threw out the black athlete kneeling topic to distract his voters to seeing how badly he is handling North Korea.
Trump voters would see Kim Jung-un calling Trump a dotard and disrespecting Trump and calling Trump's bluff.
All of which make Trump look very bad to his voters if they weren't so busy being incensed at some black foot ball players kneeling.
16
The problem is that Trump is a racist, not just a racist, but an active racist. He's also an enemy to everyone but himself, with temporary exceptions for those that praise and coddle him and those from whom he wants something, usually money in one form or another, or in the case of females, sex. Trump isn't just an enemy, he's a mean, vengeful, hurtful, hateful enemy that won't be satisfied with just winning. He has to see you lose and suffer to the extreme. That's what he is. That's what he does.
25
To assume culture wars is to assume forward progress towards an improved future based on the past. Pshaw! Let culture be current culture, the culture of the moment, Mr. Douthat. If you can do that, you will most certainly be less constrained, by which I mean Republican. Thought I will allow that right now you are more of a cross of publican and replicant.
1
The patriotic emotion wrapped up in flag and anthem is one of those perspectives that I absolutely cannot empathize with.
Flags are everywhere - used to sell cars, on hot swimsuit models, T-shirts and biker jackets. How disrespectful is it to have it on your underwear?
And I always thought the anthem was lame. Most people can't even sing it. But America the Beautiful brings a tear to my eye and feels truer.
I define patriotism by how one lives it day to day as an active citizen. Voting. Defending the constitution and American values. Striving to better our local and federal governments.
It's worth debating how we define our values and constitutional principles and how to better our country. Kaepernik is trying to shine a light on a valid and serious flaw in the system.
All this noise about disrespect feels like someone with their hands pressed tightly over their ears, shouting "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
20
We need more Canadian way of thinking down here in the lower 48. Thank you, Canadian friend.
5
I had season seats to NYG games going back to 1958. Games were preceded by the playing of the national anthem. Starting players from each team's either offense or defense were individually introduced. No military planes flew over the stadium. The game was over within 2 hours and maybe 15 minutes. I was on the 4 train and home to see the start of the 4pm game.
The point is the game was why everyone went to the Stadium to watch NYG play an opponent. We did not go to see planes fly over the game (LAG provided plenty of those back then). We did not go to see players line up on the sidelines for the Anthem and Old Glory to be played and unfurled. Huff, Rosey Brown, and Grier, Chucking Charlie Connerly Kyle Rote and Frank Gifford was why we were there.
Maybe there was no appetite for phony nationalism because WW ll was only 13 years in our collective rearview mirrors and the Korean "Conflict" was only a few years past. Dwight David Eisenhower was our President ( he knew war and the human price of it Donald) nor was a draft dodger. Ike knew war; Ike cherished peace.
Mr. Trump, stuff your phony nationalism and staff the State Department. Follow the lead of the Supreme Commander of US Forces in Europe during WW ll when he became President of the United States and ended the Korean Conflict.
22
I think it's time for a re-branding exercise.
Who would not agree that from a graphic design point of view, the star spangled banner is an utter failure? I mean, really, the greatest nation should certainly aspire to the finest of everything, and that certainly includes its flag. Some examples of really stunning design (in no particular order) include Argentina and Japan -- beautiful, simple, and utterly unforgettable.
Anyone with a shred of knowledge or sensitivity to music would also agree that the anthem should be chucked as well. I don't have a good solution to that one; I leave it to the experts.
6
I like the flag. It's so unique but seems inevitable.
The song is no anthem, too hard too sing. Worse, the third stanza, the one they hide away in shame, is not just racist, it is bitterly hateful toward African people.
10
Let Us make America Great for the First time in History and All get along for once. Face the Facts we are the Only planet we know about with creatures that travel of their own will into space and go explore other places. So far we have only been to our own moon as far as distance goes. But We did it from these shores of this nation. But we did it in reality for all peoples.
Let us know that culture is cool, and that my way of cooking eggs is not the only way of cooking eggs and that we can all get along working in the Kitchen. I use space and kitchens because I love space and am also a Chef, among other things. BioWebScape was my project to house and feed every human on earth, We can do it, right here in the Lower 48 US states. We have the brain power to be more than we think we can be, and As fellow humans of Earth, we only have ourselves in this solar system to deal with. So let us get moving folks Let us Put down the petty differences and Stand up for the Freedoms our nation stands for, and Make All earth Great.
3
I think your solutions are pretty good except that this administration is reversing the Obama administrations attempts to do exactly what you are suggesting. Money is being taken away from police departments trying to modernize and become more human and we are back in line to build more prisons.
Therefore incarcerate more people wasting more lives and treasure.
Nice thoughts though
5
The first step is to acknowledge that issues no longer matter to much of the population. Every candidate who ran for president last year ran on issues - with consistent (regardless if one agrees with them or not) platforms - except one. One candidate ran as a personality. Donald's lack of knowledge (and interest) in issues, his self-contradictory statements, his theatrics garnered a dangerously high level of support. We need to address the disengagement of much of the populace from issues first. Our representative government was founded on electing people to stand for us (ie represent) what our positions are, what are interests are. If we are now voting based on celebrity without even a nod to party platform (ie I may not know their specific positions, but I'll vote party because at least i know the platform issues), then we are losing our republic. How we protest issues comes second to understanding why so many of us no longer think issues, their own included, matter.
10
Trump ran on an issue. He's a racist. Anti-Obama. The Trump campaign wasn't about the economy or populism, it was about putting Black people in their place. America can't see the simple obvious answer because of its absolute denial when it comes to racism. But Trump supporters had no trouble getting it.
11
Here's a thought exercise: Let's say Colin Kaepernick decided that he wanted to do something to bring change to the criminal justice system and the police. Let's say he decided to deliver a nationally televised speech on the subject .... in Latin.
Many fluent people understand every word he's saying and they are moved. Many people don't - they notice his offensive t-shirt and they rely on their high school Spanish or Latin or SAT vocab to piece together certain words. These people come away either 1- completely misunderstanding what he said 2- feeling really annoyed or 3) feeling really disgusted by what they thought they heard.
Nonverbals and symbols ARE a language. Mr. Kaepernick used nonverbal and symbolic language that too many people can't interpret or interpret differently. Liberals are going offering their interpretation and they are baffled and frustrated about why it's not sinking in. It's not going to work because conservatives have already drawn their conclusions, they've interpreted the meaning of the symbolic gesture as offensive (this the way conservatives understand it.). And everyone thinks they've got it right.
So who's fault is it? The people who don't speak the language, or the guy who spoke a non-universal language and now blames the audience for misunderstanding him?
4
I sympathize with and support the gesture of "taking a knee." At the same time, I think it must be admitted that it has not been successful as a means of raising consciousness. A wise president might have been able to weigh in and elevate the issue to a level where we could have a meaningful national dialog, like Obama was able to do after Henry Louis Gates was picked up for breaking into his own house. Or a less wise president may have ignored the issue. Only a president with no wisdom at all would choose to come down heavily on one side. As Current Occupant does on every issue.
12
He's managed to bait DJT jr, and now whole teams are participating. #momentum, #onlyexampleofthisconvesationocurringperiod
2
Wow, Ross! I find myself in total agreement with you, I think.
How can this happen?
It seems that it was inevitable that a person kneeling in a way that could be interpreted as unpatriotic would be exploited by a person desiring to fulfill his position. I don't see anything we say changing that behavior though. I don't really see any option but to reestablish the national anthem as a patriotic, unifying theme.
Just because a person is able to exploit that should not mean that we act reflexively to counter it. Some of us understood the intended message, but most people probably did not. And it is very difficult to address something that is a local issue (law enforcement) on a national stage.
What I fear most, however, is that I know that I'm being manipulated as a human by multiple forces, and some of them are data-driven, or at least they appear to be that way. I don't like being manipulated, so whatever the manipulation force, I'll resist it. This is simply because I hold most dear to myself and my family the freedom that is the promise of this country. The freedom to make my own choices is inseparable from that.
You seem like a wise man, Ross. Wiser than I realized before.
One of your political opponents will probably read this, fear that their goal is being usurped, and try to respond appropriately. STOP! Please stop! Stop the games!
Agreeing with Ross is not bad. Ross is not bad. We're just people. Thank God that people don't act like computers!
4
Republicans have been using the culture wars since they invented them around the time of Reagan.
Their lexicon includes:
Founding fathers
Patriots
Flag
The Constitution
Strong leader
Strong military
The Bible
Welfare queens
Entitlements
Protect the life of the unborn fetus
The sin of same sex marriage
For 35 years, they have been getting votes based on these “values” and the then cutting taxes for the wealthy.
If they can, they will cut health care for so many of their West Virginia voters that Obama-care gave them just to give the billionaire class some more tax cuts.
But there are those death panels.
10
50 years ago The Republican Party created the Southern Strategy, the conscious effort to appeal to the segregationist Strom Thurmond and George Wallace Democratic voters.
In the 1980’s the Republican Party gave us the culture wars and Reagan and the dog whistle politics of welfare queens and States Rights and created the Reagan Democrats.
In the 1990’s we got the Newt Gingrich House of Representatives take no prisoners confrontation, the Clinton impeachment, Whitewater, and Vince Foster murder conspiracy.
With Obama, they created the Tea Party and gave us the birthers, death panels, and support of the Confederate flag.
And all these years, the Republican politicians have been using the Reaganomics talking points of small government and tax cuts for the job creators coming from the right-wing think tanks.
For thirty five years, the rising tide of Trickle Down Economics has mostly helped the wealthy.
And the Republican establishment is sick, just sick I tell you, to think of Trump representing the Republican Party.
They can’t understand how the Republican voters, who have been losing their manufacturing jobs all these years as Mitt Romney and his Wall St. colleagues sent those jobs to China, these same voters who have been listening to talk radio all these years, how they can blindly follow Trump and not listen to reason.
12
The best article I've read from you, Mr. Douthat. Thank you.
4
Trump and his culture wars are like the fruit cake that inevitably comes in the mail every Christmas season.
2
I can find no logical reason to harp on Colin Kaepernick's choice of protest as somehow inappropriate. What is truly inappropriate is not only the forced display of phony patriotism at NFL games, but also the notion that these two symbols, the flag and the anthem--and that's ALL they are; symbols--are somehow immune to the reality of what they represent around the world, not just in America's sports stadiums.
This flag has been associated with horrific brutality in places all around the globe--not by some "snowflake"'s opinion--but by the bullets and bombs rained down by the US military on the locals. Why do those who are so offended by Kaepernick's legitimate patriotic gesture conveniently, consistently, insultingly ignore this simple fact which has occurred thousands of times in my lifetime?
The IDEALS of America are terrific--but you only get to be proud about the symbols if the country lives up to those ideals. In the case of the subjects broached by Kaepernick's protest and taken up by hundreds of his peers, America has failed its own citizens nearly as completely as it has those it has killed around the world. Add to that a song glorifying war and slavery, and written by a firebrand white-supremacist, and you're going to have a difficult time convincing me we should proudly stand and honor these symbols.
Colin Kaepernick is a genuine American hero--a Jesse Owens for the 21st century--and needs to be lionized, not criticized.
29
This makes sense to me. Why do Americans have so much trouble understanding this?
11
Auntie Hose: America, love it or leave it! Think of another nation that accepts 1 million immigrants a year, saved France from German occupation in WWII,rescued Britain from Nazi domination, and created the Marshall Plan after the war to help Western Europe get back on its feet and resist the communist threat coming from the east!If we are so morally flawed, why does everyone want to come here?Hope Mr. Kaepernick has saved his money, because his marketability as a quarterback is declining by the day. No team wants a potential troublemaker in its midst.Remember Richie Incognito, star linesman for Miami Dolphins who was traded away because he became too controversial?CK has shown heroic courage on the field, but so have so many other players. When players become aware that their share of the revenue from NFL's contract with AT&T will diminish because subscribers will begin, are beginning to unsubscribe, they will put an end to the foolishness, and stand once again for the National Anthem.
@ Ih....because "understanding" isn't something a devolving, increasingly under-educated society is particularly good at.
9
"whether the national anthem is right-wing political correctness" - I would've thought Trump's statement disparaging POWs that he "likes people who weren't captured" might've mattered to his voters but apparently these kinds of things only matter to Trump supporters if the person making the perceived offense is black.
22
What else would you expect from an empty suit but empty culture wars?
13
Kaepernick's "prescription" is for police to stop killing African Americans for no reason other than the officers' fear and hatred. His "prescription" is to provide educational opportunities for young people to learn and exercise their rights, an end to which he has devoted tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours.
You, sir, quibble with Kaepernick's "prescriptions," while millions of Americans refuse to even acknowledge that there's a sickness that needs to be eradicated, as surely as polio or any other disease. That sickness is white supremacy, police brutality, racial inequality, and many other actual illnesses of the soul of this nation. The myopia of your point of view is certainly symptomatic of those illnesses.
Maybe the "prescriptions for redress" seem so unclear to you, because you don't think you're suffering from any of these illnesses. But you are. Your viewpoints here are cancerous.
15
What is with this country's obsession with deifying the military and those in it? I respect their service and believe each one of them should have the care they need when they return; however, the idea that everything should be about the military is absurd. Last time I checked we haven't had a draft in well over 40 years. To quote a favorite phrase of conservatives, "They knew what they were getting into then they signed up".
10
It seems like a small step to go from glorifying warriors to glorifying war.
3
elin....simple really. the usa is a deeply militaristic country. spends a zillion dollars on defence so you have to use it. the usa also has god on its side so it's easy to deify the military. outdoor sports events don't miss a chance to have jets screaming overhead, 'he is/was a marine' is about the greatest compliment you can give to somebody.
and taking credit for winning ww1&WW2 all by itself fosters the usa usa usa mentality.
and more.....
6
And why do people think that taking a knee has anything to do with the military, or the US in general?
2
Trump fits in quite well the 20th & 21st centuries "conservative" presidents and contenders. The difference is that Trump says aloud and in public what Republicans before Reagan only said in their clubs.
Donald Trump is simply the logical regression of the Republican Party that began with the Goldwater putsch that removed the moderate Rockefeller/Eisenhower Republicans from power.
Richard Nixon, the last non-Goldwater inspired Republican POTUS, used his "Southern strategy" (along with peace plan lies for the Viet Nam war...) to attract the formerly "solid South" Democrat working class.
Ronald Reagan, Goldwater’s political inheritor, made American reactionary conservatism safe and attractive. He wasn’t a Bircher or a klansman. His Hollywood charm made it easy and palatable for (too) many to forget or to choose not to see how racist American conservatism had really become.
Trump simply says, and does, what the Republican rank and file thinks and has thought for the past fifty years. He is no "cultural warrior"...
19
Hapin, you might enjoy this view of Reagan, which Earl Shorris wrote on his death-bed from cancer for "Harper's" titled "American Vespers":
https://harpers.org/archive/2011/12/american-vespers/?single=1
"The ultimate effect of the work of the man with no philosophy was to be a philosopher: he removed ethics from politics. Everything followed on his elegant excision, an operation performed so deftly on the body politic that it did not feel the wound.
The disease that Reagan brought into the American mind was like the terrifying shadow the patient sees in X-rays clipped to a light box. It came from nowhere and appeared in the body of the country. There is a magic quality to the decline of men and democracies. Historians and histologists study the tissue, identify markers, but only after the decline has begun can they do their work. No doctor, for all that she might wish to heal the heart or soul, can predict the onset of the fouling of the tiniest part. One cell must be the first to sicken and then sicken another. The beginning is the magic."
9
Alan MacDonald, powerful words indeed!
2
Yes, much better than I could ever write. I've reread it through the years but never without tearing up.
I think Shorris and Morris Berman understood this decline better than others, but perhaps a solution is possible --- or at least hopeful.
1
Just like all of the other criticisms of Trump by Republican writers. You lay out many clear reasons why Trump is unfit and divisive, and yet you can't help yourself. You have to take gratuitous swipes at the left, from late-night talk show hosts to Kaepernick to the "late Obama years."
17
The aspirational ideal for many in mid-century America was that Americans were all in this together. We needed to address civil rights and poverty; the world was such that we had to keep the trade routes open and insist that disputes are resolved under the rule of law rather than by force.
One can point to specific instances in which we deviated from our aspirations or tried but failed to achieve them. But strength combined with aspirations regarding peace, prosperity, the rule of law, civil rights, and an equitable society was, I thought, the common idea about what made America great.
Our disputes must be fruitful, not tribal.
If you're a political donor on the right, reconsider the wisdom of bankrolling divisive tactics that do indeed work. Today, after the Southern strategy, Gingrich, McConnell, and Trump, behold your creation.
If you're on the academic left, reconsider the recent Ptolemaic revolution in thought regarding human relations. The idea that all people are created equal with a right to dignity, equitable treatment, and equal opportunity allows for elegance, depth, and positive sum strategies; one can calmly discuss whether something retains implicit traces of racial or gender supremacy. Reasoning via racial and gender identities is often complex or ad hoc, leads to zero sum strategies, and labels as privileged some people who would seem to be disadvantaged.
2
What about all these white people booing in protest during the playing of the National Anthem, which trump applauds!?! And Trump tweets that kneeling is bad but standing arm in arm is an acceptable form of protest. So, just trying to keep up with what is currently acceptable...kneeling bad, booing and standing arm in arm good. Maybe this week the NFL players should stand arm in arm while booing. Can they wear black lives matter t-shirts?
5
So, in 1973 I was going out to the grocery store, and the next thing I knew it was 2017.
7
A reasonable column, with the glaring, gratuitous exception of the ludicrous idea that "Colin Kaepernick’s choice of protest unfortunately obscured" the real issues over which rational people might reach and subsequently reevaluate a policy consensus.
Had Kaepernick just held a press conference or written an Op-Ed, few would have paid attention. And his simple action proved far more eloquent than any words of his, spoken or written, would likely have been. He's a professional sports figure, not a professional pundit. Signifying with his body is what he and his peers are all about.
15
In a polite and civilized society there are norms of etiquette and behavior. There is a code describing how to behave while the national anthem is sung. The national anthem itself is apolitical and has nothing to do with whether there are reasonable and fair laws for law enforcement or for national healthcare or for taxation policy, all of which are burning issues of the day.
To use 'creative' alternative behavior at the singing of the national anthem as a cudgel to draw attention to problems not even remotely connected with the national anthem seems, to put it mildly, inappropriate.
3
How sensitive and dainty of you! Where is this civilized perspective when people are killed, taunted or silently and systematically repressed because of their race? I am guessing all of these I mention are not as egregious as kneeling during the anthem?
13
ALM
It would be helpful if people showed one fraction of concern for the lives of innocent unarmed people shot by police that they show for the national anthem. Get real. Lives matter. Not anthems or lifeless symbols. Police need to watch a few old time cowboy shows--"Never shoot an unarmed man and never shoot anyone in the back"--that is what they always taught. What is there about respect for their fellow human beings that these police do not understand? Since when did a piece of music become more important than human lives cut down because of a blanket of racism that covers the minds of many who choose the law enforcement career?
5
Your "polite and civilized society" may not seem so when an innocent person is looking down the barrel of a police gun. So, right in your first sentence you have posited an incorrect notion. Your second inaccuracy is that there is some "code" of behavior associated with the national anthem. Whose is that code, yours? And who enforces it, you? That the anthem is "nonpolitical" is also wrong: calling this country "the land of the free" is a very political statement, and it is at least debatable, as we see right now. Many people like you do not think Kaepernick is "free" to even kneel on a field (which act is not much of a "cudgel" --- not like a police baton is a cudgel). So you have managed to either blatantly lie about or misinterpret every point you bring up. Well done.
2
A Georgia police officer told a woman during a traffic stop that law enforcement personnel “only kill black people.” This is a culture war worth fighting.
For decades, conservative whites have resented that minorities, women, gays are continually refusing to "stay in their place." They are demanding equality, and conservative whites can't stand it, so they wrap themselves in the flag, "traditional values," religious freedom, etc. What they don't realize is that said minorities merely want the same kind of life the conservative whites have, and not be trampled on anymore.
14
Trump's only objective is to distract the population so he can gain what he wants most. Power and money. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
10
Funny, you do not mention (on the progress side) the Equal Rights legislation of the 60's. You do not mention the rise of overt racism upon the election and reelection of Obama. That stuff is not "culture wars", it is trying to re-live the Civil War. I love how you get in your digs at Kapernick's socks. Have you ever looked that closely at Mitch McConnell or Rush Limbaugh? Ever gone after "one of yours"? You continue to be the most specious, slithery poltical writer of our age.
19
Don't forget that the alleged patriotism of flag thumping and singing national anthem at sporting events is bought and paid for by Department of Defense by our tax dollars, ostensibly to recruit for military jobs. It is not a genuine show of patriotism by professional league or NASCAR owners. These owners are paid millions of tax payer dollars for displaying faux patriotism.
If you don't want to mix sports and politics, removing flag and national anthem from these events would be first steps.
24
Indoctrinating young kids to blindly obey and love the military and shows of military force...nothing sinister about that, right?
3
Kaepernick's actions have caused a nationwide debate.
8
The right acts as if debate is something we scare of as a nation now.
5
Trump culture is a culture of ostentatious wealth, gold encrusted decor, temper tantrums, human callousness, personal insults, historical ignorance, lies, fast food, greed, misogyny, racism and self-interest. Most of us wouldn't be caught dead defending Trump culture because these are things we'd like to eliminate from ourselves.
21
Ross, find a way to ask the president what race he belongs to and what race he believes Kaepernick belongs to. Then for good measure ask him what race Hitler belonged to.
Or maybe you yourself would like to answer those questions. Or perhaps a reader or two.
The questions are a simpler way of stating what is said in more academic terms at this comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/opinion/trumps-empty-culture-wars.html...
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
2
The most important culture war in American history was that between slavery and freedom. In that war, the clash was between the rights of slave owners and states rights versus the preservation of the union and anti-slavery. Radicals like William Lloyd Garrison wanted to break up the union rather than accept slavery. Abraham Lincoln wanted to limit or get rid of slavery but not at the cost of disunion.
Race remains the most salient issue dividing America. Since sports is a crucial cultural focus in America, Colin Kaepernick has become a powerful symbol of the continuing struggle for racial equality. As President of the United States, Donald Trump has become the most powerful representative of white supremacy.
This war will go on and on in this strange, troubled land.
5
Douhat labors under the delusion that there's a good culture war and a bad culture war. There is only culture war, and the only question is, who's winning it?
Until Trump's election, it was our elite that was winning it -- shoving all manner of repugnant things down the throat of ordinary Americans.
But now, Trump's winning it -- despite the now unanimous and fully deranged opposition from the entire elite, our media included.
And with his winning comes the power to effect change across a broad array of issues -- most obviously, immigration and the woes thereof.
3
frankly0, what is deranged about disapproving of marching Nazis and KKK members carrying torches?
6
The problem with "ordinary Americans" is that they are oh-so-very ordinary.
1
This is rabid demagoguery, period.
3
I think people should be free to say whatever they want . . . so long as I don't have to hear it. Thankfully I never watch football so Kapernack can stand on his head and wiggle his toes during the anthem or anytime for that matter. Trump is free to as well but at his age I'd doubt if he could.
1
I'm not sure "police misconduct" is an adequate term for the issue that Colin Kaepernick is on about, though. "Police misconduct" has the ring of "a few bad apples." I think the perception among the policed persons of color, based on personal experience as well as on stories they hear from others and on reports they read in the press, is that they are subject to abuse at the hands of a deeply rooted culture of organized racial oppression. That would be worse than misconduct.
14
I refuse to get into any "culture war" with a man who brags on film about groping women, and was responsible for the Trump University fraud.
10
"DIVIDE and CONQUER"
Trump's modus operandi for governance, sorry America it's going to be a long 3 1/2 years of this horrendous behavior.
Thanks "Do Nothing Don".......
6
The Republican Party has a history, and currently supports people and policies whose purpose is to support the privileges of white people over others. To keep minorities from enjoying the same equality that they share.
They have done this through a southern strategy in elections, they have done this through not just incarceration, but also disenfranchisement. They do this in hiring processes, and in limiting laws that might affect any of this Republican Policy. They even do it through an unequal chance of being executed for crimes committed. Death of Minorities in an unequal enforcement of the laws is a Republican Policy.
They engage in policies that move towards more separate and unequal schooling at lower levels, and a lack of any sort minority guidelines against racism at higher education levels.
The Republican Party will stop being called White Supremacists when they cease acting like ones. When they stop engaging in a war on minorities, especially black Americans. When they stop putting white people first above everyone else, and stop claiming that the cultures of other Americans are less American because of their race, religion, sex, or gender.
When they stop being bigoted, it will be time to stop calling them bigots.
The Republican Party is fact challenged. It currently being a party of white supremacism is one of those.
11
Trump has no idea what culture even means.
All he wants is for people to adulate him.
If his crowds cheered when he supported racial equality, that's what he would advocate.
If his crowds cheered when he there was no need to build a wall, only to abide the immigration laws already in place, that's what he would advocate.
Trump is an empty shell of a man grasping onto whatever "affection" he can get, at whatever cost.
A sad day for the U.S. to have him in our White House.
8
Yeah, like I've been saying all week, "How's that Russian election meddling investigation going?"
5
The answer to question #2 is no, not until we remove the profit motive from the incarceration system. So long as money can be made - and find its way into the pockets of politicians - the rubric of "law and order" will rule the day regardless of what a majority of Americans want. Sadly this is the case with many issues - a majority wants reasonable gun control but the politicians can't find the guts to vote for it. Money and our system of political primaries will continue to undermine the rule of the majority.
2
I enjoyed youe pieces a lot better before you became part of the Resistance.
"Second, can we continue the move toward de-incarceration — supported, not that long ago, by Republicans as well as Democrats — without reversing the gains that have made many of our cities safe?"
If you choose to fight illegal drug abuse by waging an armed war against the illegal drug abuse economy, then de-incarceration will have limited results when it comes to safety. The families of the users will be better off if incarceration is replaced with treatment. But the illegal economy will continue and turf adjustments and snitch eradication will still send bullets flying.
Conservatives need to bite the bullet of reality and admit that today's urban gang warfare is really no different fron the gang warfare between Al Capone and his many rivals that gripped American after Americans voted for Alcohol Prohibition.
Many police kinda like that war because they can seize the assets of dealers, and validate themselves warriors and so on. They defend this endless cycle of violence as if their added violence could ever really end it.
And now our President is their champion. So things are not going to get any better until after he leaves.
2
The very expression "culture war" is problematic. There is a single culture in the United States, albeit one whose different constituencies are at war with themselves. It would be helpful to give Colin Kaepernick the credit he deserves for his courage, and not suggest his was a calculated and ineffective protest. And perhaps, most important of all, the idea of different cultures within our society further obscures the broad reach of many issues across the population, regardless of "identity." We have far more in common than is ever expressed. For example, policing in this country -- with its wide dependence on authoritarianism and the threat of lethal force for non-compliance -- is abysmal. Blacks by far bear the worst of this failure, but it affects us all. Hands up, how many white people have been talked to like a dog by a police officer who is either incapable of or unwilling to reason? My guess is that the great majority of police beats in this country (with obvious, notable exceptions) on any given day are as likely to require the presence of a police handgun as an electric toothbrush to maintain order. Wide-ranging reform would have all of us, but especially the part of America Colin Kaepernick is, quite rightly, pointing to as a hotbed of abuse.
7
Ross: I agree. Trump vs. CNN vs. student protetors shouting down those they disagree with vs. glib punchlines on late night TV isn't going to illuminate any issue of public concern.
It's all below the belt, gut level, tribal politics. If you are against Trump, you are reflexively against anything he does. If you for Trump, you'd forgive anything.
Forget nuance or thoughyful analysis--except in your column of course.
1
The irony is that President Trump is exercising the very right to free speech that he suggests should be denied NFL players and coaches. Indeed, to paraphrase a key message from the Book "Animal Farm," President Trump no doubt views his right to free speech as being more equal than that of NFL players. This is an exceedingly dangerous view as what is free speech should not be left to any one individual to decide as it will quickly become a cudgel to punish some and reward others - in completely random fashion. I think its also worth noting that patriotism is not proven by whether you wear a flag pin in your lapel or stand during the national anthem, anymore than going to church every weeks proves that you are a good christian. Pins, standing during the national anthem, marching in a parade, saluting the flag, etc. are mere symbols and as Americans, we need to look much deeper than symbols before labeling someone as being either patriotic or unpatriotic.
8
Dothan writes,
"For hope to resurface, we need specific issues and potential compromises to re-emerge. In particular, we need a public argument clearly tethered to the two big policy questions raised by police misconduct and the broader crime and incarceration debate."
Yes, the incarceration debate is important. But the real issue raised by the 2016 election is illegal immigration.
We need a discussion on that issue, in which debate participants are not characterized as "racist" because they understand that there are limits to growth.
Make no mistake. Donald Trump is a highly flawed messenger. But his message was unmistakeable.
The poor and the middle class, in particular the poor whites, are noticing that illegal immigration takes jobs away from semi-skilled workers, as well as health care.
In this regard, Obamacare was a public relations mistake. Ordinary folk simply don't understand it. All of the special categories suggest that some special interest groups are getting favored treatment.
If liberals REALLY believed in an end to racism, they would propose health care for all Americans.
But there are 800 million people across the world who suffer from chronic malnutrition according to UN estimates. The US cannot serve as a refuge for all of them. So we need to limit population growth by
1. Instituting a one-child policy like that of China,
2. Ending illegal immigration.
Liberals and conservatives at the NY Times are in denial.
Resources are limited.
5
When aren't liberals proposing health care for all Americans?
3
It is the height of white privilege for Ross Douthat, a white man, to accuse Colin Kaepernick of waging a bad culture war or of waging a protest with an obscured message.
First of all, Kaep was always clear about what he was protesting about: police brutality against black men, and racism and inequality in this country. We are talking about all of this now because he had the courage to take a knee.
Was he also supposed to hold a placard that described his proposed policy solutions at the same time? Or, propose new legislation on criminal justice reform? This makes no sense.
He used the platform he had as an NFL player to raise awareness about these issues, which he has done. There is no time for a "gradual" response on the issue of police brutality. Maybe Mr. Douthat doesn't feel the urgency, but I can assure you, as the mother of an African-American boy, I most certainly do, and I am so grateful of Kaep's courage in raising this issue just as he did.
23
Thank you! (from a white woman and mother)
6
Thank you! (from another white woman and mother, grandmother and great-grandmother)
5
I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag, and to the Republic For Which it Stands, and for Liberty and Justice, FOR ALL.
Does Donald Trump do the same?
Does he understand the words? Does he understand the concept?
He took an Oath. He violates it almost continuously.
Do Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell understand their own oaths of office? Wil they do something about Trump?
Will We the People make them do something?
That is the question.
10
Your proposed solutions- accountability, better police-community relations, de-incarcerations- require good governance. They have nothing to do with conducting a 'better' culture war. Maybe you should just acknowledge that 'culture wars' are phony, divisive, and unproductive?
6
"a better culture war"? "victory and defeat"? What does this mean? What we need is a better educated, open-minded society that doesn't buy into the hateful schoolyard antics of a malicious, out-of-control narcissist.
20
The Culture Wars go beyond these protests when the public figures on tv idolized by many are a family whose mother named Kris sold a sex tape of her daughter Kim for publicity and the rest is history. When the most normal member of the family is the Transgender father named Caitlyn who was smart enough to know that he had to get away from them.
2
The real problem(s) is/are USA citizens. Particularly white. Poor , poor , downtrodden discriminated against white. Blah. Trump is merely their mouthpiece. The millions of sniveling racist wretched whining white folk, having to compete with others now, instead of stealing their labor, etc. etc . are the real problem.
4
Dear Mr. Douthat,
You sound a little one sided......
Those pushing American culture wars to be "stupider and emptier" are not limited to just Trump, cable news, reality TV, Campus protesters and late night political "comedy".
You somehow forgot to include AM Talk Radio, the Catholic Church, Evangelical Super Diamond Encrusted Churches, Biblical Theme Parks, county clerks of the Kentucky Cabinet of Health & Family Services, former Republican Party Presidential contenders, Republican controlled state governments, the Koch brothers, and artists who bake cakes.
A culture war can't be so one-sided............
9
I don't like football, but now I really appreciate the football players who are demonstrating their beliefs on the field!
Keep it up, guys! You've earned our support, and we're with you!
12
Trump was sent off to a military boarding school when he was just a kid. He's been crying for attention ever since. That's what all this is about, a thirteen year old boy screaming "Look at me! Look at me!"
We do not need a thirteen year old boy for president.
10
Kaepernick’s choice of protest has not elicited the substantive debate that you submit it ought to. Perhaps it was not designed to.
4
It was designed to encourage a debate and discussion about racial relations. However, the right doesn't want that kind of talking about the reality of racism. So we get Trump and others on the right doing their best to hide what the real issue is by saying it is unpatriotic.
1
Looks like the undemanding American voter will make 2018 a referendum on the personal etiquette of sports stars.
2
Trump has a problem with black athletes expressing themselves peacefully about the very real prejudice and inequal treatment that exists against blacks in our country, but he is comfortable with the KKK and Nazis spreading their hate? Trump is a bigot and that is why he is deliberately muddying the protest and portraying it as disrespecting the flag, which it is not about at all.
19
It's devastating that criminal justice and law enforcement policy reform always takes a back seat to almost anything. There are flesh and blood people inhumanely incarcerated under horrible sentencing policies in a system with a 78% recidivism rate.
Solid physical and social science data over decades, suggests better pathways. Mostly, we need to use common sense.
Our cultural preoccupation with harshly punishing and stigmatizing criminals serves nobody. After rubbing a man's face in the ground over a 20 year sentence, don't be surprised when they can't function well upon release.
The basis is systematic, generational, poverty and our failure to educate intelligent and big hearted kids, who are born to parents and a community, who like them, weren't equipped for mainstream society. As a prison volunteer I meet brilliant men who cannot read or even express themselves well. They appear morose and belligerent because they are shy, overwhelmed and despairing. Unable to explain or defend themselves, to express remorse, they get harsh sentences and upon release face a life of menial labor.
Unless people like this, they need to make criminal justice reform an urgent priority.
9
Absent the tribalism, we would have culture conversations. Wars are rarely necessary, rarely add value.
2
Ross - It's crucial for you to understand a few things. First, Donald Trump despite his many limitations and failings is a terrific culture warrior. Just because he doesn't fight in the way you are accustomed to does not diminish his tactical prowess. Second, Trump is a builder, but sometimes you must clear a site because you can build on it. When you correctly depict his divisiveness and emptiness, you are confusing the destructive move with what the project will look like when completed.
Third, you aren't the only one, but you are a case in point, of how Trump appropriates the media. Stephen Curry refused to go to the White House to meet Trump and the Warriors were on board. So Trump changes the image from George Wallace standing at the doorway, refusing to let the black kids in, to flag, military, and patriotism. Nice move, Donald. You've got to give credit where it's due.
3
Well said, Ross. Hopefully we can rise above this President's penchant for lies and shallow and hateful attacks.
6
Ross does not seem to understand that the issues of culture are existential to many people. The rise of populism in many countries is due to the denigration of local culture by the Global elite. It is the same here. The battle over culture is taking place in many other countries and shows itself in the rise of populism. The strong political showing by the AfD in the recent German elections is due chiefly to Angela Merkal's policies which many saw as threatening their culture. The conduct of NFL players is seen by many as a threat to American culture by spoiled rich athletes who should have found a less contentious way to express their grievances. Right now their grievances are lost in all the noise.
5
I think Ross is a culture warrior himself. I'm not sure why you read the article this way. He made these distinctions:
1. Usually culture warriors actually believe and care about the cultural concerns; Trump obviously does not care but rather uses the issues to drum up heat.
2. Culture wars that just inflame division with no practical policy debate have all the downsides and no hope of upside.
Your other points about politics is consistent with the article.
The only thing that's empty, Douthat, is "conservatives" like you whose political views paved the way for the "cultural" attitudes that now threaten us all. It's way late to distance yourself from Trump by pointing to his extremism. Conservative policies seem always to be just a short hop, skip, jump away from going over a cliff.
8
I think some people just live to hype up Cultural Differences
They like being on the forefront of Culture Wars.
7
This is likely one of more lucid, intelligent columns that Mr. Douthart has written.
But, may I suggest it is always a losing formula when any president initates a culture war.
A prime example is Richard Nixon, who repeatedly demonized the political left by portraying himself as a person who simply wanted to restore law and order to a nation tearing itself apart.
But, this tactic backfired when it was made clear to the general public that Nixon was a serial liar, a person who harbored bigotry and hatred, as well as a person who played fast and loose with the law of our land.
So, unless we elect a president with no demons in the closet or motes un their eyes, starting a culture war is always counterproductive and always has unintended negative consequences for our nation.
4
N.SMITH:Of course Trump was venting. 1 aspect of kneeling controversy is that AT&T and its Direct TV subscribers r beginning, piecemeal, to cancel their subscriptions, translating into financial losses for NFL owners and players, who touch a percentage of the revenue.If NFL is about providing entertainment and making huge profits, overblown controversy is a debate that benefits no one in the end. Owner of a plumbing company called into local radio show to say that he did not want any employee commenting on politics on the job.Players are employees, and well paid, overpaid compared to their counterparts in say, west African countries where average salary in Ghana for member of Royal Oaks national team is equivalent of $700 monthly, and if they r injured, it is up to them to shoulder medical costs.Same in Guinea Conakry where I was a teacher trainer,prepping adults in language of Rabelais so they could qualify as "enseignants "at elementary level,and among my students were ex pro footballers , retired but w/o a pension.Current quarrel over standing for national anthem will pass. Trump is blunt, plain spoken, used to dealing with Teamsters officials many of whom did not go beyond grammar school and were dangerous folks to boot. He has no use for verbal niceties!Like the owner of that chain of burger joints who told 1 customer who complained, "I don't want you in here no more,"Trump is trenchant!
2
I think you have a point...Trump should be running a burger joint! He is in no way qualified emotionally or intellectually or educationally to lead their nation.
5
Trump is 72 years old.
@Benjamin Katzen: Several conclusions about fellow commenters. First, majority r white, middle class with bank accounts living in self segregated neighborhoods giving only lip service to diversity.Their liberalism is for show, and most r in education. They also write mainly in soundbites, and impossible to engage them in constructive debate, because they don't know that much about any particular subject.Most don't know any foreign languages so if I write "Faites pas rigoler" they r stumped!To say Trump belongs managing a burger joint is typical of a , no disrespect intended, of a cheap crack, nothing to build on.If Alexander Harrison asked you who John Chamberlain, Westbrook Pegler or George Sokolsky, some of our top writers and journalists of generations past,were, would you know whom I was talking about?
As a country, we have a lot to talk about with regard to race and crime. It would inevitably be a long and painful conversation for almost everyone with many tears and regrets, resentment and outrage. I had hoped Obama would lead that conversation but he declined - understandably in hindsight. Early in his presidency Republican malice had poisoned the atmosphere and demonized him to such an extent that any constructive discussion of race was impossible. After Trump, it will take years to get back to a place were that discussion is possible again.
9
@ Purple patriot Denver - Nobody at the NYT talks about "race". Nobody at the NYT writes about "race". They do write about racism.
So this URL will lead you to my comment that states it is time to talk about the American concept of "race".
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/opinion/trumps-empty-culture-wars.html...
1
If we're not going to play Trump's game, we shouldn't play Kaepernick's game either. Both are peddling simplistic adolescent hogwash. This culture war is a lose-lose proposition in large part because the parameters of debate are set on both sides by dumb loudmouths and self-interested careerists. Where are the adults, honest, honorable, and civic-minded, with the talent and courage to lead selflessly? Where are the leaders with the guts to tell our people the unpalatable truth: your problems are largely your own fault, not someone else's.
Where are the adults?That is the question.The chronologically adult think their children are their friends, everything needs to be fun, they can afford things as long as they can make the payments and that age is just a number. Sadly, there are few real adults around, creating the void for the mental pygmies at the extremes to dictate the parameters for this debate.
1
That is not always true that your problems are caused by you only. In fact it is quite false. So slavery was black people's fault? Jim crow was their fault. Institutional racism is their fault. Police shooting unarmed black men is their fault. Being imprisoned for the same crimes that white people commit and get away is their fault. Schools underfunded by 2/3s is their fault.
The list is quite lengthy that there are situations beyond the control of the individual that are not that fault.
2
That was the best column Mr. Douthat has written or, at least, that I have read by him.
1
Douthat,
As a casual reader of your OP-EDs I can't say that this is your best one, but it surely must rank up there. Your rightly point out that any principled action for the sake of culture or I would say social justice, should have some policy implications a secondary or primary motive. It goes without saying that our own U.S. Dear Leader is devoid of any intellectual thought on matters of culture, but what the left and right must remember is the idea that while we attempt to bring attention to an important issues, we should also have some suggested strategy to remedy entrenched and emotionally twisted challenges.
3
Just a few weeks ago he was claiming that some unidentified "they" wanted to tear down statues of George Washington. He just makes stuff up. I wish his red meat only gratified his base, but it seems to make the media happy too -- or at least energized.
11
A lot of this dilemma and controversy could be diminished if Tweeter will block the most insulting bigot user. Always they have an answer. My answer simply was delete my account and stop the president the opportunity to insult me.
3
The - dare I say - 'president' is not a culture warrior. Unless, that is, there can be a culture of one. He is a tribalist, and his tribe is is family. He is a blathering demagogue. But he is nothing remotely like a culture warrier.
11
I've lived in the USA for over 30 years now, and I've never seen this country more divided. Divided to an extent that I'm not that sure we can heal.
Blacks should not protest the inequities in this nation? Really? But it's OK for the KKK to carry torches and march in the streets?
I'm not so sure I would have become an American had I foreseen this sad state of affairs.
22
I also have started to question my choice.
2
I just do not get how or why your pseudo intellectual sophistic dribbling is allowed to be on the pages of an organ of public discourse whose aim is to further the understanding and implementation in policy the values of upon which this Nation rests. You know things like Liberty and Justice for All.
Culture or traditions only become a problem when some people try to make their culture or traditions superior to others and force others to live by their strictures. You know, things like Nazis, or fascism, totalitarianism, oligarchy and regrettably Business and present manifestations of Republicanism are about.
We are no t involved in a cultural war. We are still involved in the same war we have been involved in for the past 3000 plus year. the war to establish systems that are Good for All, Just, for All and Free for All.
The opponents are the same people in different clothes who wish to be our Rulers, our Kings our Oligarchs our Owners like the Owners of the players in the sports teams.
They have bee losing from the beginning. That's why we are still here, and they will continue to lose until their prehistoric concepts sink into the oblivion of time's tar Pit, an occurrence that is not far in the future..
11
Just Donald Quixote, another politician (though trying to pretend he isnt) with an (R) after his name. Trump The Culture Warrior (hmmm, how many bone spur-deferments kept him out of the military during Vietnam???) tweets compulsively about the NFL and Stephan Currie AND YET the American citizens in Puerto Rico, with no fresh water or medical care for now going on a week ...
This president is an adolescent moron.
13
You're missing a very important thing. Not even talking about stupidity of Kaepernick's illogical protest, there's a case of a person unfairly using his access to a millions people audience that didn't intend to watch his political display but are forced to watch. He usurps the audience although he has NO RIGHT to do so. And that's why all political displays in sport ARE forbidden.
3
Nobody is forced to watch anything, so you can stop playing the victim. If you dont like the NFL then dont watch. The players sacrifice their bodies to the violence of the game, but dare they speak about anything that matters to them you are offended. So much weakness being displayed by supposedly scrappy sports-fan types.
4
Hard to see how earning millions of dollars constitutes a sacrifice.
@Andrew,
People don't want to watch Kaepernick's kneeling, not that they don't want to watch the game. He can speak all he wants, kneel, do a TV interview, go to any media - but during a sporting event he is a PLAYER, and political displays in sports ARE forbidden.
I have a question: Why do we play the national anthem at sporting events? What do thousands of screaming, abusive, unsportsman like fans who are also often overly alcholed, have to do with patriotism? All they want is to see the worst possible outcome for the opposing team. And, the teams aren't playing for our country; they're playing for their personal pride and financial reward. What does winning a game have to do with country. My suggestion....stop playing the anthem...and give the President one less thing to distract him from more important matters.
20
The US military pays the NFL to put on a display of patriotism and love of the military in order to indoctrinate young fans into joining up to fight their wars. That's what it's really all about.
3
Ask yourself: What would Archie Bunker do in this situation? Then you will understand how the president thinks and what he means by making America great again.
6
This entity in the white house should have the passion for rescuing our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands instead of attacking NFL players exercising their First Amendment rights.
6
Politics is an infinite game. As long as people play it as though it were a finite game - as long as people think politics is a game "to be won" - we will forever be locked in a culture "war". Maybe we should try a "culture discussion" instead of a war - but, of course, that would require Americans to be able to have a discussion, which they obviously cannot.
4
Seems like most culture wars are nothing more than politicians using a popular sentiment to win elections by affinity fraud.
9
After WW2 The United States saw it fit to begin a constructive era or generosity and benevolence.
What happened?
Same fellers, fat cats straight outta Teapot Dome and other greed fests who marginalized our creativity and consciousness for adjustments in capitalistic democracy sacrificed time and again, and now, our benevolence and generosity in favor of beating down migrant workers hired on the cheap, fully disposable workers and treaties, vilifying democratic forums such as The United Nations because they don't pay dues to the boss.
Empiricist begets denials of democracy. And if there is a culture war on, it starts at the top. Those industrialists who bought and pay for the aggressive decisions vs. generosity and benevolence.
Right now it is obvious: Saudi Arabia supports Blackstone and Blackwater, vouchers same as Yeltsin's will create a starvation of what it takes to be the kinder gentler people the Bush family professed.
11
"..attitudinizing, tribalism and worst-case fearmongering float around unmoored from any specific legal question, in which mutual misunderstanding reigns and a thousand grievances are stirred up without a single issue being clarified or potentially resolved."
Point out one "culture war" where this hasn't been the literal Republican playbook.
15
Remember "Lemon Laws"?
Eventually, enough GOP lawmakers will worry about re-election because they are too identified with the current president.
Let the result be the passage of an "Orange Law", whereby should more than a thousand serious defects be reported in an eight month period, the product can be returned without further question.
1
On the contrary, what Trump just did was to take a culture war issue and turn it into a constitutional debate, and that is simply a debate Trump and his supporters can't win. In fact Trump's call for the firing of citizens for exercising their constitutionally protected right of free speech is a clear violation of his sworn oath to protect and defend the constitution.
The very fact that Trump supporters among the billionaire NFL owners felt compelled to refute the president's statement suggests that Trump just crossed an invisible but very real barrier that unites all those US citizens across the political spectrum who have a grasp of the nation's founding principles.
Trump has now made it clear that he either does not understand or does not care about those principles. In the past he has only suggested that attitude, now while serving as president, he has acted upon it.
Trump still has his base but it is shrinking further to those who share his impatience with or ignorance of constitutional niceties. He will not politically survive his first term while violating his oath of office, supported only by neo-nazis, neo-confederates, and know-nothings, but that is where he is now headed.
4
I wasn't aware that Trump was calling for firing public employees since those are the only employees who even arguably have a constitutionally protected right of free speech in a dispute with an employer. It is ironic that you think Trump doesn't understand or care about the principles when you don't have any idea what the First Amendment protects and what it doesn't.
3
While it dilutes the anti racist message at the heart of a #takeaknee, what Trump and his minions have done by NOT upholding and defending the US Constitution is force people to fight for the issue of free speech. However, to claw it back, we must stand up and say we are not just fighting for free speech in general but very specifically Americans of all races are fighting for the rights of people of color to peacefully demonstrate in a variety of ways, including but not limited to choosing to NOT stand up for the American flag or the Anthem. That fighting for the rights of others to be heard is a cornerstone of our democratic principles. This is not a chance for all White folks to go down on one knee too ("Oh, Look At Me!") but all citizens, regardless of race, must defend the rights of these NFL players and other activists demonstrating in other ways, to say what must be said and be heard. I appreciate photos where White players stand next to their teammates of color and silently bear witness to them exercising their Constitutionally protected rights to free speech.
1
Yo udo realize, don't you Bud, that the First Amendment is a constraint upon government action, not private employers? You don't have a First Amendment right to engage in certain speech while working if your employer prohibits it. In the present case, I believe the NFL has banned players from doing certain things during games that could be classed as speech. In this case they may have taken a different tack but that doesn't change the issue.
3
The columnist draws yet another false equivalence that ends up minimizing minorities. Douthat compares the utterly reasonable request for "great accountability for cops," convictions for "trigger-happy cops, and "less adversarial relationships" between police and communities to "the apparent retreat of the police in cities like Baltimore and Chicago"--a retreat fueled by police officer's refusal to do their jobs because they don't like the things being said about them.
Douthat makes an excellent point about some culture wars being worth fighting and others being a waste of time and energy. But he does his argument no favors by painting as equals a concern well worth our time and efforts and a tantrum by officers unwilling or unable to recognize the problems in their own profession.
7
I do not believe that the various protests starting with Ferguson were really about crime and policing. In my view, those were meta issues. The real issue was the continuation of racial preferences, which has been (along with affirmative action for women) the glue of the Democratic Party for decades, even as these policies have never been popular. What the Left is clearly trying to do is create a sense that blacks (and Hispanics and women) are besieged, both to turn them out for elections, but also to justify preferential treatment. In this sense black lives matter or campus rape (before that Sandra Fluke) are just excuses to hold the coalition together. This is doubly true now, because of the affirmative action case coming to the Supreme Court, plus the potential for Scotus replacements. Douthat should be smart enough to see that.
4
Wow, are you really in that much of a bubble? UNARMED BLACK MEN WERE BEING SHOT, that's why Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter movement happened. Do you really think the protests were orchestrated by liberal elites to consolidate a coalition? Dude, stop watching Fox and go outside, see what's really happening on the streets of America. Yes, even Brooklyn!
5
Nonsense. Read the justice department report on Ferguson.
Emails between the City Manager, the Chief of Police, and the local Judge, show clearly that they were targeting minorities for bogus tickets (like loitering in front of their own homes) to raise revenue for the city.
They set up a system where they deliberately targeted poor minorities, who couldn't afford to pay the tickets, then put them in jail and told them to find a family member to pay the tickets for them. Meanwhile they were adding on fees for jail time.
These people should have been arrested for racketeering and kidnapping. The Obama Justice department let them off lightly. Then Sessions came in and ended the consent decrees all together.
In Chicago a previous mayor (a Democrat, by the way) had a secret facility where people were tortured without any due process.
The system is racist from the top down, because the global billionaire class drives as many wedges between workers as possible, so that we never get together and attack the real thieves, the few thousand people who have managed to steal, literally, half of the world's wealth. Half of the real estate. Half of the machinery and other capital. And they own all of the mass news outlets.
These people steal money billions at a time, by paying politicians to give them fat, no bid, cost plus government contracts (instead of paying union salaries) and then they get dumb suckers to blame it on the poor, who have no money and little political power.
Wake Up!
7
So Trump is just a feature of a great Democratic conspiracy? That's a bizarre but imaginative construct. You seem eager for affirmative action to end. A lot of Democrats would probably agree, but Democrats would also like all Americans to have a fair chance to thrive and to not get shot by the police.
1
I wonder if those NFL owners who donated to Trump will rethink their donations after they lose millions from a drop in attendance. Poor investment there fellas.
1
If they lose attendance it would be because of a reaction by the public to League actions, not those of the president.
2
All you Republicans want the government out of your lives. Then the president demands that they fire players, without even thinking about actually passing legislation, and you throw your anti-government stance in the garbage, and tell them they should do what the president tells them to do.
ROFL.
4
Protest, by its very nature, is at least disruptive and to be effective, often inflammatory. Kaepernick obscured nothing. He cast a light on some of the darkness by using a venue that he uniquely could access. He used a voice that most don't have. His message was clear. Trump and others' reactions are deliberate obfuscation to evade that message, and your commentary is useless adornment of that obfuscation.
5
Trump was 'hired' to do this. His role is that of the 'great divider'.
He was heavily supported, endorsed and provided this presidential platform by the 1%. There are no mistakes here. Get it?
We, the general public just chew on the bones thrown to us daily, as meanwhile our treasury is being pillaged and our Constitution shredded.
10
It is the obsolescence of our culture that has led to this culture war.Deeply embedded in our culture is the simplistic belief that if we want something badly enough and don't give up, we will get it.Given our increasingly embedded class system, more and more Americans are realizing that we no longer have a level playing field and that achieving one's dream depends on a good education, knowledge based skills and geographic mobility.In addition, in a global economy it is no longer the US alone that will determine the result of this war.Time to focus less on sports, entertainment and fun.No, your children are not your friends, age isn't just a number and borrowing 150k to study a Mickey Mouse subject at a third rate "university" is not the secret to success.
6
"no longer"?
When has the playing field in this country ever been level?
2
Ok so Trump should have a few mayors and their police chiefs, from some of the affected cities along with Colin over for a sit down. Have this meaningful exchange in Charlottesville, VA. Trade views, start that all important dialogue heck have Trump appt. a Presidential Blue Ribbon Panel appointing some one with some chops as the head guy/gal (remembering of course that Robert Mueller is currently not available). Make a joint statement, try to do something productive. This ain't rocket science, it's behavioral/social science...and really harder than rocket science.
1
Having observed the varying levels of racial protests' intensity over more than six decades, it is novel that racial protests being conducted by NFL players, coaches, and owners, have created a uniformity of purpose and display among African-American athletes and their Caucasian teammates to protest Trump's subtle but clear racial insinuations about black athletes place in society.
I cannot remember a time going back to Harry Edwards' raised-fist protests when African American athletes, probably the best compensated demographic among African Americans generally, were uniform in their protests and starkly public about it. Frankly, I have been waiting for this day when athletes stood together in opposition exercising rights as citizens to protest (whether admitted publicly or not) is a level of vile racism among public servants, many private citizens, and even some businesses. (One does marvel at the concept that a business would reject a customer's money and business for racial or religious reasons, asking whether that baker who would turn away the Nazis who incited racial violence and murder in Charlottesville a few weeks ago the same way he does for LBGT citizens.)
The sweep of history may well note Colin Kaepernick's leadership, rather than his out of work status, for lifting the consciousness of African American and white athletes, coaches and owners far above any place it been lofted before and making them a team against injustice.
5
Trump has only one task; Stay Out of Prison.
The rest is noisy distraction.
4
I think what you're saying is that Donald Trump is a race-baiter, someone who dog whistles to racists in order to maintain their support. It's how he won the election, by promising returns to racists and sexists. And guess what--it works! Appealing to the base instincts of our most undereducated citizens is an effective strategy.
If you're devoid of any morality and only interested in furthering your own personal interests, that is.
6
You go to culture war with the issue you have, not the issue you want.
1
Spot on.
I feel like this is a little obvious, but I'm going to say it anyway. Notice to all culture warriors: if you're going to raise an issue in the public square, it is an excellent strategy to wave the American flag and be respectful towards it. If you want to be heard in a diverse nation, you need to show the national "tribe" some sign that you belong and are committed to the task of a more perfect union. Humans are still primitive this way. You could be speaking truth with the greatest eloquence, but if you look like an adversary to the nation, the citizens aren't likely to listen to a word you're saying.
4
Sadly, in recent generations, culture wars have been waged with little intention to move society and the law in one direction or another. There have been some gains (gay marriage comes to mind) but most of these issues are brought up repeatedly to keep the country divided, ensuring that entrenched politicians stay that way and new ones can easily count on winning large chunks of the vote based on their chosen side in one culture war or another. If you think about a typical day for a member of Congress, how much time do you think they spend thinking about Abortion or Evolution or Flag Burning. My guess would be that most days they don't deal with these issues at all, and when they do come up, they get far less attention than legislation crafted to benefit large donors, corporations or special interests. Yet, members of Congress are guaranteed the support of large chunks of the population based largely on these issues. We need to wake up and realize that the culture wars are a smokescreen intended to line up the public's support and distract us while Washington does its real work of serving the wealthy and well-connected.
5
Trump has two goals in this and all of his other "wars." Someone to fight with, no matter how big or small the fight may be, and to get people to talk about him so that he can see himself on TV. He doesn't care about the flag or inequality or patriotism. Or anything except money and power.
3
Trump's success is based on his understanding of resentment because he is so resentful himself. Culture is a thin veneer that covers our worst instincts and Trump has lived beneath that veneer. He is not conducting a culture war, he is conducting a war against culture. His outrageous comments work to rip culture apart and have people act on their ids' demands. He seeks to destroy all institutions and norms of behavior. As his supporters' comment, "he speaks for us", the "us" they were too culturally restrained to express. Until now.
10
Resentment is a path to unhappiness. Appreciation is a far happier emotion. Too bad so much of that is ritual idolatry in the US.
"until Ferguson, Mo., and Black Lives Matter and the other controversies of the late Obama years, followed by the rise of Trump, sent racial optimism into a tailspin."
I would argue that racial optimism reached its height when Obama was elected, and it was the backlash to that--arguably the rise of the Tea Party, and certainly the birtherism movement spurred and stoked by Trump himself--that sent racial optimism tail-spinning.
16
Only in white communities! Black communities were fraught with real concerns that Obama would be killed--a story and narrative never covered in the media, but a part of the conversation in every black church, congregation, discussions with groups of friends, at dinner gatherings, and firmly prayed against and shared in the oral tradition. In fact, some blacks did not vote for Obama because they feared for his life! They felt their vote would put his blood on their hands.
Too often white communities believe their moments of self-praise are received the same way by others, and their moments of condemnation define patriotism--but they do not. Certainly, not as long as white men appear on television to remind blacks to be "grateful."
Obama won because of the economic mess, in times of confusion, blacks progress. But many blacks knew a backlash would come as he left office. In comments, I noted the dumbest, most ignorant, unprepared, unqualified white male would follow Obama. To make the point the worst white male was still the equal to the best black talent in the nation. The election, by default, tarnished Obama's legacy--at the expense of the office of the Presidency. Blacks in the halls of power are routinely erased!
4
What I'd like to know is why politicians and the media continue to play Trump's sorry game. If he's desperate enough to pick a fight with the NFL to deflect attention from his obvious failures, why should we follow and dance to his tune? One would think that after nine months intelligent people would be on to his scams and simply IGNORE him. Yet, as present "controversy" reveals, Trump is still leading people around by the nose--and they seem happy to follow.
7
Yet the media, including here at the NYT, breathlessly reports each and every Trump tweet. There is part of the problem as well.
3
The way this sounds to me: ignore the POTUS, which means not acting as a check and balance on the most important role in government, because to do so would be to let Trump WIN, which we must prevent at all cost. Hmm...
1
Trump is better at manipulating the media than any other politician I have ever seen. Instead of talking about:
GOP failure to keep promise on healthcare.
GOP failure to simplify the tax code.
Extreme challenges in fixing Puerto Rico
People are fired up about this instead. Brilliant.
1
Trump's inane attack on NFL players taking a knee, )the few that there were and that certainly no longer included Kaepernick,) had nothing to do with conflicting cultural ideals. Trump's need was to distract from his repeal a replace impotence, his backing a Senate loser, the reality that collusion or not Russia did help his campaign, and his isolation from mainstream Republican "elites". He was on friendly turf (sorry Crimson Tide, but your "culture" just elected a lawless bigot as a Senate candidate) and gambled that his lightly veiled racist rant draped in the flag would get some good old rebel whoops. Trump has mastered the appeal to the basest emotions among us, and those holding those emotions are not limited to the south. They can be found in affluent suburbs and rusting mill towns across America.
Trump is not a culture warrior. His sociopathic lack of empathy and stoking of vile emotions is a symptom of the cancer of selfishness which infects most of not all of us. He is our creation. We are the warriors and he is our ammunition.
7
Good opinion piece. I would just say that, to me, if someone is engaging in a war about clear moral questions, such as racism, bigotry, sexual identity freedom, misogyny, truth vs. fiction, climate change denial, growing income inequality, animal extermination or abuse for profit, and unfair representation in state and federal governments, and that person is on the wrong side of these issues, then they are not engaging in a justifiable war.
Some may say that deciding what side you are on IS the war, but I disagree strongly; the right sides on those issues listed above are as clear as a sunny day to me and there is nothing that would ever convince me of the legitimacy of the opposite view with the possible exception of truth vs. fiction since we all know how our perceptions of truth can change with more information. So to me, while it may be a war, it is not one filled with ambiguities.
3
Sometimes when there is a clearly right side of an issue (eliminating racism), the best way to get there IS debatable.
Other issues have lots of complexities-how do you reduce CO2 without destroying the economy?
How is growing income inequality immoral? It is wrong to steal from the productive members of society.
There is unfair representation in State and Federal governments- 47% of eligible voters don't pay any income taxes. That's not fair.
1
Joe Public: Re a debate on reducing CO2, that would require the other side to agree that global warming is occurring and that human-generated CO2 has a strong recent role, something that is rarely acknowledged in that culture war. I cannot agree with your premise that correcting growing income equality is stealing from the rich because numerous studies have shown that most increase in wealth go to the very richest people. Many of them are not "the most productive members of society". I also cannot agree with our premise that the right to vote depends on how much you earn such that you can pay income taxes. That is not how it is set up, and there are very good reasons why many people do not earn enough or qualify for enough deductions or exemptions so that they owe little. It is called poverty. And we know that the very wealthy and corporations all have numerous exemptions and loopholes that they paid to have added to the code, so you have conveniently ignored that.
1
Links to articles showing that the 10 states with the highest percentage of people who don't owe Federal income tax are Red states and showing that most of these people are elderly or unemployed - goes back to 2012 and a Mitt Romney statement, so some of the unemployed may be working now.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/where-are-the-47-of...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/09/18/who-doesnt-pay-ta...
1
Those that think their culture is under attack need to look at what has actually happened to small towns, small business, small farms, and colorful neighborhoods full of culture.
They have been replaced by strip malls full of box stores and fast food joints owned or franchised by global corporations.
The parking lot surround by the same ten or twenty stores that is almost exactly the same in any state in the union now have replaced local culture with bland repetitive monotony.
Yes that's what people bought. The lure of saving a few dollars, had small business people putting each other out of business, decimating their own downtowns in favour of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc. Now people that used to own their own quirky pieces of the national culture, work for minimum wage for global corporations.
Lobbying organizations used the rhetoric of small farms and small business, while they pushed for laws to benefit their biggest competitors, harshest suppliers, and stingiest lenders.
Most of the regulations small business people (who are generally not incorporated) scream about, were designed, not by liberals, bit global corporations to squeeze them out of business.
Your culture is being decimated because you have been tricked into supporting global corporations over your own interests.
11
The whole notion of "culture war" is an invention of the right wing Republicans Douthat generally roots for. For most of us, culture is and always has been a shared space in which disagreement is a fact of life. (That's they make both chocolate and vanilla. It's also why we need government, laws, and a legal system.) It is only the Tea Party/Trumpist types who see these disagreements as "war," a zero sum game in which there can be only one winner.
To them, a statement like "Black lives matter" is not an expression of "hard questions" to be pondered. It's a call to arms. In this war, any steps toward equality for Blacks (or gays, or non-Christians, or immigrants) is seen as a loss for "their side," and part of a war in which one side will eventually prevail and obliterate the other.
That's nonsense, of course. But putting it in these terms provides a convenient false equivalence for Douthat and his ilk that allow them to avoid having to defend the outrages propagated by Trump and Republicans in Congress. Sure, Douthat criticizes Trump for distracting people from real issues he has no idea how to address, but he's playing the same game.
4
Only in America. In other countries, Western European countries, they do not play and/or sing national anthems before sporting events. If Manchester United is playing Manchester City, no national anthem is played or sung. If Manchester United is playing Barcelona, there are no national anthems. This phony patriotism is unique to the USA. ( And I understand the if England plays Spain that they do play national anthems. )
6
That's what happens when a society glorifies its military. We didn't used to do that in this country before 9-11. Now it's the enforced national religion.
1
So if the black minority in this country wants any recognition of their problems and any hope of justice from the majority that previously enslaved them they must (A) Stand (not sit, kneel, march, walk or dance) (b) They must keep arms at their sides (no raising arms or fists, no holding signs, no putting hand to heart) (c) They must speak in measured monotone (no raising voice in emotion or even worse anger, no chanting, and strangely not even silence will do)(d)they must dress in nondescript clothing from socks to t shirts and avoid anything that whites might find unseemly. And finally (e) they must never mention their grievances when whites want to be entertained (Award shows, sports, parades).
8
Gee they didn't have any black slaves where my grandparents came from in Europe.
2
Our Canadian hearts swell with pride as Trump exhorts his country to respect the flag, the national anthem, the armed services, and those who fell defending freedom and free speech.
Where was Trump hiding during the Vietnam War? This arch-defender of the US who snarls at North Korea and the NFL with such dramatic flair.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
AG
Calgary, Canada
2
A reasonable column in all ways but one: if taking a knee during the national anthem causes offense more than advance a cause, then what type of protest would you suggest? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question: really, how should black people protest in a way that doesn't offend white people? The answer, of course, is that there is NO way for a black person to protest without offending white people, and it is frustrating to read someone who is obviously sympathetic to the cause nevertheless fall back on the old finger-wagging trope "I like WHAT he says, just not HOW he says it."
11
I'm an elderly white person who once attended a white only public school in NC. I am all for equal rights between the "races." I think by doing The Kneel is a beautiful thing. Whites do not have to fear that gesture. I know i am only one but i have found out in my long life that my thoughts and feelings not only pertain to me there are hundreds, thousands, millions even, who hold the same thoughts at the same time. Imagine that.
A pie for the US, let's make it an deep dish apple pie, is only beautiful and nourishing if everybody receives a fair portion. That means EVERYBODY. How do we determine fair? I think even atheists, agnostics, people of other religions would agree with this: "Love one another........" Without fairness in the long run we all lose.
5
Isn't the issue not that black people are protesting or offending whites or others by doing so, but by the propriety of using what is essentially an entertainment venue for which people have paid money to see (or advertise at). If I go to a game or show, for example, I am there to see that, not someone's exhibition of their political stance on matters of the day; remember you might feel different if the topic was something you didn't agree with, say players supporting Confederate monuments, for example, or taking time to declare preference for one candidate or another.
Interesting point - you're definitely right that I'm predisposed to be on board with the kneeling protest since I agree with the cause. On the other hand, I'm never at a place specifically to see a protest. That's what protest IS: in interruption of our daily routines, at places precisely like entertainment venues, to remind us that certain causes exist. If it's not somehow disruptive, then it's not not effective. Yes, of course I'd be annoyed by an NFL player kneeling during the anthem in support of Confederate monuments, but I'd also never even be aware that that was something people care passionately about unless I saw things exactly like that.
1
Trump and Culture is an oxymoron He has none and doesn't know the meaning of the word. Perhaps the tutor who got him through Ivy League schools should be in the Oval office. Five year old mentality does not belong there.
3
Who gets to decide the right "choice of protest"?
Maybe the perpetrators of various injustices or those who unsee what is happening--and thereby become practically aligned with them perpetrators--should come up with a list of acceptable mode and method of protest to respective violences and exclusions.
This supposes that conservatives are actually interested in resolving cultural disputes. They are not. They have made culture wars the centerpiece of their electoral strategy--and when in power a helpful distraction from their de-regulatory, upward-redistributive policy agenda--for decades. Cases in point abound. Having won the right to own assault rifles, they now insist on the right to carry them into public schools and taverns. Having enacted mandatory waiting periods and parental notification requirements for abortions, they moved on to mandatory ultrasounds and patient "counseling." Having outlawed admissions quotas, they turn to the phantom menace of "reverse discrimination." They are constantly in search of another scab to pick, another liberal sacred cow to slaughter, another crusade that will get their voters to the polls. It doesn't matter whether the issue is substantive or trivial, because conflict itself is the whole point.
6
Trump exploits the flag and the media lets him get away with it. The media has enabled and created these empty culture wars. Instead of encouraging discourse and conversation, we are deluged with articles about Trump's ranting tweets.
No one asks why the national anthem is played at sporting events in this country. Baseball, football, all of those activities are for-profit, non-military, non-governmental businesses. Promoting "false patriotism" by playing the anthem, during which so many folks are drinking their beer, discussing stats, arranging their space, etc.
Does no one remember Melania having to elbow her husband as he stood on a WH balcony to get him to put his hand over his heart when the anthem was played? I do and so do many others.
Stop playing the national anthem at sporting events and start getting people to speak to each other in civilized discourse instead.
3
"Second, can we continue the move toward de-incarceration — supported, not that long ago, by Republicans as well as Democrats — without reversing the gains that have made many of our cities safe?"
The answer to that for one American city is unquestionably, "No." Albuquerque, New Mexico was targeted by the federal government several years ago for its overcrowded county jail and excessive use of force by its police. In response, the city and Bernalillo County, and their respective judges, adopted policies to release "non-violent" offenders on their own recognizance prior to trial, and entered a DOJ consent decree program that have dramatically reduced police willingness to use force at all.
The result has been an explosive growth in the city's crime rate. Released burglars (a "non-violent" crime, after all) are re-arrested as many as three or four times before their scheduled trial dates. Albuquerque is now America's #1 city for auto theft, and hardly a month passes without a news story about someone's DWI arrest being their 8th, 9th, 12th or 16th arrest for the same offense.
Without incarcerating the multiple-repeat offenders who are responsible for half the city's crime wave, Albuquerque is removing itself from contention for outside investment, from discussions about desirable places to live, and from development of the sense of civic pride that drives local accomplishment.
This is one culture war that only the criminals are winning.
2
Interesting ideas but I would like to see some sources to back up the basic facts (rising crime rate, exactly win and in what categories) and some analysis to support the cause and effect conclusions.
Another way to frame this is to ask those who highly profit from our current legal, political and prison system and those with jobs in law enforcement. They want to keep things the way the are. It's lucrative.
Also, keeping us divided is an old feudal tactic that works very effectively to keep us at each other's throats, rather than looking up at our invisible masters who are robbing us all. They love it when we quarrel and fight among each other. Domestic warmongering in all of its manifestations and propaganda is not accidental my friend.
2
Trump tried to enlist NFL owners in his attempt at stoking a culture war to divert attention from Hurricane Maria destroying Puerto Rico and Robert Mueller's investigation. NFL owners - some of the canniest businessmen in America - could see what he was up to and did not take the bait, because it could have hurt their business. And now most of the NFL hold him in contempt.
Trump's divisiveness will someday, sooner rather than later now, reach a tipping point. A vast majority of the entire country will turn against him. Maybe then the gutless, money-driven GOP will initiate impeachment proceedings.
1
Actually the blowback from the White House is on point. If one cares to look at the facts, they'll find that this prevailing notion of a systemic, inherent national bias towards people of color holds little water. The protests, therefore, are on equally poor footing. As a nation we need to accept the facts and focus on more pressing issues.
1
Excellent article
Does there have to be winners and losers in a culture war? As the French say, "vivre et laisser vivre," live and let live.
Cops protect law abiding citizens and de-incarceration of predators turns law abiding citizens into prey/victims, as has been proven again and again. Most Americans know this.
2
Culture war? What is that exactly? What's going on looks more like lone wolf terrorists. Individuals at various levels of power setting off culture bombs and sitting back and watching the mayhem that follows. Hoping to influence society in one direction or another. But with little success at anything other than creating division.
2
So the guy whose bone spur kept him out of the military is the same guy criticizing athletes using the freedom that people in the military have died protecting - he's not very bright, doesn't have a moral compass, and is is stoking racial tensions to keep himself ahead of the dogs - he's running out of track.
Trump can’t stand anyone who won’t genuflect in front of him, tries to destroy anyone who doesn’t think he is the pinnacle of creation, and doesn’t have a bit of goodness inside of himself. I am so upset at the so called “moral majority”; people who have spent my whole life telling me that marriage and social norms are sacred (think about Trump), that the values our soldiers died for (freedom and democracy) weren't worth their dying if citizens can't speak their minds freely (Trump got out of the service, and makes a mockery of a true hero, John McCain). I’m upset that so many white people are racists, willing to condemn black athletes for taking a social stand. If you don’t want politics in sports, don’t play the national anthem, don’t have military jets fly over stadiums, and don’t have a color guard.
Can’t quite figure out why we haven’t proceeded at getting this guy out of office – he is not fit, the first requirement of his office, an office that above all has proven that being able to work for the public, citizens, each of us, should be its first order of business.
3
one reason trump's theatrics work is because he can take advantage of the most uninformed/clueless electorate of any western democracy.
1
I think that it's obvious that Trump has created faux outrage as a smokescreen for his own poor performance ("Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain - watch THIS!") In doing so, he has managed, once again, to divide the country. Yet another promise broken: "We will all come together as never before." Or maybe not; we are coming together as never before - in clashes across the country.
Trump thinks it's "disrespectful" to make a stage a silent protest by kneeling when a song is played (and it is NOT illegal to do so). I think it's beyond disrespectful to accept abhorrent behavior on behalf of police officers who have taken it upon themselves to kill people of color on the streets of America, especially those who are unarmed and who represent no threat to police or others.
Further, I find it deeply ironic that a "president" who won't reveal his tax returns to prove that he pays his fair share finds ANYONE'S behavior "disrespectful".
3
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/yp89dj/stephen-a-smith-points-out-...
NFL players being out for the anthem is a relatively new phenomenon. End it. Don't even play the anthem before games. What does love of country (or lack there of) have to do with football anyway?
Play an add for the red cross or hurricane relief fund in its place. See how President Lynch Mob responds to that.
Trump and the Republican Party have absolutely zero moral authority, much less moral credibility, with their palpably fake Christianity, and the way they use the cross as both weapon and shield. Trump's and his party's values in the year 2017 are the antithesis of those learned from Christ's teachings.
1
Fine, let's have THE discussion. African-Americans have been asking since they first arrived on our shores - in chains and starving.
Somehow, i doubt there being anything productive coming from Trump or Sessions and their administration. Why, both men have just stood on their metaphorical plantation porch and told 'them' in very specific terms when, how and why any 'protest' will be allowed to proceed. 'They' need to be more grateful!
Add in the police across America who as a group after Mr. Walter Scott was shot in the back at least 8 times while Running Away from an officer have stood shoulder to shoulder in a blue wall of silence and Sherrif David Clarke menace pose. The police Do Not Want To Have This Conversation. President Obama asked the DOJ to investigate and work for change but now that venue has been shut down too.
We, the hated and derided as Un-Americans, liberals or progressives or Democrats, or whatever name you call 'us' are ready for the debate. Trump is leading his side away from meaningful discussion to obstinate refusal to debate and doubling down on racist laws.
I do not see the possibility of debate, discussion or resolution and peace until Trump is gone. Trump destroys everything he touches.
2
There's a scene in the movie about the Tuskegee airmen that has stuck with me. The black commander is struggling to answer the question about how he feels about his country. This is a man who served his country honorably during WWII but understood that he was fighting against facism while living in a country where he wasn't allowed to vote and wasn't seen as equal because of the color of his skin.
Whether you agree with Colin Kaepernick's decision to kneel down during the national anthem or not he's not wrong about the fact that the American people still have a race problem when it comes to our treatment of the black community. We will never move forward if we don't have this conversation once and for all and actually do something to stop future generations from having to deal with this issue.
Black parents shouldn't have to have the talk with their kids about how not to get shot by a police officer. Statistics show that the black community is treated way worse by the legal system than any other race. Considering that the civil war ended in 1865 & the Civil Rights movement was in the 60's we should be past this already but we refuse to deal with it.
Black people have served in every single one of our wars. Kneeling during the national anthem to protest their continual slaughter at the hands of police officers is the very definition of patriotism.
4
Perhaps it's just me, but whenever I find myself standing up to Nazis, supporting equal rights, or opposing white supremacists it doesn't feel at all like "attitudinizing, tribalism and worst-case fearmongering".
3
So you're saying opposition to consequence-free police violence against black people is just a cultural issue?
As a society, we should be protesting the abuse heaped on our fellow citizens as soon as it happens. It shouldn't take an athlete's symbolic gesture to make people pay attention. And we certainly shouldn't be tutting when someone dares remind us that such injustice happens routinely in this country.
If you're more offended by someone tweaking a display of mindless, rote patriotism like a pressure point than you are by the obvious evidence of deadly racism, then you're part of the problem.
3
I don't think it started in Ferguson, Mo. I think the spark was in Sanford, F. when Trevon Martin was killed in cold blood by a vigilante (Zimmerman) even after the police directed him to leave the teenager alone. Instead Zimmerman continued to attack Trevon and kill him in so called self defense. The fact that Zimmerman got away with the cold blood murder of a young black man even when he went against the direction of a police officer sent the signal loud and clear..."you can easily get away with murdering a black person". After that I knew it would be followed by more killings of black American citizens. Their rights are not protected under law, it's obvious.
3
How about a little light being shone on why sporting events have the Anthem played. I feel quite sure that some of the people most passionate about the issue have no idea about why the Anthem is a fixture at sports events.
9
I am only guessing that sports team players are also really tired of having to listen to it each and every time they play. Bag it already.
1
It seems many observers like to call Trump a "master" of this or that. I think the clearer thought might be that unlike most of us, Trump is completely shameless.
All of his ideas, impulses and prejudices come to many of us, nothing he thinks or does is unique, brilliant or creative. His outlier status is because of his lack of humility and shame for his immoral actions.
LP
15
Trump's cannon-caliber mouth has once again blasted directly into his metatarsals. It's a wonder this man isn't in a wheelchair.
Kapaernik could have used some adult supervision in his sartorial choices while demonstrating, but his cause was and is worthy. Our illustrious president's utter lack of any sense of proportion served, again, as misdirection, his particular specialty.
9
It's obvious to all but Repugblicans that Trump [not-my-President] is following the Bannon's directive as well as Russia's: destroy America from within, but not before exposing its swampy underbelly to the world. And it is obvious to all except to Repugblicans that the USA worldwide's image is that of the sinister clown in the WH, or the senile Alabama "cowboy" rushing to defend a "God" that is anything but Christian, while waving a gun, a political party corrupt to its very core, and what Alabama and its secessionist neighbors are best known for: a permanent commitment to White Supremacy.
8
But Ross, the whole point of 'culture wars' is to motivate people to act: to protest, yell, vote, contribute, rage, email, forward, punch, burn, kill ...
You can motivate folks by telling them what they know or what they want to here, but it is much more effective to tell them what they don't know, what they find shocking or outrageous. There is a War on Christmas! Many of our cities are under Sharia law! There were 4 million illegal voters! Crime is the worst its ever been! I saw it on Fox and infowars!
Apparently you are unaware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community! Well, you got trouble my friends!
A big lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. (Propaganda 101.)
7
this is about a culture racist war taken up by the Republicans against an American President. Obama. Witness the occupant and his birthwrism.
You all know this. The rest is bloviating.
Like any addict Ross you have to admit the problem. Culture wars in the states are about race.
4
Americans LOVE lowest-denominator, trailer-trash culture. It is going to get worse - much worse. Our civics lessons are in the form of Reality TV.
9
And they HATE book learning, education and those who are educated.
Makes them feel inferior at best.
So yes, things are gonna get much worse, I totally agree.
3
Lamentable, isn't it, that Colin Kaepernick chose to express himself in an arena (pun intended) where he had some clout, allowing his message to be interpreted freely, if sometimes unpleasantly, by a huge audience -- when he could have issued a so-much-more-useful (by the terms of Douthat's argument) white paper via the Brookings Institute. Excuse my sarcasm, but it seems to me that the author is using his football field (the NYT) not to express passionately held views but to whine and patronize Kaepernick.
6
Nailed it!
1
Blacks make up about 13.6 percent of the U.S. population. The Washington Post database of fatal police shootings show blacks made up 24.2 percent of those fatally shot by police in 2016. However, the FBI Uniform Crime Report (Table 41: Race & Sex of Known Offenders) shows that 289 (53.2%) of the 543 persons who murdered police officers from 2006 through 2015 where white. (The FBI figures lumps Hispanics and non-Hispanics white together.) Table 41 also shows that 222 (40.9%) of those who murdered police officers during the same period were black. The statistic that shows 40.9 percent of those who murder police officers are black provides insight into why about 26 percent of those killed by police officers are black. Blacks make up a disproportionate number of police shooting victim because they engage in a disproportionate number of violent confrontation will police officers
Take up the White Man's burden,
And if you write in verse,
Flatter your Nation's vices
And strive to make them worse.
Then learn that if with pious words
You ornament each phrase,
In a world of canting hypocrites
This kind of business pays.
From "The Real White Man's Burden," Ernest Crosby, The New York Times, 15 February 1899.
4
Having so called "leaders" who seek to divide, infuriate, instigate violence and hate? His culture wars may be vapid, but the damage is very real. Heather Heyer is dead because of his "empty" culture war, and she will not be the last that the embolden Nazis and klansmen who support this scourge will attack.
3
It apparently needs to be pointed out to Mr. Douthat that pretty much, it has been the Right's outrage with Barack Hussein Obama that started this katest eruption of nuttinesses.
And, I'd add, Mr. Douthat might want to consider that when Schumpeter talked about capitalism's "creative destruction," he didn't mean, "except for your particular values and preferences."
4
Trump is like the crazy uncle at Thanksgiving who thinks that vaccines cause autism and college professors are all commies.
Sadly, unlike your uncle, he is President.
5
"Second, can we continue the move...."
You missed: Third, can we confront and address the ersatz-impolitic idea that the leading cause of death for Young Black Males [15-34] is homicide at the hands of another YBM?
https://www.cdc.gov/healthequity/lcod/men/2010/LCODBlackmales2010.pdf
1
Trump's supporters think the protesting football players are unpatriotic? At rallies Trump would literally grab the American flag and press it against his body, just as he used to grab women as he was assaulting them. During the campaign Trump, the draft dodger, famously denied that John McCain was a hero. Have you seen the video of the tortured McCain being interviewed while a POW? Trump expresses admiration for dictators while criticizing our allies. He believes that fine people can march next to the Nazi banner, which symbolizes something thousands of Americans died to defeat. This is how Trump's base understands patriotism. Let's be clear...this is the opposite of patriotism. No enemy is as big a threat to our nation than Trump's willful distortion of what it means to be a patriotic American.
7
Donald Trump could turn "I don't like anchovies and pineapple on pizza" into a screaming match about "patriotism."
And "patriotism" to Donald means adoration of his orange pathetic self.
3
and Direct-TV is refunding (hopefully partially) the zealots who object to the peaceful expression... absolutely disgusting... maybe the rest of us should just pull the plug on these cable providers
1
Trump takes a perverse joy in fabricating phony controversies that agitate both his base and his opponents. It also keeps everyone from focusing on his his corruption, deceit, and incompetence at governing.
5
I think we need to more carefully define the battle lines. Black slavery was not "abolished" in the United States because of men like Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell- and certainly the moral argument was not framed by men of this ilk. It could even be argued that Trump and many of his supporters- transplanted into Nazi Germany of the 1930s- would have adored their Fuhrer and the Holocaust he wrought. While all of the aforementioned is something of a mind experiment- but moral imagination would tend to reveal much of its truth.
And let's be clear- the ilk that run our government today, who stand against history, and politicize science, greatly increase the likelihood that the system of domination, racism and exploitation they love- will die a painful death. A death so painful, all may perish. America first indeed.
The social currents that Trump so blatantly and cynically tap into have always been there. And not unlike the battle we are now seeing on Health Care- they spring eternal- bringing their brand of hate and exploitation ever to the fore, generation upon generation.
So there is not alternative but to fight. The admonition to fight is indeed war-like. But self defense is arguably a universal human right. Every act of compassion is an act of defiance.
2
"In 2001, two-thirds of Americans (and more blacks than whites) described race relations as somewhat good or very good, and while the white view was usually slightly rosier thereafter, the two-thirds pattern held for more than a decade — until Ferguson, Mo., and Black Lives Matter and the other controversies of the late Obama years, followed by the rise of Trump, sent racial optimism into a tailspin."
Horse pucky! The night of Barack Obama's Inauguration a cabal of republican senators, congressmen, and operatives met in the basement of a DC steak house to plot the destruction of that presidency.
The republican leader of the senate, McConnell, on National TV said the priority of the republican party would be to insure Obama was a one term president.
This did not start with Ferguson or t rump; it started with Nixon and the southern strategy, continued with Reagan's speech in Philadelphia, Miss, was amplified by the Willie Horton ads, and finds its full bloom in t rump's rallies and White House that has welcomed the KKK, the American nazi party, and all those "nice people" who would keep an entire race of people down because of the color or their skin and that "that is the way it was always done here".
When republicans finally come to grips with their very outsized role in laying the groundwork for a racist autocrat like the so called president and their complicity in the cultural tension we can have the conversation Douthat seeks.
6
You're blaming Trump the victim- the victim being the product of victims.
It never ceases to be the case the ones who fire the first shot claim the other side did it first, or they deserved it anyway cause they are just downright evil and clearly cannot be convinced by anything other than violence. You really expected the 'good' Marxist-Socialist 'Brutal Rurals' Populist deviance paradigm denigrating half or more of the US citizens would not start a cultural war.
"peace becomes a possibility" - sorry the 'good' as usual are certain as they have 'God' on their side.
Either WWIII made inevitable by secondary free—riders such as Obama breaks out to intervene, or the civil war unleashed by the Marxist-Socialist Magic Pudding brigade with their clubs in the streets demanding who voted for who gathers pace.
"Those who are most effective in claiming the moral high ground have been able to rally their people, dehumanise the target and take what they want."
The Master Strategist, Ketan J. Patel, 2005
".. the character of society flows from the intellectual forms which predominate in it."
A Dictionary of Sociology, Oxford University Press, 2009
Ross once again demonstrates his acumen through the use of false equivalencies. Murder vs. national anthem? Oh yeah, that's equivalent.
6
Points well taken. Although we won't resolve our differences any time soon, there is zero benefit in trying to amplifying them so 'our' despicable ignoramus in the White House may harvest applause for creating further controversy about the meaning of freedom of expression...and the empty rhetoric when a shameless thug drapes himself with a flag. If anything radical is needed, the first move to benefit us all, is the ousting of dimwitted Trump, a vulgar bully lost in an office much beyond his ability to understand and manage. The White House ought not be his backyard nor a dump for his stinking swamp.
2
Let's clarify a couple of things. Trump demands respect for the flag and for the president but he is free to disrespect anyone or anything. The press, the judiciary, congress, you name it. He continually operates on a double standard: he demands respect while he gives none. And what about this sudden acting job as super patriot and great lover of the military? This from the draft dodger who would never have served in a million years. His great love of the flag while he still has need said a single word about Russian invasion of our election? This is fake patriotism based on fake love for country for the purpose of blowing one of his racist dog whistles, telling black athletes to shut up, bow and scrape, stay in their place or be punished. He never talks about punishing the nazis at Charlottesville does he? Trump is no patriot, he hates America and all its great institutions, sports and traditions. He panders back to the redneck from the 1960s with his pickup truck with the "love it or leave it" bumper sticker by pretending to be a super patriot. Please. Another con. Deflect attention away from his losses on healthcare and travel bans and walls and set Americans to fighting with one another over football. There is simply no low to which he won't go. When he starts showing some love or respect for American institutions like the Press or American football and pro athletes, then maybe he will deserve some respect in return. "Flagsploitation" indeed.
7
Isn't it clear yet that our president is suffering from either dementia or a serious mental disorder? How else to explain his rampant narcissism, his pathological lying, his fifth-grade vocabulary, his rambling speeches, his overwhelming hatred of President Obama, his obvious fondness for all things Russian, his ignorance of history and the Constitution, and his refusal to condemn white supremacists.
Can't we all agree that, for one reason or another, he is not playing with a full deck, ignore whatever he is spewing, and move on?
2
I suppose the ones who will decide who is the winner in this particular battle of the culture wars will be football fans. If they sympathize with the players, the players will have won. They will have made their point, although it will have been mere virtue signaling resulting in no substantial improvement in the situation of the inner cities. If the fans are offended, they will let their displeasure be known. And theirs’ is the very substantial threat to quit supporting professional football.
I don’t see how the players have much of anything to win. They do have much to lose. I like free speech as much as anyone else, but I refrain from offending persons who employ me.
You forget, the owners are linking arms with the players. Let's wait and see.
The ''culture wars '' or the long era of white privilege is coming to an end.
A large portion of those that voted in this administration have become disillusioned and will become further so, when they realize that the tax cut they expected will not be forthcoming. In fact, their taxes will be going up as they pay more for everything in their daily lives.
Human rights are going to be further pushed forward ~ not less.
5
The problem is and remains the same: the audience for Trump gets its 'news' from a media segment committed to slanting and falsifying the information they report.
Unless and until that changes - starting with Fox News, but certainly no longer limited to it - nothing else will reach these Americans, or will sway their thinking.
Facts are no longer stubborn things. They are commodities.
2
Mr. Douthat gives little attention to the fact that the right wing of the Republican Party has little to no interest in compromise of any sort. Witness yesterday’s primary election in Alabama where Ideological purity won the day. The rise of political ideologues like Judge Moore (who places personal religious beliefs above civil law) does not bode well for our continuing culture wars, much less the stability of the Republic. Judge Moore stands at the vanguard of the right-wing GOP, whose motto might as well be “my way or the highway”.
7
Well done, Ross. I complain about you too much. This is a great piece. Might I suggest that you could be a real catalyst in making this cultural debate begin at the journalistic level. You are SO right about Kaepernick's choice of protest and about the infantility of our chief executive!
I'm serious, you could be an agent for change by encouraging the sort of public forum that would bring people TOGETHER and not drive them apart. You have the background knowledge, the temperament, and the ability to organize this across a variety of audiences (maybe even Congress if they would only pay attention). You could begin right here in DC with university based programs that go right at your two hard questions with an eye toward creating policy initiatives to address those very issues of police behavior and de-incarceration. You would know to involve all the "combatants" who need to assist in crafting the solution. Please, consider this.
What you have the privilege to refer to as a "culture war," Mr. Douthat, is an actual life and death war for other Americans not so privileged.
To such people, and others who realize the life and death realities of your "culture wars," your discussion of "empty" culture wars is itself empty of relief.
Your prescriptions would be rational and reasonable if your intended audience were rational and reasonable. But the very existence of these "culture wars," which are not really about anything more substantial than a lot of people in no real danger from others feeling threatened simply because they perceive other people as different from themselves, means you are asking irrational and unreasonable people to be rational and reasonable. You're asking them to not be themselves. I don't think that message is going to go over well.
So, sadly, one of your own more rational and reasonable arguments is anything but.
3
I'm baffled by the sly opprobrium laid on Kaepernick. It was quite clear to me what his protest was about and what it meant to accomplish. Racial profiling by police and the use of violent force in situations where it need not have been used against black men was the wrong he was addressing. The specific action was intended to convey to white America, especially white conservative America (the vast majority of football fans), that the ideals of the country, especially equal protection guaranteed by the 14th amendment, were not in fact being practiced.
It was clear and simple. It had nothing to do with not honoring the sacrifices of the military. The national anthem is a symbolic celebration of America in its entirety and if some part of the totality of the mutually agreed American ethos does not exist in practice then it is certainly fair to emphasize that truth by protesting that symbol.
5
For us to 'depolarize' the country, we need not tame 'both sides,' evenly repudiating Kaepernick's respectful protest with Trump's undemocratic and disgraceful call to silence it. This is one of many issue of our day where Trump is just plain wrong.
There are two ways this country can be depolarizing. The good guys can win, or the bad guys can win. I'm hoping Kaepernick and the good guys can bring attention to police brutality and white supremacy in the White House. Meanwhile, I'd like to see Republicans lose in a series of historical landslides, forever burying worthless ideologies such as climate change denial, voodoo economics, and civil war revisionism.
I wish I were more hopeful, but at least if we know how to view the battle, we have a chance at succeeding. Douthat's prescription ignores the true problem, offers no path to a solution, and continues to give cover not just to Trump, but to all his Republican enablers.
2
Almost. Though you correctly point out that Trump has more of a responsibility to frame his arguments in a comprehensive and clear light than does Kaepernick, you incorrectly criticize Kaepernick for his choice of how to protest. Kaepernick owes nobody any explanation. He's expressing his point of view the way he chooses. There is no correct or incorrect way to wage a culture war. People's statements are acts of social theater. Trump's responsibility as president means he should be above the fray. Or that he should seek to understand and find consensus. Or that he should stop making hateful counter-logical statements. Or that he should stop inciting violence against the exercise of free speech.
Politicians are elected to find solutions that mollify culture wars. Students at colleges, athletes, and all citizens in a democratic society should be free to say what they feel, whatever form it takes.
1
Culture wars in a democracy are antithetical to democracy. This current culture war of forced standing is more dictatorial than democratic.
The final words of the Pledge of Allegiance are "with freedom and justice for all." Unfortunately, this is not the experience of many Americans who have been treated despicably throughout the history of our country. To kneel before the flag - which is a reverent gesture, not a gesture of anger or hatred - is a peaceful reminder to everyone that we still have a long way to go to fulfill that promise. And those who oppose the expression of that peaceful reminder are the ones who disrespect the foundation and ideals of our great country.
5
Its no good for sides to stake out positions and defend them them with all the emotion and anger they can muster.
Flowing from the highest levels of government, the feeling that America is under siege may not be entirely wrong but, in classic tyrant fashion, ruling Republicans have chosen to focus on external threats rather than internal conditions that are the source of our travails.
We cemented in place a bifurcated society and perfected the blame and derision that confronts any who question the fairness, the rationality of this course.
We have government, a legal system, and a growing religious conviction that money is a sign of worthiness and favor from God. From Calvin to the prosperity gospel to many Evangelicals, poverty signifies sin in one form or another, whether sloth or simply disfavor in the eyes of heaven.
We turn not mercy and care but contempt on those in need of help. Self-satisfied and hungry for more, we forget ours is a diverse society, predicated from the start on "to each according to his needs."
With A hot mess in the White House, we pursue this perversion of community with ugliness that has diminished us across the globe.
What culture remains, after despising the humanities as useless distraction, and making business the highest human good is further diminished by courtship of a militaristic police force, conditioned to see itself as threatened outposts in hostile territory peopled by natives nihilistic in the extreme.
3
It's interesting to me that so many people believe that the first amendment applies to protect the free speech of players from retribution by owners, when clearly it does not. (Except for the ban on slavery, nothing in the constitution affects private conduct, only governmental actions.)
It's even more interesting that so many people are unaware that the players' actions are in fact protected because they have a union and a collective bargaining agreement which limits their employers' power over their lives.
3
George, lets replace players with employees. Everywhere. So many employees believe their first amendment rights are protected at their workplace. In the debates over whether an employee has the right to wear and in turn wield their faith from behind a counter, refusing services based on the alleged sins of a customer/client - as many xtians wish to do. Or how some, like me, dont think its appropriate for prayers before meetings, govt procedures, etc. Or even the swearing in process.
We cant seem to come to grips with the simplest of concepts. Belief, be it religious or what patriotism means, can not, should not be a matter for an elected employee to try and enforce upon the public. Not even POTUS.
BUT there seemes to be a crowd who believes in such enforcement.
Thoughtful column.
1
"...in his usual bullying and race-baiting way...."
That little phrase speaks volumes.
2
Why should Trump change his tactics? Trump never admits mistakes and
is constantly lying. What is on his mind is on Twitter. Considering he
has minimized experienced people in his cabinet like Mattis, McMaster.
Kelly, and Tillerson, Do not expect Trump to listen to anyone except
Jared, Ivanka,, and Stephen Miller., his speechwriter. Sorry Ross, your
sentences are too long and hard for Trump. Don't forget he won
the Presidency. More of the same for the next 3 years.
4
Instead of conceding his lack of skill, intellect, and courage for essentially the most difficult office on earth, Trump chose instead to lie his way through the presidency, appealing to a small, fractured minority of hateful people, and turn the entire nation into a mean-spirited reality show called Chaos Factor. This is the only successful "winning" he has had, and it might be enough to destroy our country.
5
So, you want the president to stop grandstanding and actually try to do some good. That would be against his base, given that he was elected for his ability to complain, not to solve. That is the constant of the "victimized" white population. There are no solutions, just complaints.
5
I don't see how Kaepernick's protest is the issue here. It seems that no matter what the black community does to express its outrage and pain, no matter how peaceful and quiet and passive, white people are going to get worked up over the "divisiveness" of a minority telling them that they're behaving badly. Kaepernick's socks? Are you serious? I ask you, Mr. Douthat, to watch the videos of the various murders of blacks at the hands of the police and then repeat your line about the socks. In criticizing Kaepernick for wearing the "wrong" socks -- in even bringing it up -- you're contributing to the canard that if only black people showed the proper respect to authority, maybe their problems would ease up. If only blacks stopped criticizing the police in any but the most anodyne terms! "Excuse me, sirs, would you please stop killing us out of racial fear and antipathy? Please?" There has never been a moment when I, a white man, was confused by Kaepernick's motives or actions. I knew why he knelt. I knew he was saying "America, you are not living up to your ideals." That people immediately attacked him for his form without pausing even for a second to contemplate his message is NOT his fault or responsibility. It's the fault of a white culture that abhors being criticized for its own bad behavior.
15
The problem is that these people like Trump thrive on White Supremacy. The US was a country in which Thomas Jefferson's rhetoric was used to mask the nation's White Supremacy political culture. Manifest Destiny and Slavery were based on White peoples self proclaimed believe that they had god on
their side. Trump won the presidency because white people thought they were losing their grip on political power. Its funny to see Trump's fumbling efforts to act like an establishment Republican when working with the Congress. His true soul is with White Supremacy.
3
What I find so amusing about anyone's outrage over the free-speech rights of NFL players is how it puts into bold perspective the absurdity of the player-fan relationship. These men are superb athletes, often minorities from impoverished backgrounds, who also happen to be earning a lot of money - which I think is the real crux of the matter here. The fans meanwhile are couch potatoes who split their time watching the games by alternately gesticulating wildly at the screen and stuffing their fat faces, basking in the reflected glory of "their" team. Somehow, they've fastened on the idea that the players work for "them" and should be subject to their armchair moralizing.
Most of these fans are "bone-spur" patriots like our President yet are perfectly comfortable specifying a player's relationship with the flag and the national anthem. Nothing is sillier than righteous indignation issuing from a mouth dripping with nacho cheese.
5
While I have some quibbles with Mr. Douthat's argument today, this is generally a well-reasoned and reasonable disquisition on a thorny subject that too often allows both sides to distort the other's position. What I do not recognize is Mr. Douthat's definition of the two sides: "'Make America Great Again' versus 'You’re All White Supremacists.'" Kaepernick doesn't define it that way, nor do the others who have knelt or linked arms in solidarity with his reasonable position. Further, Trump's side isn't really "Make America Great Again" although that is how his message is perceived by his allies. His side is better defined as "you are wrong, you are undeserving, you should shut up, and I am, as always, in the right."
4
"See the shiny keys, see the shiny keys". He plays us and we (well, most of us) fall for it. Don't ask about Russia, Don't ask where the money comes from or goes, Don't ask about taxing the poor to support the rich. "See the shiny keys, see the shiny keys"
5
You were doing uncharacteristically OK until the last paragraph. You should have quit while you were ahead. Athletes kneel in solidarity with all Americans who believe that young black men should not be shot, choked or otherwise murdered by scared police officers who do so with impunity. Enough is enough. The brave Americans who gave their last full measure of devotion to this country would be appalled to know anyone was invoking their memories to promote hate speech. Colin Kaepernick has the same right to kneel during the playing of patriotic music before a for-profit sporting event as you do to voice your opinion. Not a single brave American who died on Omaha Beach, at Khe Sahn or in Falluja would say otherwise. Stop hiding behind American heroes to defend your unwillingness to see this issue as anything other than what it is. The attention given to athletes who kneel or sit during the playing of the national anthem shines a light on the fact that the words of the poem and song have not been fully implemented in this country. Once again Trump, the greatest liar of his generation, has seized upon a divisive issue to get his sheep bleating about a false dichotomy in order to deflect from his failed presidency. If you want better community relations stop dressing police offices as a military occupying force and them unleashing them on black neighborhoods reeling from yet another murder of a black man.
6
Trump will need every distraction/"culture war" he can manufacture, for Mueller is closing in, with the IRS aiding him.
4
You neglect the central issue here. The "culture war" is right out of the Putin playbook. This country is under attack. All the rest is diversion.
5
I think Trump purposefully changes the conversation to ratchet up his base. Make sure you keep the conversation where it belongs - on injustice and the systemic racism in this country.
4
But the right, including Ross Douthat, has never sought out debate. It's far more comfortable complaining about the behavior of the powerless -- unemployed football players, aggrieved 18 year-olds free of parental supervision for the first time.
The culture war in the U.S. isn't between the coded program behind '“Make America Great Again”, which has the power of the presidency, the legislature and big business behind it, versus “You’re All White Supremacists”', which is tiny, moneyless, powerless and routinely crushed by the police when it steps out of the veal pen.
The war is between people with money and privilege, people with much less money and diminishing privilege, and people with no money and no privilege.
"Class" is, of course, a forbidden word in American political discourse. How about we forget the doggerel of the Star-Spangled Banner and cease to respect ostentatious patriotic displays by persons who actually hate the country's founding principles, and have that conversation, Ross?
5
If people were to set themselves on fire to protest the rapid annulment of the Constitution, by the current administration and Congress, those political bodies would say "they don't care about the environment, look how they are willing to pollute the air.
2
Trump loves the focus to be on culture war . The culture war is all about opinions and feelings . Trump does not know much ( anything ? ) about topics that need an iota of intelligence to discuss which has been apparent for years . Keeping the focus where he wants it covers his total ignorance of what the leader of the free world should know . He , incredibly , was elected POTUS !
3
It's not going to happen, Mr. Douthat. And you miss the point. America, since its founding--or its appropriation of the land by whites from its indigenous people, take your pick--is one huge culture war, and whites, by their language, culture and politics, have rigged the game to where *any* minority protest is the same as torching the village square. Would it be racist of me to declare: intolerance, thy name is white people? I mean, really?
Take, for example, the address on "freedom of speech" that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions--the flowery appendage given to the latter-day Civil War general whose lifelong mission has been a racist pushback against *any* progress for black Americans--delivered earlier this week. His entire career has been to sprinkle the Constitution with enough acid so that the holes eaten in the document (or concept) may be exploited by a majority political philosophy for the maintenance of racial hegemony. Why else, did slavery survive into the mid-19th century? Upon the backs of black folk were the commercial, industrial and social franchises necessary for the continuance of the South's "way of life," one in which Mr. Sessions--and the president under whom he labors (and shamelessly trashes)--works ceaselessly to resurrect.
Race is *the* culture war and America hasn't won it because it doesn't have the moral stature out of which its professed "Christianity" is supposed to animate it..
America has always and forever fought culture wars against itself.
2
Why were nearly 40% of White Americans reporting in 2001 that race relations were not good or very good? I can understand why Black Americans didn't think so, but why Whites?
I think the answer lies in the observation that overt racism decreased under the pressure of debate around real issues. Racism isn't about policy, though; it is visceral not cerebral. Overt racism was buried, but covert racism festered. That is what the right means when they say Donald Trump says what other people are thinking but are afraid to say. No one is afraid to say tax policy should change. People are afraid to say something racist.
But with Trump offering cover, the festering covert racism is surfacing. As a white person I have often heard those kitchen table conversations and have blanched at the racism, though to my shame I remained quiet, thinking that which was covert would quietly die over time. I was wrong, and you are wrong to think policy talk with solve the problem. Instead of hiding those feelings under policy, we need to have that talk frankly and openly. We are still fighting the civil war.
Turns out Hillary was right: "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up." HRC, 9/9/16.
4
Mr. Douthat, I rarely agree with your take on the issues in your column, but today I am with you one hundred percent. Well done.
So please explain further. If our President, “has never cared about anything higher or nobler than himself, and so he’s never happier than when the entire country seems to be having a culture war about, well, Donald Trump”, how is it that Evangelical Christians idolize him? Is the Evangelical Bible different than the King James Version I read daily? Do they not pay attention to the Ten Commandments or the synoptic gospels? I am truly witnessing a time where many are departing from the faith and have embraced a false doctrine of country over Christ Jesus. Yes, we must love our neighbors and pray for them, but we are to abhor evil and cleave to good. Something is in our President’s water and it isn’t clean. He needs help and so does the people who enable him versus getting him the medical support he needs. If they really cared for and loved President Trump, they would have him admitted to a hospital. Shame on all of them! This is beyond narcissism and if the world can’t see this....they are blind!
5
If Trump's and Sessions' objective was to demonstrate to the base that the highly paid and privileged black players are unpatriotic, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Everyone played into his hands, including those highly paid players.
The one ray of hope are the responses from the owners and the white players who denounced the provocations by standing with their team mates. Yet, the only way to effectively counter Trump is to refuse to take him seriously.
2
Unfortunately for this nation, Trump’s “culture war” is actually a race war, which he no longer even thinly disguises, intended to restore white supremacy by reversing generations of civil rights progress. Behind every one of the president’s grievances is a black, brown or yellow demon. The cheering white rallies, the sympathy for the Confederate cause and the Nazi marchers, the denigration of black athletes while praising Johnny-reb NASCAR owners — when will the mainstream media clearly label our racist president a racist, instead of calling him a mere culture warrior?
4
We are not a nation of "laws". We are a nation of PEOPLE and the vast majority are appalled at The Con Don and his International Mafia hostile takeover of OUR country with their hate-anger-fear-violence-guns-Lies,Lies,Lies-WAR propaganda.
Wake up and VOTE people. Get rid of them.
3
If Milo Yiannopolous is free to speak so should be Colin Kaepernick.
10
Trump certainly knows how to stir the pot, unfortunately he enjoys the ensuing chaos. There is something sadistic about his approach but it is consistent with his bullying nature.
9
He was 'hired' to do this. His role is that of the great divider. He was heavily supported, endorsed and provided this presidential platform by the 1%.
There are no mistakes here, get it?
2
Sad to say, I wonder if there is just a taboo about asking if Black Lives Mattter "mattered" in the 2016 election more than e-mails, Comey, and Russian meddling. Kaepernick would just be a follow on. Trump's race war began with his campaign and just continued with Charlottesville and Alabama.
6
So Ferguson, Black Lives Matter, and other Obama era controversies are responsible for the current state of race relations? Republicans owe their success over the last generation by and large to exploiting Trump's empty culture wars. Get lost Ross.
2
Issues of justice are never "culture wars." Culture wars are the o'reillyesque manufactured indignation about whether people who wish you happy holidays are subversively anti-Christian. Justice and constitutional protections, even when they are branded by cultural norms, are too important to be described as such.
11
The patriot in the photo is disrespecting the flag and violating 4 USC Section (8) Rsespect for the Flag, subsection (d):
"(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. ...
There are many other ways that we disrespect the flag according to this law. The flag should never be used in advertising. The flag should never be imprinted on a napkin or food plate.
3
When we have a president who encourages and thrives on ambient culture wars, there is little hope of a serious citizenry hacking its way through the id writ large and the current psycho-drama afflicting the Land. Things won't change until we have a change of president.
1
If the goal is to reduce violent interactions with police, let's get to the root. How about protesting the number of children born in the inner cities to poor, single mothers? How about helping young men in urban locations living directionless lives?
Why just inner cities, shouldn't poor whites not be single parents. All those Nazis that were marching in Charlottesville certainly look directionless to most of us out here. They can kneel if they want and you are free not to look at them.
4
@Midwest
Be careful. Your code words are betraying what you really think.
And just for the record, there are plenty of poor whites that fall into the very dame category you've just described.
4
It’s annoying to read about reprobates being referred to as “masters” “virtuosos” or anything positive. Trump, like Madoff, McConnell, Ryan, and other reprehensible con men, owes his “success” to a willingness to lie, cheat, and deny. In other words, he behaves in ways that no principled individual, endowed with a sense of morality, integrity, and humanity would. One day the world will understand that Donald is every bit as addicted to money, power, and status as his older brother was to alcohol. And that DJT suffers from deep rooted fears of being what his father hated most - being a loser. Which explains why, in an effort to feign being a winner, he feels it absolutely necessary to lie, cheat, steal from, and betray the suckers who fall for his scams.
6
Trump is a virtuoso of distraction, deception and division, exactly what we don't need in this era of climate change, nuclear threats and tribal tensions. But that is all this reality show president has to offer. He has no policies as such other than dismantling Obama's legacy, no party loyalties and no core principles other than greed, corruption and an all-consuming narcissism that must be constantly fed at never-ending campaign rallies. Thinking Republicans who worry about where this nation is headed and who fear their party will be forever stained for supporting Trump are fleeing the government and letting the lunatic fringe take over. It started with Boehner, then Chaffetz, then Dent and now Corker. This should work to the Democrats' advantage since the Freedom Caucus and more radical Trumpsters are just that, a fringe element that will never attract the support of mainline Republicans and independents. But the Dems need to come up with new young leaders and ideas that capture the national imagination, or they will again seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
2
Late night political "comedy", eh? The only late night political "comedy" show I'd put in "quotes"-- i.e. not funny but certainly political-- is that clunker called Red Eye or whatever it is with Greg Gutfield or whatever his name is that runs on Fox "News". That's truly some sad, sad, unfunny sadness. It reminds me of "Christian" rock music-- tries so hard but just doesn't have the talent.
2
Actually, what the Trump administration has accomplished is to show that racist policing is not the work of a few bad apples, but a rotten barrel. The system is corrupted from the to down.
Trump receives critical support from law enforcement.
Trump pardoned a sheriff for contempt of court. Sheriff Arpaio was running what he described as "concentration camps," ignoring court orders to stop, so Trump ignored the separation of powers to pardon him.
Trump also cut funding for training to recognize domestic terrorists, like the KKK.
And Sessions backed out of the Justice department monitoring of places like Ferguson, where emails show the city government running a mafia style extortion racket against minority residents, Chicago where a former chief of police had a secret torture facility, and Baltimore where reckless driving with unsecured prisoners in the back of the van is common.
Young people's do not go into policing to abuse others.
There is a top down effort to reward the bad apples with promotions. The drug war was specifically began to incarcerate minorities and three strikes made it millions, many now serving as slave labor for private corporations.
And law enforcement still loves Trump.
1
Some issues are beyond compromise. It would be hard to be 'kind of' or 'a
little' racist. Kneeling for the national anthem is better than throwing a Molotov
cocktail but some people don't see that as a compromise.
2
"the act of protest Colin Kaepernick chose to call attention to police shootings of unarmed black men — sitting and then kneeling for “The Star-Spangled Banner” — was clearer in the calculated offense it gave than in the specific cause it sought to further"
Er, you say what cause it was trying to further *right in this very sentence*.
It's amazing how black people somehow just can't figure out the *right* way to protest. It's almost as if the whole thing were a trick and there is no right way.
2
Not all of us here in the US like each other or appreciate each other's "culture"and that's fine. Why does it have to be a war......
So tiresome.
Yes, real civilian control of police departments.
Yes, separate elected prosecutors with their own investigative police to handle police killings, police home invasions, and police assault.
Yes, an end to the school-to-prison pipeline.
Yes, an end idiotic, bumper-sticker "zero tolerance" policies that turn minor scrapes and youthful mistakes into school suspensions and then criminal records.
But also...
Yes, treating education including vocational education as a civil rights program for youth.
Yes, not treating education as a jobs program for adults.
Yes, recognizing it is harder and worse for disadvantaged boys and especially boys from single mother households, and providing them extra services.
Yes, stopping the "acting white" cultural put-downs in black culture.
And most of all YES, programs for jobs, jobs, jobs.
3
One thing we can be sure of. If Donald Trump says it's not about race – it's about race.
2
I held out hope that we could walk this back into reasonable turf, but that moment is gone. One side clearly has no interest in honest, constructive debate. Their demand for fealty is unbreakable. Time to start deviding the China and looking towards a post-American future.
One thing these fake culture war issues are demonstrating - and i agree with Mr.
Douthat they are fake in how they originate, not in their meaning, is that it has shown the real numbers of white Americans who are unable to even think about racial justice, or are too cowardly to do so. Just as example, in the NFL protest by CK, and many other, how not a single white player kneels, ONCE, during the anthem, ready to pay a price, to defend that point reeks of cowardice.
No brave white men on the gridiron, and seemingly none in America
1
This is so rich! Listening to the mindless blathering about patriotism and the flag by the worst kind of serial draft dodger when millions of other men volunteered when that war was a matter of life and death. Trump sure has a corner on hypocrisy.
4
I am sick and tired about Kaepernick and NHL, LeBron's Ubum and America's internal "culture wars...! Why can't we address the enormity of the culture war between "exceptionalist" America and the rest of the world?
'America First' becomes a somehow insouciant yet pernicious moniker; what it hides behind is truly concerning; it is the deep callousness of a large swath of the American populace towards the rest of humanity, the utterly deficient and rachitic emotional intelligence of 60 some million Trump supporters in regard to the worries the rest of the world have; the inability to show compassion for the terrorized people of the Middle East where the might and fury of this oafish 'superpower' has been unleashed...This is insane!
To not conflate these above troubling realities with the deep disregard for the health of the planet is to add insult to misery. Hence the unhinged global danger Trump has become!
The culture war Trump and his supporters wage against the rest of nations and the world bodies by refusing to engage in dialogue instead of spewing shameless lies and war threats, at best dismissive of real concerns (based on science) - read global warming - is unprecedented in human history!
Trump must be stopped at any cost, before the war of words escalates into something completely unmanageable and destructive beyond imagination!
2
Ross, your solutions call for leadership ... and I literally don't know where you're going to find that presently.
Trump is NOT a cultural warrior he is a cultural WARMONGER. A warrior is brave and fighting for a noble cause. Trump is a coward fighting for his personal satisfaction.
3
If Trump kept his mouth shut about firing players the issue might have just died, but he blew it all out of proportion. He just wanted another issue to distract us from his lousy presidency and the Mueller probe.
3
As long as there is unequal and overpowering force selectively aimed and used against certain members of this society, you can rest assured this matter won't just die down.
1
The secret of a culture war is that often it is a matter of life or death, or thriving or subsisting. It is so clear by your writing that hey, it's all academic, just disagreements. But to be on the losing side - that is, to be a lesbian, or to be a disabled person, or to be an African American man may mean you lose a lot more than the war - you lose your life, or your dignity, or your ability to make a living. If you have not had stakes that large, you are very lucky indeed.
189
Culture wars are not our main concern right now. The fact that The Con Don and his International Mafia brethren want to start WW3 is THE problem.
I've been trying to watch "Vietnam" by Ken Burns but have to continually turn it off because of the in-saneness of our being there - because every President from Eisenhower down was afraid to lose face and get out. I've had to turn it off because of the brutal killing of innocent Vietnamese civilians by American military. I've had to turn it off because it was too painful to relive the fact that innocent STUDENTS at an Ohio university were gunned down and killed by OUR National Guard for protesting against the war and some of those killed were simply there to listen.
Any individual who watches it, and especially any person who fought in it, who still thinks all military men and women are "heros", and that OUR military is some kind of wonderful thing, and think we should renew the equally appalling Korean war are dead wrong.
NO MORE WAR. WE THE PEOPLE MUST DEMAND IT.
16
War is destruuctive, whether it be war of words, culture, or guns.
In America we have lost perspective on fact and fiction, reality and illusion, right and wrong, to the point where we are turning off our brains and our hearts to what we are doing to ourselves, our neighbors, our country, our world.
We need no more wars. What we need to do is look in the mirror, see what is truly there, look at our actions and see what are truly their consequences, look at our consciences, and see what they truly say about what we believe and the politics we engage in, then stop thinking about ourselves and start doing right by others and our country as a whole.
What we need is truth and reconciliation. But Americans are too fond of war, too happy in denial to see it. Too few see beyond the fear and rage of the moment to the devastation of the future that our many wars, hot and cold, live or philosophical, engender. We only acknowledge the storm after it is over and our houses lie in ruins around us.
If the US fails, it will be because of lack of vision and empathy. And war- whether of words, culture, or guns - will not save us.
66
You make some very good points. I am all for empathy, honesty, evaluation and attempting peaceful solutions. And I am anti-war. However, when one group of ideologues or another attacks the rights of another group, I think a cultural "war" may need to be fought as an act of self-defense and standing up for what is right. There are people who seek to discriminate and perpetrate injustices on others. It is honorable to take responsible activist and political actions against those people, and many would call this part of the culture "wars." See Barbara's comment above. When you are attacked, you may need to do battle to defend yourself.
1
Mr. Douthat why the conservative white Americans address the followings:
1. The framer of the Constitution committed the original sin by excluding the blacks from " all men are created equal"
2. Established segregation and Jim Crow after the Civil War.
3. Nixon Southern racial division
4. Reagan's Speech at the start of his campaign
5. Willie Horton's ad
6. Systemic police brutality toward blacks.
Coming to term with darkest period of American history and acknowledgement of racial biases and attitudes will go a long way to discuss and implement thoughtful corrective policy for some of the problems that Americans face.
8
I am not sure that the best way to fight vestiges of racism is to desecrate the flag.Mistakes and crimes can't be undone from the past.We need to change the future and patriotic veterans like me are natural allies .Respect the flag that so many have sacrificed for.Would MLK do anything to disrespect our veterans?
1
White reactionaries just LOOOOOVE to invoke the name of MLK as if they have any sort of claim to him and his ideas.
You don't. You don't know MLK. He had a house full of guns and he was ready to fight if he had to. He also protested the Vietnam war from an early date and encouraged young black men to resist the draft.
1
Good job. I actually agree with his substance and can find no place to dog the Alter Boy this week.
3
The proof that this is a bogus "culture war" is that the people excoriating Black athletes for "disrespecting" the American flag have no problem with people carrying the Confederate flag.
25
Trump, ever the television aficionado, has in so many ways created President Archie Bunker. His idea of democracy is, like Archie's, to tell others to "stifle yourself." Were he only able to do that himself. What a "meathead."
7
President Archie, with bad screen writers. There's nothing funny or redeeming in the The Trump Show. He's the guy from Queens, without the underlying laugh track and, unlike Archie, when push came to shove, beneath the bluster, without a basic humanity and ability to empathize.
1
Cut the title of this article to "Trump's Empty." That says it all.
4
If Kaepernick's protest buried the issues he was highlighting, police violence against blacks and ridiculous incarceration rates, how in the world did you manage to write an entire (excellent) column about it?
6
It might be the same reason the majority of Americans didn't vote for Donald Trump -- he could see through the smoke and mirrors.
1
After seeing recent acquittals despite damning evidence captured on videos of unnecessary deadly violence on black people, I feel we have not moved very far away from the "To Kill a Mockingbird" scenario. To have no empathy for people peacefully protesting against such obvious injustice escapes me. And to support a leader who is so blatantly insensitive and so obviously fanning divisions for his own benefit is something I will never understand. Is it deep seated racism, blind stupidity or absolute selfishness?
16
The answer to all three of your questions is yes. It's not blind stupidity though, it's proud ignorance.
1
Two-thirds of Americans (and more blacks than whites) described race relations as somewhat good or very good, ......the two-thirds pattern held for more than a decade — until Ferguson, Mo., and Black Lives Matter and the other controversies of the late Obama years - EXACTLY. Which is part of the reason Trump won.
But he is the president; this is EXACTLY what could be said of Obama and his racist actions. Which part of the reason Trump won.
But they are professional football players, but they are hollywood superstars, "which lends them a unique deranging influence". Which is EXACTLY why I am discontinuing watching NFL football games, and rarely watch movies anymore.
1
"Obama's racist actions."
I find it interesting, somewhat, that the folks who come up with this sort of nonsense are every bit as capable of explaining exactly what the man did that was racist as they are able to explain exactly how taking a knee while they play an Anthem whose tune comes from an old drinking song is disrespectful.
My general experience is that what you hear, rather than explanations, is a torrent of cliches from guys like Rush, followed by a splutter of rage, a quick set of flips to other topics, a couple of accusations, and something like, "Well, I guess we just can't talk about this."
3
Just what exactly is your source of information for this so-called "fact" "?? -- it's hard to imagine that more Blacks than Whites would find race relations "somewhat good or very good" given the rampant discrimination that continues to plague this country, either before, after, or during Ferguson, Mo.
1
Imagine a world....where culture wars are obsolete because significant numbers of black voters vote Republican, and in key races those votes are the margin of victory. The GOP simply would not have the luxury of running against black people endlessly and all the time, and the Democrats would not have the luxury of identity-politics-with-a-large helping-of-lip-service that they endlessly serve their supporters who are black, or Hispanic, or whatever.
And best of all, the white nationalists/supremacists would have to sit down and shut up, or, best of all, form their own Losers Party. Then there would be no hiding their agenda, their whining and their bone-deep ineffectiveness.
2
Brian-
Yes, and also imagine a world in which significant numbers of white voters vote Democratic, and in which Republicans are mindful of the fact that they skillfully employ white identity politics. Trump is just following the same path blazed decades ago by people like George Wallace and Richard Nixon. He may be completely out of his depth in policy and administration, but he is second-to-none at being a racial provocateur.
3
Why is it that no one asks where these ideas come from? That's the big question. They probably come from places like Infowars and people like Pamela Geller, who spew hateful rhetoric endlessly. The other question is, why? He's supposed to be the president of all the people, not just his county club buddies. But, these infantile rants provide a great distraction from the larger, more insidious and suspicious goings on, both current and past. The best thing the media could do would be to ignore and block them, rather than to repeat them endlessly. Shut him out! He wants attention more than anything else. If you want to destroy him and his message, just look the other way with vigor and purpose. He'll self destruct.
As a bleeding-heart liberal, I hate it when Ross Douthat makes sense. What a topsy-turvy world we live in!
2
You can continue to tilt at windmills as an innocent child walking through traffic, but your novenas are merely burnt offerings. The die is cast, sonny. The American dystopia is within view. It has nothing to do with the current occupant of PA. Ave. and everything to do with incrementalists and apologists - that means you, your fellows at the NYT and in other quarters of the commentariat, and every standard bearer of the two major political parties. You all got very comfortable, very smug and very apologetic as three decades of erosion wrecked the working classes, admitted millions of illegal job-seekers and medicaid users, stoked war after war without resolution or improvement of conditions, and finacialized the economy in league with the hated one percent. All it will take is one major sparking event. It's coming to a land near you, and like a hurricane it will not be deterred.
2
All that's missing is a quote from Revelation.
Ross, how many times each day does the word "race" appear in the NY Times? Answer: Many. Yet if we visit the Times Race/Related Newsletter we find that not once has that newsletter examined the American use of the concept of "race", not once. The same is true at the interview series Conversations About Race where the subject is never the American concept of "race" but rather racism.
So picking up on a proposal by Verified Rdeannyc Amherst MA, who is the Opinion columnist who will first read Kenneth Prewitt's "What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans" and then present and stick with Prewitt's proposal to end classification by race and ethnicity?
Professor Jesmyn Ward, editor of The Fire Next Time, black by law, got a rude awakening recently as she reports in that book. She like all of us has many lines of descent. Time to do away with "race" in America.
Races were invented by racists to make the practice of racism easier. Ending classification by race will not do away with racism; racism in its ever changing forms is forever. Time for Donald Trump and neo-Nazis to realize they are of the same race as Colin Kaepernick, and take it from there.
How about you, Ross, do you want to tackle that subject?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
3
I believe Trump has actually hit upon the most important issue.
In the old days, America was an assimilationist country. You were once a peasant in Germany or a tenant farmer in Ireland, but when you immigrated you discarded your former loyalties, and swore allegiance to the flag and the Constitution. That was what turned a wild mixture of various people into a nation with a common purpose. Everyone learns to speak English, follow the laws, and support the principles of freedom and democracy. Sure, we have many flaws, but we are in fundamental agreement that the rule of law and our political institutions are better than being ruled by a king or a dictator.
So who dares call this into question? A bunch of millionaire football players? Our system has made them wealthy, and it protects their rights. If they go and do some dumb-jock stuff and get arrested by the cops, their attorneys will be there to make sure they get a fair trial and receive justice.
How many people who are protesting would get the short end of stick in most other countries? What do you think would happen to the BLM guys in China, Russia, or Nigeria? While are system is imperfect, we at least claim to offer equal rights to everyone, and allow free speech and dissent practically without limit.
That's what Trump is talking about.
4
America was never the assimilationist country you seem to think. Every ethnic group that has ever come over (even the white ones such as the Irish and the Germans and the Italians, although in truth even the Italians were not considered white, they were "swarthy") has had to fight through several generations of bigotry and prejudice in order to establish itself. There were never any open arms waiting for them. They were only taken in because the nation wanted to expand (at the expense, of course, of others) and neeeded the additional population to fill those vast spaces.
1
You'll have to pardon me if I can't take the notion that Trump's trying to open a dialogue seriously, let alone the idea that I'm supposed to measure America with the yardstick of Vladimir Putin's kleptocracy.
1
In the old days...you were once a member of an African clan, captured by a rival tribe, sold to Portuguese, then English, or finally American slavers, chained and whipped into obedience to provide labor for your plantation owners. In 1865, your chains were removed, but assimilation was legally blocked until the 1950-60s, but even then, required the National Guard to overcome lynchings, beatings, snarling dogs, fire-bombed churches, and other obstacles to gain even a modicum of freedom and democracy. Fifty years on, this path to assimilation is still impinged by ignorance and intolerance.
BTW, I'm first generation Armagh County Irish, a place not unfamiliar with extrajudicial prejudice and intolerance.
"These are hard questions that can be answered only gradually..."
Donald Trump doesn't do hard questions.
11
He doesn't do questions at all.
1
"to depolarize our country, we need a social and cultural debate focused on the substance that Colin Kaepernick’s choice of protest unfortunately obscured"
I respectfully disagree (and don't put it on Kap). What we need is for the left to stop infighting and unite to defeat a hate group. I come from a conservative upbringing and trust me, "potential compromise" is happening around the same time climate change, LGBTQ rights, DACA and evolution are acknowledged as legitimate. Don't hold your breath.
I think phrases like Culture Wars, white backlash, and white resentment obscure and sanitize the issue at hand. Replace all of those things with one simple word: hate. It's about hatred for outsiders. Until you're on the inside you don't know how intense the hate is. It's about demonizing minority groups and using that demonization as a pretext for exclusion from American life. It's about maintaining authority and domination over people you hate, and that comes before loyalty to the constitution, and in many cases even the teachings of the bible. All roads lead to hate. The right refuses to adapt, accept opposing viewpoints, cultures and lifestyles, and will not share authority and power. Because they...wait for it...HATE the people they're being asked to coexist and cooperate with. The hate is perpetuated daily by media whose job it is to fan the flames. Unified opposition is the answer at this point - maybe intelligent debate can happen someday, somewhere over the rainbow?
38
I agree, a firm united front and constant pressure would do a lot to convince some wavering conservatives. So far they have been dictating the terms of the debate with liberals lacking the firms stance. This is about right and wrong, can't compromise with wrong.
1
Ross,
Without Kaepernick's protests, would we be talking about this today. Don't forget that those 1970-80 solutions were created by white dominated administrations, thus the improvements have been spotty at best.
The current situation is from sweeping reality under the rug.
#I'mwithKap
18
Douthat asks: "First, can we have ... greater accountability for cops ... without the surge of violence ... ?"
It says a lot about Douthat that he is even willing to raise the question.
It suggests that toleration of police brutality might be the price that we as a nation--by which Douthat means poor people of color in cities, not him and his ilk--have to pay for less crime.
It suggests that if we hold the police accountable then they might be less willing to do their job and then we as a nation--by which Douthat means himself and his ilk, not poor people of color in cities--could be in trouble.
7
Just the opposite. Well-off people could hire private security guards, but criminals would be free to prey on poor people in bad neighborhoods.
2
Equal justice for black men and other minorities and a police reform that deals with police abuse and overreaction to those of other races, unarmed, disabled or mentally disturbed are all urgent needs.
This is a civil rights issue and it is what Kaepernick was protesting quietly. The nauseating spectacle of Trump's vicious attacks -- many and frequent-- on private citizen athletes when Puerto Rico is suffering from a massive disaster and Trump's war mongering with North Korea has raised tensions dangerously is yet more evidence of his mental instability and unfitness for office.
Wrapping himself in the flag doesn't work: he attacked Dreamers serving in the military, transgender military personnel, and American prisoners of war as well as a Gold Star family, and has a personal background of multiple deferments and a bone spur to keep him out of Vietnam.
The athletes have a Constitutional right to peaceful protest and have done so with utmost respect. They are all civil rights heroes. For the president to insult them and say they should be fired is fascist and demented.
23
The problem here is between "it shouldn't work" and "it doesn't work".
The president's blustery grandstanding obviously *shouldn't* work, but, unfortunately, it does work with those who think patriotism begins and ends with saying I Love Our Flag...
2
These culture wars, including racism started with Founding fathers. They made sure that only landowners had the right to vote. Somewhere along the line the Constitution then declared that "all men were created equal" which of course is not what was truly believed, hence slavery and the annihilation of the American Indians and the stealing of their lands
Trump epitomizes all that is bad in our country. The sports figures that have had the courage to kneel to protest police brutality have done the right thing
Trump and his followers would not know what the right thing is. He has encouraged police brutality, White Supremacy, economic hardships, cruelty towards the disabled, and protectionism if his wealthy friends. He has assembled the most incompetent and mean spirited Cabinet. He had made a mockery of what the United Stayes stands for and is encouraging World War 3. He has no redeeming qualities as a human being, let alone a leader. The sports leagues have surprisingly shown courage. I hope they continue to support their players
16
Excellent piece.Thanks.
Wrong. The people is support of the culture wars are losing and that is why they are growing desperate. Remember when same sex marriage was going to destroy this country? Well that didn't work out so now they target transgender children who wish to go to the bathroom in peace. As the culture warriors lose more, they target weaker and weaker populations. They are bullies who feel the need to degrade others. And that is why they support Trump. Trump is giving his people what they want.
18
In America the most important distinction is that people on the left want to be free to live as they see fit.
People on the right want the people on the left to live as the right demands.
This while the right howls about freedom and rights. Hypocrites everywhere you look.
22
You're preaching to 2 choirs. The racists believe they are the just defenders of the "real" America, which is being polluted by populations that have no business being here. They think theirs is the good culture war.
Only if they reduce the US to a whites-only country & discover that they are still furious -- but don't know why -- will a handful begin to realize that the source of their fury is within them. The rest will find another target.
6
Mr. Gouthat, good morning
As always I read your column with interest and admired your effort. However, in this column you did not write about what is really happening in this country. You wrote as in intellectual, which you are, and I fear a bit removed from what is occurring on our streets and throughout this country.
Jim in Illinois
4
Here's my take on the cultural war: it is Reality T. V. vs. Actual Reality. (aka Fake News vs. True News; Choose Your Own Adventure vs. The World As It Is; Ignorance vs. Knowledge.) It is not dissimilar from four hundred years ago when we had The Church vs. Galileo.
An overlooked but important aspect of the NFL protests is that after the National Anthem, the players all united as a team, went out on the field, and worked together toward a common goal. The fans, regardless of their opinions, hopefully enjoyed the games. That is bipartisan cooperation. If we can come together in sports, we can come together elsewhere.
It took a while, but the Church and the spiritual descendants of Galileo did make their peace.
4
They did make peace, but with a whole lotta nasty in between. A whole lot!
I appreciate your call for clarity and focused solutions. But, I find describing repeated murder by police without any consequences for the perpetrators as "controversies" unacceptable.
I am old enough to remember when a black, Muslim athlete, Ali was condemned and punished for doing with open courage what many white young men did without suffering any consequences.
Racism is part of our national DNA.
18
Young white men didn't suffer any consequences? Really!?
1
Just as DNA testing provided a once-in-many-lifetimes opportunity to assess how well our criminal justice system performed at avoiding wrongful convictions (very poorly), it was the advent of the ubiquitous cell-phone video camera that has allowed us white folks to see what the black folks been seeing all along. Justice is not meted out equally. Some Americans are pretty much guilty until proven innocent with all-too-often fatal consequences.
7
Trump is best at stoking conflict and playing to his base by taking radical positions on these mind-numbing culture wars. His favored issues require no inconvenient knowledge, factual basis or nuanced or technical thinking. Rather they allow him to "like" an issue while simplifying principles to the point they become meaningless. He extols "patriotism" and disregards the rest. Equally important they divert attention from his many and important failures.
He also speaks to a base constituency with similar limitations and cynical ends. Alabamans in power stand for the national anthem and denigrate kneelers. Voters for Alabama's Moore would rather focus on LGBT issues and the 10 Commandments than the fact that their retrograde state is broke and ranks around #47 in the US in both health care and education. And a Moore victory is one more vote for ACA elimination, tax reform benefiting the rich and America First policies. Bannon is but one more arsonist inflaming the right wing by criticizing elites who look down on the State. But to so many of us Alabama is sadly caught in a 19th century time warp and must overthrow its overseers.
Trump and Alabama. It's a Culture Wars paradigm. And Trump supporters can be expected to embrace democracy and real issues just as soon as Alabama's poor and sick gain access to healthcare and education and the predominately black University of Alabama football team takes a knee.
5
I am definitely leftist in most of my political views and not so bound by Catholic doctrine as you, but I appreciate your calm voice, and I frequently find myself in agreement with much of what you write (sometimes to my surprise). I especially appreciate this column (though I don't think Kaepernick muddied his cause by his methods and dress). You are living proof that we should be able to talk meaningfully and civilly across our divisions and make some progress towards living together and tolerating our differences where we't compromise.
4
How can you have this discussion without mentioning the issue of accessibility to guns? Communities are frightened, people are frightened and police are frightened. Everyone has retreated to their corners because they are afraid. I would bet that if we had reasonable gun laws made by reasonable people without the moneyed influence of the NRA, we could have more productive and reasonable discussions about cultural issues that effect all of us. No one can talk reasonably when there we have guns pointing at each other.
10
I understand why police would be frightened since it seems every yahoo and nutcase and thug can get a gun with little difficulty. And yet, every person I know who is associated with law enforcement, from the beat officers to state troopers to probation and parole people, all are unequivocally against any gun ownership restrictions. All. I've asked.
1
Culture wars are crucial and necessary. Even economic issues are, at bottom, culture wars. The notion that the poor need to be lifted out of poverty rather than scavenging for food and living in hovels is a question of cultural values. Not all cultures, in the past or today, would agree that extreme inequality is bad. So Mr. Douthat's condemnation of Trump's culture wars is disingenuous. The athletes' protest engages important issues of free speech, racial equality, and patriotism. You might say that Trump is on the wrong side on all of these issues, and you would be correct, but it is not the same as saying that the debate itself is not worth having. I bet that Mr. Douthat would not say about his own hobby-horse, abortion, that we need to tone down the volume of conversation or that all reasonable people can agree on some middle ground. No, let us have a culture war and let the winning side take all. I venture to predict that both Mr. Douthat and our President won't find themselves among the winners.
1
An interesting comment, Mor. One might also say that the tacit acceptance of illegal immigration that has changed the 'cultural' character of many American towns together with the 'identity politics' platform that increasingly defines the Democrat party alienated a lot of voters who felt that they would be ignored and/or penalized if they expressed their disagreements. The current climate allows for the release of these pent-up energies and represents a push-back for the 'racist-under-every-rock' ideology. It is, as you say, a real culture war that was started by Ferguson and BLM. I don;t think it is a good thing. On the contrary.
Amen. As a dyed-in-wool liberal I often disagreed with Ross Douhat, sometimes to the extent of finding his contributions difficult to read all the way through. Since Trump's election I find myself reading him more and more and often agreeing. Maybe Trump is bringing us all together!?!
2
Great column. Spot on.
But what I don't get about the National Anthem brouhaha is why more folk don't see both ways as patriotic. You wanna stand for the anthem - that's great. Respect the flag. Righteous. You want to kneel? Also awesome. Peaceful dissent represents the best of our American ideals.
We should celebrate both.
10
Or stop playing the National Anthem altogether.
1
It seems it would be too much work for either side to frame the "war" in more than 140 characters. In this reality TV era none of this can be taken seriously because everyone wants everything and nothing at the same time. It almost seems as though basic needs are different amongst groups.
I remember a time when at the end of the "war" everyone came to realize that we are not that far apart and that we all want the same things. This is not the case right now. I do not want what the USA seems to want right now. This political environment is not something to build on. No one on the Republican side is fighting for anything I can even consider.
I don't think making the government the size of a pin head or tearing down the entire country is the way forward. Now that the Republicans are governing they don't know how to move forward and the policies they suggest are backwards. There is nothing here to even fight over.
2
We need to also consider the role of money, quota systems, & private prisons in justice administration. In MI, legislators who get money from private prisons have insisted that we use private prisons even though these prisons routinely fail to follow their contracts about providing education for juveniles, providing proper food, etc. At the same time, these prisons insist on having a certain number of prisoners, so there is probably pressure on the police to arrest more people. Cases like Ferguson, where the cops knew that their department's budget (i.e., their salaries) was based on the number of arrests they made led to absurd arrests -- in 1 case, for simply walking. Naturally absurd arrests are going to target people too poor to have lawyers, so although such arrests could have been done to poor people of any race, in that place, African Americans were singled out. & let's not forget civil asset forfeiture.
When making private contractors rich or when financing a police department are considerations in "justice," you don't have justice. When multiple Supreme Court decisions have legalized bribing legislators, you don't have justice. Authoritarianism and corruption often go together, but the Republican party doesn't just consist of authoritarians. The libertarian wing of the Republican party should be sticking up for a more just America. Where is it?
3
So racial equality and freedom of speech or protests are part of the cultural wars? Not really since these are Constitutional protected rights for all Americans. Would denying white females the right to vote be a culture war or a violation of the Constitution? Easy answer for that one it would be a violation of the Constitution without a question the same is true for speech and racial equality. The only person that can't seem to understand this is Trump and the Republicans who delegate these rights to a culture war. When it comes to the Constitutional rights we should all agree this has nothing to do with culture wars but with core rights guaranteed for all citizens.
4
Mr. Douthat, I am quite sure that the symbolism of Kaepernick's refusal to stand was intended to highlight this country's failure to live up to its own ideals, specifically that of equal rights under the law. Indeed, it was in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, but the point was pretty obvious to me from the beginning. I think the failing of Kaepernick's protest was that so many others were standing while he knelt. Now many people are kneeling for different reasons and the point is lost on most.
1
Douthat is failing to charge Trump with the proper crime.
Trump advocated making flag worship compulsory. No one missed his recommendation that the NFL should fire non-compliant employees.
The public overwhelmingly prefer the current system in which flag worship is completely voluntary, and the decision is left to the individual -- not the government..
5
yes, absolutely, thank you. Still very important to protest against the president’s behavior - any suggestions on how to do that without offending anyone?
I seldom agree with RD, but I found myself nodding in agreement as I read today's column. Trump is purposefully dividing the nation by weaponizing legitimate grievances and protests of legitimate issues. His actions, and those of his minions, are intended to satisfy the fragile, hateful egos of his so-called "base" at the expense of virtually every other American, liberal, progressive or conservative.
In essence, Trump has launched an assault of the United States of America by turning friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor, citizens against government and the rule of law, and ally against ally on the world stage.
His only friend, outside his insular family, appears to be Russia, which is certainly enjoying the spectacle of rapid decline in our belief in ourselves. Trump's damage is and will be incalculable.
1
It's simple- kneeling is bad; locking arms is good.
1
"and the specific issue that Kaepernick intended to raise, police misconduct, is buried seven layers of controversy deep."
This is exactly what Trump and the other critics of Kaepernik and his fellow NFL protesters wanted. Trump changed the subject from police misconduct to "patriotism" used as a racial cudgel and an obliging media fell in line with him. Mr. Douthat deserves our gratitude for bringing the conversation back, but Kaepernick deserves the credit for elevating this to a national issue. There has been no institutional pathway to justice for those wrongly killed by police. Young black men die on video in front of all of us and the killers walk away. Kaepernik may have ended his career by taking a knee for something he believes in. Please don't let Trump and the phony patriots bury this issue seven layers deep. It is a literal culture war and people are still dying.
I am also surprised that Mr. Douthat, who frequently writes about religious issues, didn't say anything about the nature of Mr. Kaepernik's protest - the gesture of kneeling. Mr. Kaepernik is a devout Christian and the gesture of kneeling is one of reverence and humility. He could have easily made a rude or defiant gesture, but he chose to kneel, which is something of great meaning to him. Men his age who look like him are being persecuted and murdered by the state. He's seeking peace and justice. Reminds me of a story I once heard.
332
Yes - the Bible.
Well said! Though I disagree with some obvious over-statements, I will applaud mr. Douthat for expressing clearly that trump takes issues that could be important and makes them smaller and meaner and all about him.
About the culture wars. I have strong opinions, but my aim is never to "win" or stick it to the other side, but simply to Allow prople freedom to live their lives. Republicans, enthusiastically, want to impose their ideas about abortion,gay marriage, Colin kaepernick and all the other issues on everyone by law. There's the difference. Trump fits in a odious category of his own. No genuine commitment to anything except his own ego.
3
The original purpose of "taking the knee" is getting lost and becoming a referendum on Trump, thanks to his Twitter rants. He has wrapped himself in the flag and national anthem (because, as with everything, it IS all about him). When it comes to Twitter, I have decided to view his use of it as just some guy from Queens shooting off his mouth. It's his right as a citizen with freedom of speech, but it is my right not to accept Presidency By Tweet.
We will never have any kind of rational discussion on anything that catches Trump's fancy while he is in office and while his buddy, Steve Bannon, is out on the campaign trail stoking the flames, culture war or not. They do not want rational discussions on problems like police brutality or racism and neither do their supporters; they want blood.
Our only hope is that rational voices can outshout them or, like many extreme movements, they begin to turn on each other and destroy themselves from within.
2
The people who want permission to interpret "affirmative action" against racial discrimination as approval for racial discrimination, its present interpretation, need to propose an amendment to or repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Sneaking racial discrimination in by calling it anti-racial discrimination (the new euphemism is "diversity") is one of the causes of the resentment that elected Trump.
1
First, I think, we need a constructive suggestion from you, Ross, and others as to how Kaepernick should have drawn attention to the murders (& acquittals) of unarmed black civilians by heavily armed police officers.
4
Who are you to judge what causes and which non-violent, symbolic acts are important and which are not?
3
Ross Douthat claims, without presenting any evidence, that police have "retreated" in Baltimore and Chicago. The police chiefs of those cities strongly deny this slur.
Would Mr. Douthat please present his evidence that supports his claim?
I do wonder how much of his animosity towards the NFL is rooted in his big $3 antitrust suit "victory" against the NFL when he was a USFL owner? He's a petty man, and I doubt that he's let that one go.
8
"Culture wars" are nothing but a sideshow distraction to keep the people focused on anything other than what their "leaders" are really doing.
4
To correct a distortion from a "bad" culture warrior....
One kneels, rather than stands, before the flag to bow one's head in shared condolence with others for abuse done the nation and to pray for a better day.
Such kneeling is not fist waving or flag burning.
3
How to protest and bring attention to an issue?--in this case a very serious concern. Kaepernick chose to silently kneel during the anthem to bring attention to the fact that not every citizen in the country has the same protections and opportunities this flag is supposed to represent. That seems to have produced more discussion about his method than about the issue.
But I would ask what other way he should have protested? What other way could have brought attention to the issue and not raised controversy? What is the suggestion?
I am asking because it seems to me that no matter the form of protest that has been taken since Ferguson (& I include prior protests on other issues), that form of protest has been criticized. (and I'm only talking peaceful--I think we can all agree that violence is unproductive). Black Lives Matter--how dare you suggest that all lives don't matter. Protesting in the streets--how dare you disrupt our commute. Protesting in shopping malls--what right do you have to prevent us from going shopping? Boycotting business--how dare you interfere with commerce and profits. Burning bras--how ridiculous. Taking over school offices--business should not be disrupted. Burning draft cards--unpatriotic and cowardly.
It seems to me that no matter the form of protest taken, there are always people who either don't see the problem or wish to keep the status quo who will criticize the manner of the protest or even ask why there is a protest at all.
8
I am a culture war pacifist. I don't think there are ANY good culture wars. A culture war that leads to policy changes is probably not a culture war. As I look back from the scary side of 70, I can't recall any culture war that was actually healed or even resolved. The best that can happen is that the war becomes irrelevant and slowly erodes as the clamorous warriors die off. Scientific American has a great analysis the on-going culture war over science. The battle plan to gently remind unbelievers of the facts has been an impressive failure. They cite gun control and climate change, where the scientific consensus contradicts the majority view. They recommend tacitly accepting the crazy cultural views, and moving directly to policy. I don't see that working either, sans a functioning democracy.
3
Mr. Douthat suggests that de-incarceration would be a useful start. I could not agree more; however, the privatization of prisons is a core policy objective of his party. Private prisons are most profitable when they are full, and there is simply no incentive to rehabilitate and/or return prison residents to the larger society. This is only one of the many ways that the GOP's plan to privatize every aspect of government fails to serve the actual needs of our nation. Our reliance on private military contractors has created a new foreign policy of all-war-all-the-time, necessary so the contractors remain profitable----while actually making our nation less safe. It would be helpful for Ross Douthat to dig into some of these core values of his party, so that he can more easily understand why Donald Trump is such a useful if stupid tool, while his party works behind the scenes to privatize every aspect of government.
3
What's "culture" to people on the right?
It's Lee Greenwood, open carry, and Mossy Oak pajamas—preferably without Black people spoiling the party. Word to Mr. Douthat: it's not war we're talking about, and it isn't culture either. It's the right's insistent consolidation of power, and their smearing of those who resist.
Only when the Colin Kaepernicks of this country are free to protest without being insulted by the head of state is culture even possible.
14
excellent column, with one addition: it should be an established and unarguable cultural norm that we do not bring our politics to work. my chief complaint about kaepernick is that he politicized his workplace. this says nothing about whether his concerns are justified or not, or the literal scope of his constitutional rights.
When the majority of the workforce starts their workday, nobody plays the national anthem and requires that we genuflect before the flag. That makes Colin Kaepernick's workplace and ours vastly different places. The fact that his silent protest makes so many people uncomfortable is, to me, exactly why his actions are appropriate. You don't want to think about "politics" on Sunday? Or Saturday? Or Friday night? How about inequality and injustice? When is the "right" time to think about those things? The fact that 40% of our population doesn't want to think at all is precisely the root of our problems.
391
Inserting the anthem into football games brought politics into football. I went to the opera last night. I was not required to stand and listen to the Star Spangled Banner before curtain.
304
drollere, Work is where politics originate. You should advocate for the opposite of what you proposed: that the politics of civic life shouldn't be brought home with you.
6
Colin Kaepernick's reasons for taking a knee during the national anthem are very clear to most people. He is protesting unequal treatment of blacks and whites by police. It is also very clear why the Current Occupant is fanning the flames of pious-but-empty patriotism and race-baiting. He gets the attention he ravenously craves and the public diversion from failures and misdeeds that he sorely needs. While I don't disagree with every point in this piece, wishing for "hope to resurface" in the form of specific issues and compromises is a fool's errand under the current regime.
10
It would be one thing if Donald Trump were "one of them." The "them" being one whose personal roots mirrored those of his base; someone who was either a product of poverty who worked his way up from nothing; or one who suffered some form of personal tragedy, crisis, or conflict; for which he successfully overcame, and those who comprise his base can relate to.
But they don't seem to "get it," that despite their belief that he is "successful because of a lifetime of hard work," he made his money the old fashioned way; he INHERITED it. They don't realize that his business acumen is way less than the sum of its parts. Their toxic mix of ignorance and gullibility, whether or not they came by it honestly, is just the fuel Trump needs to light or fan the flames of conflated rage. And while he castigated the NFL, for their "disrespect of patriotism," his followers thought nothing of his own politically incorrect conduct; calling the players "SOB's."
His base obviously doesn't see any of the hypocrisy in Trump; he really couldn't care less about anything that's in the best interests of anyone except himself.
And, while they believe it's open season on liberals, they're unaware that they're taking their shots from a circular firing squad.
9
Mr. Douthat,
I thought you were a conservative.
No conservative I know would ever demand that a jury convict more cops because of activist demands.
Anyone accused of a crime is entitled to the presumption of innocence, counsel, access to all evidence and a means of appeal. Each incident is to be considered by a jury on its own merits and they decide if a shooting was justified or if the policeman was "trigger happy."
That is called due process and the foundation of our legal system stretching back to Magna Carta.
Your better judgment appears to have been clouded by your hatred for President Trump - who by the way is right on the flag and anthem issues.
1
The flag and the anthem aren't issues. I think that's the point...
1
So let's get this straight. About 15000 years ago a bunch of people came to America across the Beirng Land Bridge. Then 500 years ago another bunch of people came from (mostly) Europe and Africa. A bunch of (mostly) English aristocrats started their own country, later created a flag and an anthem which all the immigrants now here must bow down and adore? Or did I get it worng?
1
Unfortunately, our legal system is very poor at holding law enforcement accountable. Those responsible for holding them accountable are part of the law enforcement system to begin with. Often, district attorneys don't even press charges in police shootings. When they do, they often act like neutral observers instead of prosecutors.
1
Jingoism is easy. You forget that the flag and anthem are only symbols, and you take a protest as a personal assault. You wave a big foam "We're number one finger, and you sing that you're "Proud t be an American, where at least (you) know (you're free!" And Chevy plays pickup truck ads catered to you.
Jingoism is thoughtless and exploitable patriotism, and it cheapens the real thing - which, by the way, includes respecting the symbolism of the flag and the anthem - and is a source of pride for a lot of people who drive trucks or Priuses.
The culture war is the failure to recognize that Kaepernick cheapens nothing by kneeling - he is protesting for improvement, not for destruction of the ideals. But equally we cannot turn police into the enemy. And the culture war is the failure to recognize that neo-Nazis don't speak for angry America. The culture war is the 180 we do when we decide to adopt the Confederate flag as a symbol of Real America, without much thought about why a symbol of disunion is a good thing. The culture was is taking every issue and extending the outrage and demanding that someone out there enforce niceness.
The culture war is the failure to understand where other good people are coming from, and the unwillingness to listen. So we get Donald Trump who doesn't listen and seem to think more with his Lizard Brain than his full frontal cortex.
4
It's worth noting which occurred first, NFL players kneeling for the National Anthem or Trump opening his big month.
1
I find myself in complete agreement.
I'd love to read an example of a culture-war protest that Ross Douthat considers "good"-- one where a policy prescription was laid out that is more specific than the one championed by Colin Kaepernick. It seems to me that "Make police stop brutalizing black men" is as coherent a prescription as, say, "Get out of Vietnam" or "My body, my choice" or, on the other hand, "Abortion is wrong and should not be sanctioned." (I strongly suspect that last one fits the bill for Mr. Douthat.).
People resort to protest when they feel that the policy process has failed them.
10
It's easy to quibble about the timing and methods of how Colin Kaepernick decided to "begin this debate".
However, it seems as if the only way we are able to start these "debates" is for somebody to create a spectacular event that nobody can look away from and virtually everybody has an opinion on.
Let's be honest, we can't get anybody's attention by calmly requesting to have a "national discussion" on race.
We need an "entry point", and Mr. Kaepernick gave us one.
Obviously, no fruitful resolutions will occur while this president is in office, but at least the door has finally been reopened to the discussion that must be had if we expect to take this country forward in a positive direction.
18
I appreciate the tone and content of this article. Indeed, serious issues in need of fact-based solutions are foundering in the sea of sound bites, media mishandling and redoubtable acrimonious partisanship.
Until we return to a state of political give-and-take, reasonable compromises, and dialogue designed to result in workable solutions, these critical issues will remain unaddressed and, consequently, unsolved.
Leaders would do well to recall the words of Joseph Joubert:
"The aim of argument, or discussion, should not be victory, but progress"
15
But if you put compromise first, neglecting to make a powerful argument for your side to build public support so you can negotiate from a pain of strength, then compromise is equivalent to surrender.
The "art" of compromise does not, necessarily, require the abdication of a strong position. Indeed, the best agreements are forged from two equally strong positions.
Ross I don't know where you have been but Donald Trump and Republicans don't do "hard". The healthcare debacle should be your shining example front and center, hold hearings get the advice and opinions of experts, work with all to craft a bill that improves people's lives of course not that is hard work. Send a tweet or two call people silly third grade names now that is right up our leaders alley.
16
Are there not more ppl out there angry that -- no matter the racial politics -- police officers are EVER really in the clear when they shoot and kill? Doesn't anyone think our careless attitude toward killing is just a tad barbaric?
The world is a tough place and there are plenty of ppl who would kill wantonly if not prevented. But other countries manage to stop the mayhem without resorting to endless shootouts.
Are we really unable to find another way? Are we really so callous that we consider this just part of the job? Are we really so broken we would rather live in fear of the policeman than make the compromises necessary to make their jobs -- and our streets and lives -- safer?
11
Let me give you a nice, simple test of what makes for a "bad" culture warrior:
If you want to do away with, or have "special" exceptions to Constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to protect your "culture", your "way of life", your idea of "things as they oughta be", you're fighting for a BAD culture war position.
Because all the Roy Moores in the world can't change the fact that the ULTIMATE cultural standard for the United States is embodied, not in the flag, not in the anthem, not in the Pledge of Allegiance, but in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the 17 amendments added afterward.
Anyone who argues to twist those, to do away with those, who thinks only the 2nd and 10th amendments matter, is morally, ethically, philosophically and LEGALLY wrong. On that I am totally unwilling to compromise.
458
Very good!
And if you want to end culture wars designed by the global billionaires to distract us from their mass theft, then we need one more amendment to the constitution:
Corporations are Not People and Money is Not Speech.
3
I want to do more than "recommend" this statement. I want to cheer.
The interpretation of Constitutional amendments change over time. Not all the changes in interpretation of welcomed and can be a cause of disruptions. Your interpretation of "Free Speech" is not the same as my interpretation of Free Speech. There is no one standard for what "free speech" means.
I have always felt that Trump's fundamental program was a lack of culture.
3
If the Black Lives Matter movement had labeled itself "Black Lives Matter, Too" there might have been a hope that its purpose could not have been twisted by white nationalists, supremacists, etc. to mean something else. But there would always be Donald Trump and the Trumpistas to misconstrue.
Kaepernick's protest was silent and peaceful. Ironically, kneeling in a place of worship is considered a gesture of respect, but somehow on an athletic field, during the national anthem, it is considered a political mortal sin--and to Donald Trump a firing offense.
If anyone doesn't know the reason for Kaepernick's peaceful protest, he or she is truly a low information voter.
20
If you believe that all lives matter, then you believe that black lives matter.
Those who take issue with the statement "Black Lives Matter," only prove that in their hearts, all lives don't matter to them so much after all.
1
Let's keep it simple, so we're not buried in 7 layers of silted thought. Go back to the founders: All men and women are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. Among these are the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Trump wants to revoke these rights for many of our citizens. He also wants to dim the lights on Lady Liberty so that the beacon that has brought forth huddled masses yearning to be free will not be free to come here. Instead of the ideas stemming from the Enlightenment, Trump and his cohorts think like cavemen: "in each hand, grasping a stone, like an old savage armed, he moves in darkness it seems to me."
9
"we need a social and cultural debate focused on the substance that Colin Kaepernick’s choice of protest unfortunately obscured"
I strongly disagree that Colin Kaepernick's choice of protest obscured anything.
Ross, you would do well to watch Trevor Noah's commentaries on how white America has given black people no choices on where and how to protest. At work? Nope, can't do that. On the playing field? Nope, can't do that. On the streets? Nope, can't do that. At universities? Nope, can't do that. OK, then. Where? When?
Noah explains it much better than I have. You should watch.
27
Thank you. I was scanning the comments to see if someone made those two points before I expressed the same sentiments.
Protest is supposed to make people uncomfortable, after all.
1
Actually, Kaepernick's choice clarified everything ... and he should be Time's Person of the Year.
White people like to believe that the words and actions of black people justify or are responsible for their racist ideas and beliefs.
No and no.
No one is responsible for prejudice, bigotry, or racism, but those who harbor them.
We white people, and we, alone are responsible for our racist thoughts annd beliefs. It's time to have the honesty and the guts to admit it.
1
Perhaps Mr. Trump enjoys the culture war. If so, why would he encourage a rationale debate about it?
4
I'd like to see these athletes put up or shut up. JJ Watt organized an effort that raised $30 million for hurricane relief efforts - something tangible. Protesting without a clear purpose creates the chaos we're seeing now.
1
The athletes do, in fact, contribute their time and their money to many causes. Do you?
2
Actually a lot of athletes keep in very close touch with the problems faced in their communities, and do tangible work as individuals to try to improve things.
The chaos part is created by the dramatic reaction of people who feel threatened by any public recognition o9f racial injustice. Suppose Kaepernick had connected his protest to a very specific demand - "I'm kneeling until there is a major congressional investigation of police violence." Do you suppose there would have been less hysteria? There was enormous chaos and hatred unleashed against the very clear purposes of MLK's civil rights campaigns.
1
Kaepernick has donated $700K of a $1M pledge to charitable organizations in support of his protest. Not to discount JJ Watt raising money, Kaepernick is spending his own. And, he's unemployed. This is just one example of one player. Most professional athletes donate their own time and money to their communities and causes. To not recognize this is being willfully ignorant.
1
Item: Trump places the letter 'C' by African-Americans applying for units in his properties.
Item: Trump calls members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists "very fine people".
Item: Trump refers to African-American players engaging in lawful, peaceful, constitutionally-protected civil disobedience "sons of bitches".
Item: Trump praises NASCAR, the exclusive domain of whites, for their "patriotism".
Item: Trump sends some two dozen racially-tinged tweets about the NFL while saying or doing virtually nothing about millions of Puerto Rican US citizens suffering in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.
Item: Trump's press secretary calls for the firing of an African-American sportscaster for referring to him as a white supremacist.
Trump's Empty Culture Wars? Culture wars? Really? Now who's being politically correct, Mr. Douthat?
45
NASCAR has blank fans????
1
Results from Trump's tirade - a greater than 10 fold increase in players kneeling and a greater than 10 fold increase in dissension among Americans. Trump's policy prescription - brand them SOBs and exhort the employer to fire them. Part of his appeal among his supporters was that he gets results. Some results.
14
He gets results all right. They land in his bank account. We should be much more careful to ignore his sleight of hand and see what he stole while we were distracted by his offensive and appalling behavior.
2
Much to do about really nothing.Most folks, if asked to define words like culture,enlightenment, civilization, would be hard pressed to do so.In dissing Mr. Curry, calling those who refused to stand s.o.b.'s, chief of state was merely venting. It is the liberal media, including the author,which takes off hand remarks and portrays them as something they are not: racist, intended to divide us further. President is plain spoken, blunt in a way that perhaps only a fellow New Yorker could understand. Am reminded of George, who owned a chain of burger joints, Jackson Hole on UES. One day he objected to a customer's behavior, so when the chap came to the register to pay, George said:" I don't want you no more!" No ifs, ands or buts,no equivocation.Stephen Curry rejected an invitation to come to the WH, a great honor? Trump's reply, like that of George, left no room for more than 1 interpretation: "You're disinvited!" To understand Trump, 1 must understand the milieu whence he emerged and how he made his fortune in real estate.He had to negotiate with genuine tough guys, Teamster officials, many of whom never advanced beyond grammar school, and would not hesitate to throw a rival down an elevator shaft , folks who spent years in stony lonesome on RICO charges.Those were not the kind of people who had Ph,D.'s in French Literature from Yale University! So cut The Donald some slack.He didn't get where he is today by observing verbal niceties!
1
Just venting? I disagree. This perspective allows us to accommodate all sorts of crude, barbaric behavior. Trump might want to transcend beyond his Lord of the Flies mentality.
"He was merely venting", you say.
Here's a suggestion: Look at every racist remark ever unttered out of Donald Trump's mouth. There are quite a few.
That should put his comment in clear enough context for you.
1
"...It is the liberal media, including the author..."
First time reading Mr. Douthat, perhaps?
While many might agree that the author is slowly coming to his senses regarding President Trump, he has long standing as a conservative voice on the Times.
1
Thank you, Mr. Douthat, for acknowledging as a conservative that President Trump is unfit to serve as our Commander-in-Chief, By holding his head in his hands at the UN General Assembly last week another conservative, General James Mattis, appears to agree with you.
19
Ross asks, "...can we...establish a less adversarial relationship [between the police and the inner cities], without the surge of violence that's accompanied the apparent retreat of the police in cities like...Chicago?" By stating this as a question, Douthat implies the possibility that treating American citizens as enemy aliens whose rights the police may safely ignore could help resolve the crime problem.
Well, if the only goal is to reduce violence, regardless of the effects on individual rights or the rule of law, why not lock up all young men between the ages of about 18 and 34? Studies show that males between those ages have the greatest tendency to commit acts of violence, so removing them from circulation should help make society safer.
For Douthat to juxtapose equal justice under the law and community safety as possible trade-offs strikes at the heart of the founding principles of this country. Implicitly, this way of framing the issue of crime prevention challenges the legal doctrine of innocent until proven guilty. If police abuse of citizens, through the stop and frisk policy, for example, qualifies as a legitimate approach to law enforcement, then the legal presumption of innocence ceases to define our conception of justice.
I don't really think Mr. Douthat believes that police tactics in the inner city conform to the principle of equal justice under the law. But he should make this point clear in his columns.
5
Interestingly, the woman screaming in the photo is disrespecting the flag, according to law, by wearing it. But of course that doesn't matter because people like her define what is right and wrong and everyone else is supposed to agree.
28
Perhaps it is the law in the most technical of senses. But in reality, the flag code is a set of guidelines that are unenforceable. Punishing "desecration" of the flag was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. So there is no real law governing behavior towards the flag and national anthem. Citizens can do what they wish, even if that makes you uncomfortable or angry. Too bad. The reality is, nobody gets to dictate what kneeling during the anthem signifies other than the kneeler. And the same goes for wearing the flag. I don't know for sure what you mean by "people like her", but it sure sounds nasty, prejudicial, and self-righteous.
I remember back in the 1960's when Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were interviewed on television. I believe it was Jerry Rubin that wore a shirt made from the American flag and the media blacked him out during the interview. To this day I do not understand why.
5
Racial justice, freedom of speech and religion are, first and foremost, core Constiutional issues, not merely cultural norms and social issues.
Making these issues, as well as immigration, part of a cultural war trivializes them and makes it seem ok for people to engage in superficial discussion, with stereotypes and name-calling e.g. "Lib, leftist, fascist, racist, etc. instead of rational discussion.
Arguing over social norms (e.g. how do you honor the flag, the National Anthem, the military, the first responders) is intended as a distraction and a way of dividing into tribes. It is a way of avoiding important discussions, not having them.
In our post-WWII history, with the exception of the immediate aftermath of 9/11, whenever our leaders have wrapped themselves in the flag and used that as a symbolic shield to painful discussion, the country has gone down the wrong path. It is true of the Vietnam War and the Iraq invasion and occupation.
Having lived through the Nixonian culture war against hippies, Commies, etc., it is abundantly clear what Trump is doing. He, like Nixon, is fanning the flames of hatred for his own personal benefit. Trump wants culture war. He wants division and chaos and is skillfully manipulating his loyal supporters.
18
Things were happy, you say, "until Ferguson, Mo., and Black Lives Matter and the other controversies of the late Obama years...." Are we to take it that Black Lives Matter is a controversy? That police shootings in Ferguson were a controversy? A controversy would suggest that two sides have legitimate grievances, hard to say that one could or should support police brutality. One thing you do clearly suggest, is that it all started in "the Obama years", as ever conservatives would like to tag Obama with the blame. The rise of white working class anger sure did coincide with Obama's presidency, but not because of his actions - this was entirely because Republican operatives from the very beginning pursued a strategy to delegitimize Obama and stoke racial resentment. You want bipartisan action on cultural issues? Stop trafficking in false equivalencies.
37
Well said.
My post below shared on social media re Ross D's column -- to my own surprise. This give and take of ideas is how we all get back to regular order.
" Well worth the read, Ross D is a conservative NYT columnist. I'm a NorCal liberal POC former elected and former high tech professional. I don't often agree with Ross Douthat. He's right here. Note: it's NOT about the flag.
"For hope to resurface, we need specific issues and potential compromises to re-emerge. In particular, we need a public argument clearly tethered to the two big policy questions raised by police misconduct and the broader crime and incarceration debate."
7
"...he has never cared about anything higher or nobler than himself." The blatant obviousness of this statement, fully on exhibit during the campaign, was overlooked by those who put him in the White House. This fact makes an open question of the value of democracy The destructive power of an ill informed and uneducated electorate is now on full display.
7
"These are hard questions that can be answered only gradually, through trial-and-error and with various false starts."
Wise words indeed. It's very well established that failure, errors and false starts are about the only reliable ways that people and organizations learn. Our current political culture, however, turns every error, every false start into a screed-like indictment of competence. Until we find a way to allow for error in our politicians and ourselves, we're going to be stuck.
4
The division between culture and policy was always false & manipulative. People fought for gay rights & abortion rights & gun control because the actual policies were cruel & dishonest. Of course they could not make progress without telling their stories & changing attitudes.
Instead of responding to the arguments on the merits, or to the victims as people, the Right embraced a right to ignorance. Gay people who who stood up to the violence and discrimination and women who claimed the right to make their own medical decisions were caricatured. The more ludicrous the simplifications & demonizations of the right wing media became, the better they sold. Soon, even a classroom of slaughtered schoolchildren became an occasion for standing up to the Left by making it easier for schizophrenics to get guns.
Today the left mistakes the demagogues of Fox & am radio & Drudge for the public they are exploiting. The Right rallies around a President who stands for ignorance and hatred as core principles. Culture wars have effectively replaced politics. The right wing media & the politicians are laughing all the way to the bank, and the country has no way to communicate except through the institutions that are manipulating them.
8
The two debates -- on police shooting unarmed black people and and mass incarceration -- have already been settled. By Jeff Sessions' Justice Department, which takes the extreme right view on both. Also courtesy of Trump, police will continue to receive surplus federal military equipment, turning them into frightening military units further out of touch with citizens. In case Ross hasn't noticed, those debates are over - for now and maybe forever. I was going to say until the pendulum swings the other way and the Democrats get back into power. But that is not something that any longer will necessarily or likely happen, with our James Madisonized constitution. where the loser of the popular vote wins elections. Maybe the alternate pathway leading to further and further polarization, riots, and a police state -- is likelier.
6
When Catholics go to mass the norm suggests that they sit, stand or kneel at different parts of the ceremony. When the gospel is read they stand to show respect. But at the most important part of the ritual, the consecration, they kneel to express a heightened sense of reverence. So kneeling when the national anthem is played can also be interpreted in this manner.
6
It was telling to me that when the NFL owners joined the players in kneeling that Trump, not getting the response he wanted, immediately switched to Nascar fans as exemplars of a crowd that could be counted on to elicit the desired level of umbrage. Trump simply wants to stoke outrage so that he can claim to be the keeper of the flame of liberty--even as his actions as president demonstrate precisely the opposite. We are in a boatload of trouble as a nation.
15
I suppose it's just me, but I think that wearing the flag as a garment or as a "fashion" accessory is a far greater affront to that flag and the ideals it symbolizes than an athlete taking a respectful "time out" during the anthem in order to engage in a legitimate exercise of free speech, a freedom the flag symbolizes perhaps more than any other. It appears to me that folks who "wear" the flag as part of a political protest are not only violating the traditions associated with its handling but are telling everyone who disagrees with their message to "shut up".
10
Interesting that the British routinely make clothing made out of the flag and wear it without muss fuss or to-do about it. And what is the count of nations worldwide that use political symbols such as an anthem or a flag routinely at athlectic events?
Mr. Douthat,
Thank you for you column today. I hope it is widely read and more importantly, taken to heart.
It’s odd to characterize policing and incarceration as a “cultural” issue. When I think of a “cultural” issue, I think of lifestyle choices like marriage and recreation, not people being jailed or beaten.
10
"...victory and defeat can be defined, and peace becomes a possibility."
From the moment Donald Trump was elected, liberals took the "resistance" position that victory could only be achieved by nullifying the vote by any means necessary and that peace would require unconditional surrender of the low-class "deplorables".
Yes, many Republicans unfairly did something similar to President Obama.
So let's not now speak of any liberal high roads. Until and unless liberals accept that President Trump is the lawfully elected president and that many of his supporters have legitimate grievances, there will never, ever, be peace.
And that is very unfortunate.
2
The President's acts will continue, even more so, because he and his base thrive on them. That's the stuff of magicians though, to get you to focus on one thing, while in plain sight do something else.
Let's not fall for it. Put the headlines and the 6:00 news on the stuff that really matters. From our own Decleration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
2
This kind of thing was inevitable. Trump's base largely consists of people who have been marinating in a toxic stew of right wing hate radio for the last 25 or 30 years. They feel like THEY are the aggrieved party and they're fed up to here with being confronted with people who disagree. They're not going to take it anymore.
9
In a lifetime of playing and attending various sports, I’ve observed a steady decline in respectful (even reverential) behavior while the color guard troops the flags and the anthem is sung. Used to be that men removed their NASCAR gimme hats, people stopped chatting (or, more recently, curating their lives on instagram), put their hands over their hearts and sang or at least stood silently. The very same people the President has whipped up were the ones casually disrespecting our nation’s symbols. I have greater admiration for the players and others who are consciously making a statement, however disconnected from the cause they are seeking to affect. At least they are not taking the flag and anthem for granted.
7
You're right, Ross. The presidency for Trump is a game of saying stuff for the purpose of "epater les liberals" and firming up his base. He believes in nothing but himself and his own stature with his base.
4
I am sorry, but injustice, especially injustice connected with race or poverty, is not the issue for Mr. Trump. He is a very rich man and, as is not all that unusual, a very rich man surrounded by other very rich men. His complaints regarding posture during the beginning of a sporting [entertainment] event can be translated as, “Shut up and dance.” Very rich men, some of them, do not go to events except that they expect the performers to deliver to the tastes of the rich. It would not matter if the performer were athletes, singers, prostitutes, Congresspersons, or Judges. Mr. Mnuchin expressed similar thoughts in his comments regarding, “on their own time.”
The insults pouring from the mouth of the President can generally be viewed in this way. Women, soldiers who are captured, non-Europeans, individuals with disabilities, entertainers, athletes, Senators, really everyone is supposed to perform according to the expectations of “I-alone-can-do-it.”
We have elected one of the sons of Saddam. As Mr. Trump and his family are not likely to experience injustice from the police, he has no interest in the subject.
9
Abouttwo thirds of people support tax increases on billionaires to invest in healthcare, education, and infrastructure.
But the two parties insist on fighting culture wars, though the Democrats should be winning on economics.
And mostly both sides propose non-answers to the culture wars, because they don't really want them to end.
On immigration, a wall won't solve the problem, and neither will amnesty.
The right wants to let police do anything they feel like, while the left mostly goes after individual police officers instead of systemic top down racist policy.
Abortion (I support choice) is not the cure for unintended pregnancy.
The two parties pretend to be far apart, using their fake culture wars they have no intention of solving to keep partisans at each other's throats.
They have no problem agreeing to keep third parties out of debates, sign bills that make exceptions to the bill of rights, create a military budget bigger than the next ten militaries combined, fund bailouts for global banks (not homeowners), start wars based on lies, make special tax breaks for corporations which excludes 70% of small business, etc.
Congress, media, politicians, and to a large extent the courts have been bought by the global 1%, which includes Russian and Chinese oligarchs. They twist all policy to make themselves richer, at our expense.
The fake establishment "center" has been substituted for the real middle of public opinion.
4
Tempests in teapots; raise the background noise to mask the real problems? Perhaps our next president could be more of a calming hand of reasonability. Our current president is at his "best" when fanning flames. I have little hope of the current administration doing anything of lasting positive value. Lasting value does little to feed an insatiable need for immediate gratification. Let's go help those people in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean who are in real need.
2
Somehow the violence factor of a nation awash in guns, and now concealed hand guns, gets lost as Ross states "buried seven layers deep" in the racial law enforcement controversy. We need to recognize that a police officer has a rational fear of anyone turning a gum on them. That little kid, the sweet young lady, or some one that looks a bit like a gang banger, or a professional dressed in a suit, they have access to and may be carrying a handgun.
The racial factor is at the root of the majority of these confrontations and killings, but the huge chance that firearms may be involved makes the consequences so much worse, and the law enforcement reaction so much more dire.
3
Colin Kaepernick made his point. You may not think it was crafted or clearly articulated to a specific topic, but, it was heard by a much larger audience than this column.
7
So ... In 2001, two-thirds of Americans (and more blacks than whites) described race relations as somewhat good or very good, — until, Douthat tells us, Ferguson, Mo., and Black Lives Matter controversies of the late Obama years and Trumpism sent racial optimism into a tailspin.
To which I respond ... until the proliferation of citizen smart phone video and institutional dash and body cams brought a hitherto unprecedented level of accountability into play. This began to graphically demonstrate an undercurrent of abusive practices among the chronically worst (which at times some of the rest fall to) which has always flowed beneath the otherwise reassuring surface of American law enforcement.
5
So, is there a ray of hope?
The victory of cultural warrior Roy Moore in Alabama id an existential threat to the Republican Party establishment. The political virility of the Alt Right is in sharp contrast to the legislative impotence of the Republican establishment. Trump and Moore are natural allies. Trump's support for Luther Hill was to avoid alienating Senate Republicans before the repeal vote on Obama Care. Roy Moore's strident homophobia and religious fanaticism are ominous portents for the future of American politics.
5
It's only natural for the race-baiting Donald Trump to take up arms against black athletes who exercise 1st Amendment rights. He is incapable of speaking to substantial issues, such as health care, taxation, infrastructure, global warming, diplomacy, etc. so instead he focuses on an issue such as standing for the national anthem by going on a tirade how it's an insult to the flag and to our veterans (keep in mind he chose not to serve in our military). And of course his tirade is to an all white audience in Alabama, his safety zone and a place in which he is most comfortable. Trump always capitalizes on issues that deflect from Mueller's investigation, so this issue is grist for his mill. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and Trump once again has displayed little knowledge coupled with a big mouth. That's the Trump playbook, and the closer Mueller gets to the bottom of the investigation, the more Trump will find issues to obfuscate the real issue: His hands are anything but clean regarding the Russian meddling in the election.
158
Stay focused and Resist.
NFL and NBA is a big big business. Look for no solution, unless TV viewership drops, and the revenue stream goes down. Sponsors will be the next group to watch.
A well-intentioned notion, but somewhat naive, given that the mode of engagement is one of the fundamental battles of the culture war itself. When was the last time America had "a social and cultural debate focused on the substance"? Every single "battle" is undertaken as one of "justice" vs. "bigotry", a socially poisonous premise supported by the overwhelming majority of media organs, like the NYT. The anti-rational divisiveness is demonstrably a long-standing goal of the influential radical wing of the left; the way Trump makes things seem different today is that he has the same instincts, but is using the tactic to push against the left to a degree that hasn't been seen before, and thus everything is just getting uglier.
2
I suppose the civil rights movement was radical.
Unfortunately, the more necessary the culture war, the uglier they are - That includes all of what might be considered "unnecessary" on a more localized level. The divisions have been building in earnest since at least the Gingrich takeover of congress in 1994, (with origins going back to at least Goldwater). As I and many others have pointed out, Trump(ism) is merely filling the vacuum that had been building ever since. It is too late at this point to expect anything different.
While the athletes' particular original concern of police brutality may be overridden by what many would consider to be a distraction caused by their actions at best, just taking this one facet of division as an example, we can see the problem does NOT exist in a vacuum. The USA has an issue with police brutality largely because police forces are trained very differently than how they are in countries where everyday citizens are much less likely to be armed, as a matter of necessity. In other words, we can't really have a discussion about police brutality without considering US gun laws. Take almost any other issue of current social controversy and you will find there is a bigger picture behind it that needs to be vetted properly. There is no "nice" way to do this, unfortunately.
Had we taken incremental steps to resolve specific social disputes over the last several decades, perhaps the rise of Trumpism would have been avoidable. Moore's law has also played a significant role.
14
This all reminds me of an old movie. The Tenth Victim: those who chose to make war were sent to the polar regions and ordered to pick one of two sides by lot. Game over. But with complicatios: cf. romance between the Mastroianni and Andress characters.
The NFL flap isn't cultural war.
It started with one person protesting systemic violence against a minority segment of the population - i.e., constitutional abuse of power.
It has now blown up into a constitutional hallucination because we have a president, sworn to protect the constitution, who is willing to deny citizens their right to the First Amendment. And he is aided and abetted by a chief of staff and Secretary of Defense who their entire adult lives swore to uphold the Constitution, and watched many many of their friends die to uphold and protect the Constitution.
And the president is supported and egged on by many people who are wiling to watch their own Constitutional rights erode. And these people are the ones shouting from rooftops about patriotism and love of country.
It's only and always about the Constitution. Please don't trivialize it.
25
I don't understand why this isn't a highlighted comment.
In addition to demanding greater police accountability, we also need to discuss the militarization of our police. There seems to be a viewpoint from certain white communities (certainly true in my community) that the police are always right. That is certainly a huge shift from the 60's and 70's. People of all colors should not be dying because they called for police assistance. We should not see an unarmed man running from police and then shot in the back. A person sent to a hospital because the police couldn't book him should not be dead. A female calling for assistance should not be dead. No unarmed citizen should end up dead on the street or in jail because of some minor infraction. One state wants to mandate its citizenry take a driver's course on how to behave when stopped by a cop. This clearly doesn't address the issue - it once again puts the burden on citizens rather than on the professional. No citizen should worry about being killed because a cop is unsuited for the profession.
There is something very wrong about policing today and it's not being addressed at all. Police training is focusing too much on militarization rather negotiating and calming arguments, which is the majority of their work. Blind loyalty to police no matter what is misplaced and adding to the problem.
20
Blind loyalty to the police is a symptom of a person's denial that the police are never wrong---when it comes to someone whose skin is a different color.
2
The current "culture war" is not "new"; it's a continuation of racial inequities that had never been settled fairly. Ferguson and Trayvon Martin were just catalysts that brought it back into the (white) public's consciousness.
This IS a "good" culture war, because it does have "policy implications" and "a core legal or moral question," i.e. true equality (and not just lip service) for people of color. The fact that Douthat doesn't notice these underlying issues is a perfect example of why the war is needed.
Kaepernick's protest isn't just about police misconduct; it's about the racial inequities that allow the misconduct to occur, and the fact that justice is rarely served in these cases. Kaepernick's "choice of protest" didn't "obscure" these issues; rather, white Americans like Douthat don't (or refuse to) understand and acknowledge that racism is a systemic problem. Ferguson and Martin are just symptoms of the underlying problems (which Douthat doesn't understand).
"Victory CAN be defined" in this "good" culture war: when white America acknowledges that Black Lives DO Matter; when Republicans stop sitting in silence, cynically using the hatred of birtherism and White supremacists for their own political gain; when tax policies address the widening gap of income inequality; when cities like Flint provide safe water and good schools; etc.
Victory will be won when people like Douthat understand that these things should make us all kneel like Kaepernick.
25
A depolarized nation would be a fine thing, Mr. Douthat, but it’s unattainable for now. On the day that 60% of white voters gave the keys to the kingdom to the Founding Birther, all hope for national unity was lost. We’re lucky when a protestor just takes a knee.
22
I don't agree with Mr Douthat that there are "good" and "bad" culture wars. The people who are demanding racial or sexual equality are fighting for their personal rights. They are using many forms of protests, some of them symbolic like the kneeling of black athletes. I remember the fists which were struck in the air by American Olympionites in the Sixties. A culture war is something quite different: It's the clampdown of the state on religious or racial minorities by first humiliating and insulting and then ostracizing them. In Germany a culture war, called "Kulturkampf" was waged for example by Otto von Bismarck who tried to break the power of the Catholic church. It brought us civil marriage and non-religious schools, but failed to minimize the influence of the Church which is still strong in parts of Germany. From the perspective of the persecuted minority a culture war against them is always "bad".
11
Republican President Dwight Eisenhower got 39% of the black vote in 1956.
Losing Republican Presidential candidate Richard Nixon got 32% in his loss to JFK in 1960.
Ever since 1968 though, when Republican Party strategists abandoned 'conservatism' and officially adopted a White R Us strategy and rebelled against the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the number of blacks voting Republican has approached the null set.
Today is not Trump's culture war, although he's certainly the current Republican Party's racist Master of Ceremonies.
In 2016, Trump simply reactivated the Whites R Us charcoal with giant flames to rave reviews at all-white county fairs, similar to the way Ronald Reagan did in 1980 at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi.
Today is merely the master Republican electoral strategy in full, flowering racist bloom, a record 2017 bumper crop of white supremacy only made possible by the careful tilling and fertilizing of the racist soil that has Made America Nostalgic For White Supremacy Again since 1964.
The carefully cultured Republican seeds of racist national destruction and division have fully matured into a forest of giant racist white oak trees all across the American 'heartland' and the fake Bible Belt.
The racist culture wars are the heart and ruthless soul of Greed Over People public policy, which is a completely untenable political position without adding white supremacy for political flavoring.
Republicans are great political farmers and chefs.
135
It is about Trump about Trump. Oscar Wilde said better: "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.".
But it is also about Trump supporting white supremacists because that is what the President does and the sooner we, as a country, acknowledge it. the better.
It might be a bad culture war but it does have "clear policy implications, a core legal or moral question, a place where one side can win a necessary victory or where a new consensus can be hashed out."
19
Wilde also said: "Patriotism...The virtue of the vicious", which also applies well to Trump; however, I do not believe "patriot" and "Trump" should be used in the same sentence. He is more of a cheap carnival barker/used car salesman/showman; all rolled into one.
1
To be clear, the NFL culture war, is far more interesting than this essay. This is all about a white President and black bodies; period. This is not a culture war, this is sport in the United States, and the owners are furious. When they wrote checks; other Presidents left them alone. McConnell and Ryan turned a blind eye to Trump's nomination, and walked right into the Trump cage, helplessly watching dreams of power vanish, with no way out. This is not what these teams and Republican leaders expected, or have ever experienced. Welcome to the club.
28
No, the NFL culture war is bad because it hits Trump's base in the gut. Football is the only thing they love more than hating liberals. So this is a very stupid move for Trump, enough for some to vote differently. They'll still never vote democratic, but they may go back to a safe establishment republican or even an independent. That will further split an already split party, and that's hopeful for democrats.
16
Not to say I'm right and you're wrong, but I doubt anything hits Trump in the gut as hard as losing money, which he has managed to do consistently throughout his career; then he usually cons a group of people to "invest" (as he would call it) in some "scheme" to part you with your money...all for some half-baked idea.
2
Everyone needs to stop thinking that Trump is calculating or strategic. He is actually very easy to understand. He is a narcissistic megalomaniac with no attention span or depth. He thinks he IS the flag, the national anthem and the U.S.A. Therefore anyone who disrespects the anthem gets a tongue-lashing. If that excites an audience he doesn't think it through, he doubles down. He also thinks that he IS the Republican party, so Republicans who oppose a bill, or who disapprove of anything he does, are disloyal, and he lashes out.
Anything else can be understood in the context of whether an action gets him approval or adulation or applause. If it does, he continues it, if it doesn't he ignores it as if it never happened. This is easy.
It's also easy to understand most Republicans, whose philosophy can always be boiled down to "I've got mine, too bad about you." Most of the time this aligns with Trump's interests. This is not rocket science, just greed and narcissism. McConnell may know tactics, but he isn't strategic either, and it's all about greed there, too.
85
And, like a child, he nurses grudges, resents criticism on any topic, and vows to "never forget or forgive".
3
"The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest." Henry David Thoreau
Thus, the answer isn't joining together to resist the crowd, but vigilance in avoiding becoming a member of the crowd.
Stand up! Take ownership of the differences that you as an individual can make.
16
"War" implies at least two sides that will attack the other. Why must we frame issues, even TV commercials as wars, gunfights, battles, sides attacking each other even metaphorically? Why could we not talk about cultural conversations, understanding and accepting other views, and focus on making the country a fine place to live? Why is it OK for a candidate for the Senate to brandish a revolver at a campaign rally? Do we need to perpetuate this aggressive behavior in all facets of life from medicine to drug addiction?
Any thoughts Mr. Douthat? Will you consider writing a column that does not use "war" as the form of engagement? Soon?
27
Trump conflates war and negotiation.
2
Yes, it was a malign, insipid thing for the President of the United States to do,
But it was an effective way to obscure another Presidential failure, the repeal of health care legislation that Donald Trump did not bother to learn.
24
I can agree with most of this article, especially where an issue is only worth pursuing if there is a legitimate (and plausible) policy or legal recourse for the grievance (this has alsonbeen my concern with Black Lives Matter, that a movement which started with a clear goal has now become a space including people who are angry a things you're not lilely to change, like white people wearing tradtitionally black hairdos). But this flag culture war that Trump is pushing has a more dangerous bent: he is putting pressure on citizens proving their patriotism by equating the sacrifice of the military with a flag. To be clear, nobody dies FOR A FLAG. Our military service men and women sacrifice for the maintenance of the principles that ground american society, namely the constitution, the bill of rights, our legal process, our freedoms of speech and press. Theoretically, at least, our military exists to protect our rights, including the right to say we hate the flag or the national anthem or to air our criticism in most non-violent and non-disruptive ways.
12
Thank you Claire. Indeed, a flag is a piece of cloth and the anthem a bunch of black dots on lines on a piece of paper. Neither is capable of recognizing respect or the lack of it. If people want to respect those men and women who serve in the armed forces or have given life or limb to protect this country, let then write to members of the Congress and the Senate urging them to route out the corruption in the VA, appropriate more funds for physical and mental health care for veterans, provide housing for homeless veterans and work for the end of futile foreign wars that drag on and cannot be won.
6
How does one separate the idea of "culture war" as distinct from the general idea of history: "America Will Never Move Beyond the Culture Wars" ( https://newrepublic.com/article/121627/war-soul-america-history-culture-... )? Does the phrase carry any singular insights? The concluding sentence of Snyder's essay strikes a chord:
"As a source of the culture wars, “the soul of America” is a bottomless well. For better or worse, it will never run dry."
3
Trump needs to spend less time with his thumbs and more time with his brain.
Apparently, he thought archival video of an Iran missile test was an _actual_ real time launch of a missile. Now that the photo-ops are over in the gulf states, he'd rather pick a useless fight with the NFL.
Get this guy out of here!
25
As I keep repeating ad nauseam, Trump is the ugly expression of what lies rampant below the surface. To understand what Mr. Douthat headlines "Trump's Empty Culture Wars" I recommend that everyone watch the brilliant Netflix documentary "The Culture High", which deals not only with the absurdity of cannabis illegality but exposes serious flaws in U.S. democracy: Pharma lobbyists, political influence peddling, 'them against us' mentality, Police State tactics to punish peaceful dissent, and so on.
In a sense, Trump has done his nation a great service by exposing these fault lines, particularly the degeneration of a once proud U.S. Democracy into a blatant, elitist Kleptocracy. Now comes the hard part ............
14
Here's a concrete issue that we could all get behind. Make it much more difficult to initiate a "routine" traffic stop. They're often predicated on flimsy evidence like a broken tail light. Light bulbs can be easily replaced so the whole thing can deteriorate into he-said he-said and the courts give benefit of doubt to the cops. But these stops, especially in places like Fergueson are the gateway into a legal system with pivate industry bail bondsmen and parole officers that can bankrupt a low income person. They're also gateways into accusing people of serious crimes like drug possession which can be based easily on planted evidence. It's revenue generating for the municipality which is unfair but it's also corrupting of the police. Eventually people don't trust the police because they've been corrupted. Making the routine traffic stop much harder to initiate could solve a lot of problems that stem from feelings of harassment and unfairness.
11
Upon dropping his friend off one night late, my son turned left on to the street to drive home. Suddenly, a police cruiser turned on its lights and made my son park on the side of the road. When asked why he stopped my son, the officer replied "You created an unsafe condition by turning in front of my patrol car." and then---"So, now I get to examine the interior of your car and its trunk because you have given me probably cause."
When he got home, the boy said to me "Did he really think I would have turned left if I had identified his car in the distance as a police car?" In fact, it was dark and the cop was so far away, all that could be seen were headlights. The real reason was that my son's friend lived in a "bad neighborhood".
And then, at least 2 young men instantly became "cop haters".
4
One of your better columns, however I do not think Kapernick's choice of protest obscured the substance of his concern. He was very explicit about his gesture and his position about racial injustice. He was never in the position pf a policy-maker who could respond and translate that concern into the debate and the consensus that is so needed. Responsible leaders were and are engaged in finding paths forward. However, the Culture Warrior in Chief, as you so rightly describe, opted to re-ignite the conversation and escalate the culture war for no other reason than to divert attention away from his dangerous rhetoric in foreign policy, the Russian investigation, the demise of the GOP's healthcare agenda, DACA gridlock, and overall incapacity of he and his administration to govern effectively.
8
Dotard Trump's abuses of his powers go unpunished again and again. He goes after single citizens who have the constitutional right to express their opinion, he vows total destruction of a sovereign nation. We have ceased to be a democracy, Trump has suspended the constitution not by executive order, but by his behavior, and tweet by tweet. The lack of mass protests speaks volumes: we have as a people accepted the deconstruction of our constitution.
15
Quite good piece, though as Mr. Krugman would probably certify, definitely on the "balancing" category, which harms so much the intellectual discussion in America. Trying to equate Kaepernick with Trump should be engraved as one of the best faux-balancing conclusions ever. The fact is, kneeling to the anthem is far from disrespectful, imposing the anthem every Sunday on a sports arena and linking it ideologically to the military is an authoritarian act from a majority asking to conformism if not outright collective bullying, as would anyone imposing a prayer on a dinner table knowing there are other confessions or simply skeptical and/or atheists sitting around, etc.. There is only one culprit here, only one side to this story, not two, and that should be unequivocally be clearly told by any intellectually-independent press member.
23
Inserting the anthem into the venue started in 2009.
The problem is less Donald Trump than a Republican Party radicalized to its marrow by 40+ years of culture war. As the health care fiasco of the past eight months shows, Republicans don't care about governance, real-world policy, or even a superficial concern with the public good. It's all about maximizing power by inflaming its famously low-information base.
The current crisis has been made worse by Trump's transparent and utterly nihilistic demagoguery. If you want to blame Trump instead of the American right for our current impasse, you're being rather disingenuous. He's the culmination of a cynical strategy designed by Nixon, Atwater, Rove, and Murdoch, among others. It took more than one talented carnival barker to get to current nightmare. It took a philosophical tradition entirely at ease in waging war against modernity itself. That tradition, Mr Douthat, is yours.
9
The wealth concentration power concentration loop spins all of US politics.
I'm with you Ross but I been with this idea since the Reagan years. Unfortunately the Republican Party has not. It's culture wars marched on and on using hate as their weapon of choice. This discussion should have begun long ago among Republican politicians, who unfortunately saw culture wars as a way to gain power. This has lead to Trump, which was were the road was headed all along. Maybe, Ross, you can get Fox News to go along with you and stop their obvious culture war. Ratings and power hungry Republicans more than likely won't change until they lose on both accounts.
8
The culture wars of 2017 are skirmishes compared to 1968. In many ways we are still fighting in 1968 when the country was split in half once over Viet Nam and once over Civil Rights with the divides roughly congruent as to the most active participants. The majority of the country leaned a little left on average without much inspiration in terms of race and a little right in terms of the war; nevertheless, 1968 marked the beginnings of the left's victory on both fronts. Apparently it is not common to remember how divided we were or how violent the exchanges among the active were. Black neighborhoods were in flames and Chicago was a police state. I can recall those images at will. I had hopes that President Obama was the unifying leader we needed to bury 1968 once and for all, but apparently his very presence in the White House was a reminder to the sorest losers of the Civil Rights War that they had lost, to the extent that not winning was losing. Along comes Trump whose MAGA mantra seems to stand for make America white again among the losers of 1968 and he has become their beloved leader because he seems to understand those halcyon days in their minds of "white is right" and America first, last and always. Trump owes his victory to the losers of 1968 and it is his conscious tactic to rekindle the fires of 1968 by calling them to arms in the worst of those culture wars in any way and at any time he needs to feel their love, pretty much daily.
7
I agree with most of what you say, Ross. But you did sort of leave out another important point about Kaepernick. Whether you think his form of protest was misguided or not, it happened last year, under President Obama. He is not even in the NFL this year (even though he is younger and more talented than half the league's back up quarterbacks). So there was absolutely no reason to bring him up except that Trump needed to throw more raw meet into his crowd. Simply disgusting.
7
Mr. Trump shouldn't get much credit as he reacts constantly to players kneeling. At this point it's sheer repetition of the same remarks. It's boring.
And that bodes poorly, as he neglects Puerto Rico, as if he never learned they are also American citizens. That becomes the news--and it's obvious.
Besides, The NFL locked arms in solidarity, and knelt in solidarity with players.
They aren't taking Trump's bait to get embroiled in a public brawl with him. Despite any redundant running commentary from a Twitter page!
His base might love it, but your average person moves on.
It's fall, it's football season, and stadiums are filled. Every week millions are checking their fantasy football rosters. None of the president's rants will change the enthusiasm. It's beyond just viewership on television or tailgating at stadiums. All of this reveals how out of touch the president really is.
What's apparent now is how repetitive he is.
5
Trump has succeeded in taking the so-called "reality tv" model, in which some kind of conflict or contest is created and stoked to increase suspense (and which there are usually "good" and "bad" sides), and adapted it to the real-world stage. He actually leverages his moral failings into a perverse strength, creating narratives that intentionally divide in the service of some "principle" that he scarcely understands or believes except for its service to his story line. That Trump has the entire world (not merely the NFL) along for the ride makes this version of "reality tv" one too compelling to turn off or change the channel.
3
"But in the sweep of American history..." stop there, it is a lack awareness much less grasp of that sweep that has us where we are....in this former ed sec bennett's knock on education has it right, and so we blunder on.
how many wrongs before we get a right?
starting form the top if not the beginning, p-trump is wrong to blast the players whose ignorance makes them wrong, lacking in readiness, shaky in aim and miles off the mark in firing, the coach who thinks that keeping his players off the field keeps them out of the mix is wrong, the fans who just want their football (and their tv, and their shopping), without bother are wrong (complacency gets you north korea, iraq and this last election), the media are wrong to flog the controversy without offering a shred of the history or insight.
here's a shred: since yalta when the soviets began (and the russians continue) a plan to subvert (call it what it is) our culture, will, unity and system of democratic government , the effort has been consistent...we know about the spies but we seem oblivious to the whisperers who circulate among us and the funding they can offer or channel to any effort, implanted or home grown, that will divide and erode our spirit, you could look it up.
the knee bend, ironically football's signal to stop play, to decline engagement, the free speech ruckus on our campuses and the brick throwing in our streets are worth a closer look from an angle sharper than cable sofa talk.
Thanks for at least trying to deal with the issue Kapernick protests about. Which, I am ashamed as an American to say, our president has failed to do, instead drawing us apart rather than together on this important issue.
3
Colin Kaepernick dissented in a quiet but forceful way. For over a year, he was acting almost completely alone, against widespread disapproval and at great risk to his career. (He also matched his actions with giving a million dollars to communities in need.) The broader American public was very happy to ignore the monthly or weekly killings of black people by police, but Kaepernick's silent protest was the only avenue open to him to push back against that complacency and inaction.
The deep-seated racism of a great many white Americans (far more than I would have assumed) has come roaring into view, encouraged by years of Fox News baiting and given a snarling, swaggering face in Donald Trump. White people might have been happy to think of race relations as pretty good in 2001, but sad to say, the election of a centrist black man to president seems to have made 30% or 40% of white Americans go into a tailspin. When racism is that deep and virulent, all you can do is protest and fight. And yet again, white Americans have to decide which side they will be on.
8
While Donald Trump is the leading spokesman for division and hatred, remember he has almost 100% backing by the GOP members of Congress. He is their guy. And he is the guy for a hard core of 25%-30% of voters. How is that going to change for the better?
4
Brilliant essay that gets us back to the core issue. Trouble is that Trump has made himself the core issue, on everything from race to SNL ratings. A narcissistically disordered man who's always gravitated to the camera and the sunshine of attention, Trump is now the spoiled little boy who got everything he wanted for Christmas including an I phone which gives his ego instant gratification each morning when he can't sleep. The "bad cultural wars" will continue without substance, without probing the core issues and Trump will be the center of attention, with all his flamboyant flaws and bluster, until the Congress asserts its will. Of course Congress will first have to find its heart and soul and stop the absurd partisan scrambles.
5
A surprisingly hopeful and thoughtful column in a depressing time. I appreciate your thoughts.
2
I would add that there is a crucial difference between permitted and legislated culture.
Permitted culture includes your right to worship who or what you want. Legislated culture happens when zealots want to turn their cultural beliefs into laws - think gay marriage or abortion. If you oppose either their legal status is irrelevant to your life. You are permitted to live within the bounds of your culture. If you are a proponent, the legal status is crucial. Should prohibitions against either be legislated, then your only choice to remain true to your culture is an illegal one.
Only fact-based, evidence-based, well reasoned positions found in a tiny fraction of the issues rarely seen in the cultural wars are good. This rules out ideology (eg. healthcare "free market") and religion (defined as silly ideology with a supernatural veneer). It seems the goal is not about winning or losing some "real" issue, the goal is to turn every event or debate of any serious issues into an episode of the Three Stooges. Recall Roger Ailes orchestra pit theory. Like the magician, this is used to distract and re-direct attention away from the real action (eg. oligarch tax cuts).
As bad as Trump is, intentional or not, he is lifting the very thin veil covering and hiding what has always been and is currently present: the truly ignorant and deplorable nature of a huge swath of the population.
We are not exceptional, we are just like everybody else on the planet.
The whites are not "supreme" (whatever that means), the vast majority are not exceptional, but rather are riding the coattails of the one in a million who are, the few who actually advance civilization.
Why does anyone care if some football player kneels during the anthem?
(The anthem is an old drinking song re-purposed by using some pretty awful lyrics).
We just witnessed 3 hurricanes of a century occur within a few weeks of each other!
Can we please seriously address the largest and most urgent issue facing humanity today?
2
A basically sound column. However, the shot at late-night comedy is rather absurd, considering that much of it is commentary akin to this column. It also seems to be a willful misunderstanding of satire, an essential aspect of political discourse, presumably because most of it is on the liberal side.
4
Donald Trump doesn't know what a "culture" war is since he has no culture. His idea of "culture" is any controversy that will bring him self gratification.and shine the spotlight on him. And if it doesn't he'll blame someone - usually the democrats. He is so predictably narcissistic.
3
There is no doubt that protesting during the national anthem is one of the most provocative ways for a citizen to make his or her disapproval of societal conduct known. During the Vietnam War, when students in my high school refused to stand up for it, this gesture ignited the most passionate disagreements and brought the widespread unhappiness with our government's policies into every household in my hometown. Mr. Douthat should understand that it's purpose is to get otherwise ignorant or unconcerned people to find out about the issue that causes this conduct which, in this case, is police brutality towards minority groups. Trump has taken the bait and has inadvertently publicized and widened these protests making this issue better known to the public as a result. Thanks Mr. President for bringing people's concerns about racist police behavior to the forefront.
112
I couldn't agree with your central premise more -- there are some fights worth having, and there are some that aren't.
This is a social skill, as it were, that most of us learn in adulthood, which distinguishes us from our childhood selves, which didn't always appreciate the distinction to the fullest.
Unfortunately, we have a four year old as a chief executive, no disrespect to all the well-behaved four year olds out there.
So, we as a people and a nation are held hostage to the public hissy-fits of a grown man with no more self-restraint than an unruly toddler.
Infinitely sad!
244
We will get a chance to see the supposed integrity of the mighty NFL and its highly paid group of entertainers.
How will everyone involved react when the sponsors begin to pull their dollars off the table? Think they wont? Think the NFL is forever? The National sponsors are already grumbling and the local sponsors are already cancelling. They care about selling cars, beer and cheeseburgers not social injustice. There is a dictate by most mainstream sponsors to avoid controversial programming. The NFL has turned into just that!
As for the players, I offer this sound advice...enjoy the arm holding and the fleeting support from the billionaire owners but remember this...the only color they care about is green.
32
The NFL probably already has pretty accurate demographic data about their audience, which is why the owners are supporting the players.
4
The role of the NFL in attempting to suppress science vis a vis the impact of recurrent concussions & in waging dishonest PR initiatives to persuade parents that it's safe to play football may have more of a long term impact on the demise of the NFL than this issue, especially as more & more evidence comes out indicating that when you're watching football, you're watching people's brains get damaged. Pretty much every country except ours gets along without American football. I'll bet we could, too.
2
The fact that the NFL cares only about dollars is key here. They don't own the flag, they don't own patriotism, they don't own respect for veterans, or anything else. The NFL sells car tires and beer, they're a commercial outfit with all the scruples and moral standing of Wells Fargo or Exxon.
The players get where they are through extremely hard work, routinely facing crippling injuries and very short careers, something that would not be allowed in any other job, even the military. They've got the same constitutional rights to free speech and political expression as other Americans.
Given this, the president, or anyone else in the US government has no business weighing on on the issue. This falls into the category of a labor dispute, not a national issue.
It would be good for many of the people ranting about the issue to read, carefully, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.
It's bad enough when a political party claims to own patriotism, it's utterly disgusting when a corporation tries the same stunt.
2
I have to fundamentally disagree with you that Trump is "a master, a virtuoso" of any kind of culture war.
Reagan and the rest of the modern day Republican Party were the real masters in that they were able to exploit the culture wars while giving the appearance and pretense of being about substantive issues when in fact it was always about appealing to basic levels of bigotry and hate. The "Southern Strategy", for example that sought to make it about "States Rights" when what they were really talking about was racism and the right to exploit people.
Trump on the other hand is so inept that by is oafishness he has stripped back the curtain on the Republican pretense and shown it pure and simple for what it is and always has been in modern times, a party driven by pandering to fear and greed and the worst in people rather then the best in people. In a bizarre sense, by his ineptness, he has done us a favor revealing a dirty truth about America and the Republican Party and exposing it for what it is.
365
When I was a child I asked my dad 'What is the difference between Republicans and Democrats.' He Said, "If you work for someone else you should vote for a democrat. If you own a business, vote for a republican."
I've always voted and Never voted Republican.
When Reagan and other republicans were in office, I like many others, was like the frog that was being boiled alive and not even knowing it. Then comes this administration, and everything they are doing to take this country away from The People is blatant and obvious. And it hurts.
So I agree. 45 has opened my eyes to how far this country has gone down the wrong path all these years.
Shame on me
4
You leave out one very important aspect of the police shootings: People get shot by police for one reason and one reason only: Because the officer involved is afraid the person he is confronting has a gun and is willing to use it. Guns are like cars and cell phones. Everyone has to have one. And this is what you get. An armed citizenry that is more than willing to play cops and robbers. And as long as guns are as prevalent and available as chewing gum, the problem will only get worse. Shoot first. Ask questions later is the current police policy. I understand their fear I certainly wouldn't want to be a police officer. And Congress attempt to help: legalize silencers. There, that ought to do the trick. "If the police officer or armed citizen falls in the street and society is not there to hear their cry, does it make a sound? " Sadly, the answer is NO.
163
As long as white men brandishing guns (some having already used those weapons) are arrested rather than shot and as long as it is possible for a black man sitting in a parked car with the engine running for the air conditioning to be ticketed and hounded to the point of losing not only his security clearance and $100,000 a year job but his house as well, the protests need to continue. I'm white, old and I've observed the uneven treatment all too often in my life.
10
Unfortunately you are not correct. I support the police very much, but every single profession has its bad people. The shooting of Walter Scott was egregious and the courts have agreed that it was. What has changed is that the officer was tried and found guilty. That's good. But it doesn't always happen. Justice is not perfect. I wish all police were perfect but that isn't going to happen. Most police officers hope to not have to ever pull their weapon, but every once in awhile, a bad one gets in and that officer must be stopped.
Somehow the whole part about "a well regulated militia" fell by the wayside.
It's a sad situation indeed, but highly profitable for gun manufacturers. So at least someone's happy.
1
the mention of Kaepernick's Castro T shirt without mentioning his generosity shows the bias of Mr. Douthat.
5
Trump, both emotionally and intellectually, is incapable of orchestrating the kinds of good culture conversations that we need to have in this country. From an emotional standpoint, he allows his deep prejudices to guide his talk, from an intellectual standpoint, his rant of the day is never connected to substantive policy initiatives. I attribute this emotional and intellectual breakdown to laziness---it takes discipline and intellectual curiosity to conduct a good culture conversation---none of these attributes can be found in our late night wanderer with a Diet Coke in one hand and a TV remote in the other.
96
If only I could "recommend" your comment all day!
Trump ran an incredibly disciplined Presidential campaign. He carefully thinks out tweets that serve to distract the media allowing him to do whatever he wants.
Consequently we are talking about the NFL instead of healthcare or taxes or Puerto Rico.
It is absolutely shocking that we imprison 6 times as many of our citizens as the average modern country in the world today- doubly shocking that most Americans are unaware of this- triply shocking that it started with the privatization of our prison industry.
It is doubtful this would have ever happened if white well-to-do citizens were as likely to go to prison for committing the same crimes as blacks, but given all of us pay the consequences of our criminal justice policy even if it is only the $30,000 annual expense of keeping someone in prison, one wonders if the profits generated by the prison industry aren't influencing policy.
It is horrific that this can even be considered a possibility, but there are huge profits in this industry and in America, money buys political influence.
200
This opinion piece makes sense in its broad social and cultural context, except I would argue against the too broad brush of including all cable news and reality TV and others. This is a Donald Trump phenomenon first and foremost. Other than Colin Kaepernick's ham-handed (or ham-footed), and insulting "pig-socks, which unnecessarily stir hatred rather than discourse, the protests have always been about a recently revealed and shocking use of deadly force against African-American males.
Donald Trump's inflammatory self serving distortion of these peaceful protests has stimulated divisive hatred over unity and resolution. Flag and anthem have been pitted against first amendment freedom. They are actually on the same side. As Americans, we need to recognize that. And yes, we unfortunately need to try to ignore our President.
74
It strikes me that "Colin Kaepernick’s choice of protest" may not have been merely to highlight the "big policy questions" of police misconduct and "broader crime and incarceration" disparities between white and black people in our criminal justice system. Perhaps he intended to call attention to the much broader problem of rising racial discrimination, and the recent acceptability of White Supremacy embodied by the president, that is permeating American society. Perhaps he intended to point out that the cancer of racism never really died out in the early 2000's, and that the recent Supreme Court rulings on Affirmative Action (2003 and 2014) and the Voting Rights Act (2013) only feed into the acceptability of racism. Perhaps he intended to point out the resentment that many white people felt at having a black president who didn't act like their stereotype of a black person, who didn't know his place. By focusing on a symptom, rather than race in America writ large, it is you, Mr. Douthat, that has made the unfortunate choice to obscure the issue.
94
The issues raised by Colin Kaepernick were always clear. When first interviewed he articulated his desire to draw attention to police misconduct against African Americans.
His protest was neither isolated nor lacking any "prescription for redress". There have been countless proposals put before city and state legislative bodies to reform and improve policing. They have been studied by experts, analyzed by academics and even tried as experiments in certain communities.
But Colin and his teammate Eric Reid who just explained this in an excellent piece in the Times, saw what we all are seeing, continued shootings, continued inaction by our representatives in government and continued exoneration of police, even when their shooting are caught on video.
In the most recent case in St. Louis the judge claimed that the officer didn't really intend to kill a suspect even when he said "I'm going to kill that 'N'" moments before the shooting.
The real issue isn't why didn't Colin wear a nicer tee shirt. And it's certainly not that Colin didn't point to the many sound proposals for reform. The real issue is why hasn't more been done to address this problem?
The question isn't race relations or perceptions of what is or isn't patriotic. Black Americans want and deserve the same quality of effective policing that is enjoyed by most whites. They want an end to racial profiling and a more human approach to drug treatment. What can be clearer than that?
465
For decades the left assumed that their working-class supporters were dying off. No one had to pay attention to them any more. So they began to relentlessly mock them. You're bad for eating factory-farmed meat, owning a rifle, & driving an SUV. You're bad for speaking the language of micro-aggressions, patriarchy, & cultural appropriation. You're terrible people.
You reap what you sow. There are no bad or good culture wars just winners & losers. The left is losing this fight...badly. Trump's crassness isn't surprising, isn't accidental, it's intentional, it's carefully calculated & it's working quite well. It plays perfectly to his base & they love it, so he'll keep doing it as much as possible. From a strategic & tactical standpoint, it's brilliant. It's open season on liberals & progressives. There's absolutely no downside to attacking, shaming, & embarrassing them with relentless abandon. The mainstream press can rage & shout about these tweets until there's ice on the equator...it won't change the mind of one person who voted for Trump. The more you complain the more he will do it.
A huge portion of America hates & despises what the left stands for to their very core. What progressives & their co-dependents will never be able to see is that Trump supporters revel in the non-stop drama, are galvanized when he punches back. Far from being embarrassed by his antics, they're thrilled by it & in their heart of hearts can't get enough of it. So why stop? This is payback.
64
And a huge portion of America passionately disagrees with the huge portion that hates and despises.
So where does that leave this country? Torn into pieces? If that is what Trump wants, he's got it.
12
BobSmith:
Well said.
The funny thing is that Donald Trump turned me from an establishment Republican into an old-school Democrat.
Yet, when I arrived at my new destination, no one was there except other Trump supporters.
2
Who is doing this "mocking?" You sound like an angry person who really has no reason for supporting Trump, just emotions driving you away from a perfectly position.
Factory farmed meat leads to the breeding and strengthening of pathogens among other bad things, therefore it is better not to eat it. SUVs are inefficient, thus creating more greenhouse gas emissions, therefore it is better to drive the most efficient car reasonable for your life, potentially sacrificing some size, and in the mean time try to drive less. Finally, we are all at least a little racist and minorities have suffered due to white racism for a long time; many still are. The terrible people are those who recoil and then lash out because they are told that some of their actions are harmful to others. Why do you hate people who wish to promote what is hopefully positive change?
7
Trump spent the campaign complaining about Washington and his administration so far has made the swamp wider and deeper. His real use of the culture wars is to divert the public's attention from his failure to fulfill his campaign promises.
4
It's no small coincidence that Ken Burns' documentary on Vietnam is running in the background, while our eyes are glued to the daily Gong Show in Washington.
Sometimes it takes distance to re-examine and reconcile our past behavior. Ken Burns says the Vietnam years are the wellspring of the culture wars raging today. And as much as we wanted to think that we dealt with race relations in the 70's, 80's and 90's, it is now painfully clear we did not.
If there is hope in this turmoil, it's in the realization that by finally confronting the many fictions and indignities of the last 150 years, we may finally reconcile our past and move forward, bruised but wiser.
65
I wish the still abysmal treament of African Americans in the country was just a facet of a culture war. It's not. The fact that by every marker of financial achievement African Americans are so much poorer than whites speaks volumes. Black lives still don't matter in the land of the free.
100
"But he is the president, which lends him a unique deranging influence, and he is unique as well in that unlike most culture warriors — who are usually initially idealists, however corrupted they may ultimately become — he has never cared about anything higher or nobler than himself, and so he’s never happier than when the entire country seems to be having a culture war about, well, Donald Trump."
An n excellent observation, well stated, and unfortunately true. The problem with Trump's "culture wars"--from Charlottesville to the NFL is that they always revert to how he gets "rated" by his various audiences.
Because he's demagogue, not a man of principle, what he triggers in public discourse is usually intensely manipulative rather than personally heartfelt.
Regarding the proper way to honor the flag, what does Donald Trump know about bravery, sacrifice, and service to this country as he demands that football players show respect as he defines it? I can't forget the words of the Gold Star parent Kahn, "Mr. Trump you have sacrificed nothing." Those words remain true.
For a culture war to have impact, the person leading it has to have some sort of moral authority and integrity The successful battles that have defined this country's values have been led by leaders like King or presidents like Jimmy Carter.
Also patriotism is like religion: you can't judge it by outward gestures alone any more than you can demand that people express it your way.
262
The Graham-Cassidy bill that just got tabled seems to meet much of the criteria for a class-2 item. Stirred up a thousand grievances without a single issue being clarified or potentially resolved.
That was legislation and didn't come from Trump - but he did like it. Trump is not the only master of this; he is just better at not hiding it.
56
A good first step. Now, Mr. Douthat, can you please answer your own questions with policy proposals? I would love for one of the NY opinion columnists to dig deep into an issue and stick with it. So, please Mr. Douthat, do some research, and keep going on police brutality and incarceration. You'd burnish your image, and give us liberals a break from your focus on religion -- and you might actually do some good!
111
Well first of all Ross, if Kaepernick had chosen a different form of protest he would probably have been totally ignored. The whole point of an anthem protest is that it makes a really strong statement. It also provokes a strong backlash but I don't see how you can get the attention without provoking said backlash.
From what I've seen of Kaepernick's political views he's hardly the ideal leader of a political movement; his political ideas strike me as half-baked at best.
On the other hand he does seem to be a good and thoughtful person. I read an article in the SF Chron about an event he put on designed to give young folks some very useful life advice about health & personal finances & such. The article states that he made no attempt to generate widespread mainstream publicity about this. His current silence speaks volumes. It will be interesting to see what he does next.
My other beef with you, Ross, is that you claimed that there had been a compromise about affirmative action. To me it looks more like we did away with affirmative action. Perhaps you're thinking of the voluntary efforts of certain elite colleges to maintain some semblance of various kinds of diversity in their student body composition. But my understanding is that the percentage of African Americans attending college has fallen dramatically. Because we did away with affirmative action.
127
So, Jack, my beef with "taking a knee" is now it's a thing. Like "God Bless America" at baseball games and the anthem at all sporting events, it's something of a very particular moment that can now never be stopped. Already it's become kitsch with all sorts and kinds of people appropriating it with meanings far afield from it's original context and meaning. Soon, teen fashion models will sport their new attire "taking a knee." My solution is to end the playing of patriotic music at sporting events. Why do we even do this? We don't do it when a movie begins, or when the band is about to rev up the tunes. We only do it at sporting events as if that's the beginning of some civic religious act that requires an anthem. Let's stop the madness - no more anthems!!!
7
This is a rational and well-written column that encapsulates the problem of having a race-baiting president elected in part as a reaction to the previous election of an African-American president.
Those on the right who condemn the players who kneel would be wise to understand that politically incorrect acts of free speech are protected under our Constitution.
Those who condemn who are of a certain age can always show their patriotism by volunteering for our armed services.
236
A whole lot of problems the US is having right now would end pretty quickly if the draft was reinstated, especially if the probability of being drafted was skewed proportional to family income.
4
Nah, instead they will swill beer at NFL games and pretend to be fake patriots. How many vets have responded positively? Lots. They have been hurt or killed for our freedom- incl (as he has acknowledged) CK's freedom to protest POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST PEOPLE OF COLOR- he is not disrespecting the flag. Willful stupidity by trump and his supporters to confuse this issue. My dad was a vet, my brother ex NFL- this is absurd
1
Trump spent nearly 2 years daily tearing down America's image and achievements, its "swamp;"defying its laws, calling for violence, yet no one declared him to be ungrateful for his wealth or American opportunities. His remarks that "fine people" joined neo-Nazis carrying clubs, guns and Nazi flags, chanting "blood and soil" (we will spill your blood and take your land)--a slogan that bears the full-throated threat of violence against the people--to protest the removal of statues erected as shrines of white supremacy drew no retorts of his being “ungrateful.”
Yet black athletes who play a game which causes their brains to explode should be grateful for the millions earned in NFL careers that average 3.3 years. The entire terms of a protest were changed when Trump demanded team owners "fire" the "sons of bitches" for kneeling in silence! To protest injustice. He demanded a new rule to restrict a freedom the league supports. Is speech more dangerous than guns?
In the latest imbroglio, some NFL players have respectfully kneeled in silence during the playing of the national anthem. These players have not disrupted the anthem's performance. Their protest is silent. Then why all the noise, especially from the President?
(Part 2 below.)
422
(Part 2.)
Because the flag is an easy excuse for exhibiting a bully's bravery--a demand for obedience to injustice. Kneeling is too loud a gesture. Too much for America to become woke to its contemporary treatment of black lives and other lives.
The players courage is spoiling the narrative not of white privilege, but the demand for minorities to be obedient and submissive in the face of injustice. The protests are threatening the authority that supports injustice! Courage is turned into something ugly when athletes respectfully protest police violence by contrast to the meaning of the anthem and the flag.
Trump is demanding America's institutions support the authority of injustice--he's looking for good people to be allies with immoral authority. (Along side Nazi chants of "blood and soil.") Fans who say it is disrespectful ignore the athletes are calling attention to the highest standards of the flag--the standards of liberty and justice for all that the flag represents--as they kneel, because in many communities there is a persistent pattern of denying both liberty and justice. The debate is now whites telling black athletes where, when, how, and why they can protest—asserting authority over freedoms protected by the flag.
So calling out the crime is booed. Banished as unpatriotic. The accusation is made worst than the sin.
218
Thank you for this rational and succinct explanation.
8
To all: thanks for reading, replies. Always note any struggle over conditions is also a fight over legitimacy of the authority which established those conditions. In modern politics, the legitimacy of the authority is often a cultural narrative. That narrative defines protesters "place" and "face:" "ungrateful," "not the best way," "insults veterans and our military," a barrage of attacks that completely ignore freedoms and injustice!
Power will always protect its authority first. By guns or narratives. It will demand control and submission; it will divide the world into good and bad. Power seeks to preserve itself for its own sake, and as Frederick Douglass said:
"It is not within the power of unaided human nature to persevere in pitying a people who are insensible to their own wrongs and indifferent to the attainment of their own rights. . .
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
4
Your artcle, Ross, is well balanced.
Greater accountability about the use of deadly force is a valuable commodity in a free and democratic society. Likewise, the inroads made by police chiefs and thier forces in places like Dallas, TX where law enforcement officers are trained to de-escalate dangerous situations, is essential.
Perceptions on alll sides change when constructive attempts at reconciliation are made.
40
Joe: justice in the wake of a shooting is not a "commodity." But you have a point: justice is for sale.
3
This is another brilliant column by Douthat, who has the rare talent of being able to stay focused on the important issues. Trump and the other company that Douthat names have managed to distract most people from what matters. People are arguing about a petty issues and slinging insults back and forth. The media and other commentators need to lift themselves out of the mud and show some integrity.
40
I think you're going to be in for a big surprise with the Trump/NFL issue. Trump has a good instinctive awareness of what is important to working Americans and among these is a strong gut-level nostalgic support for the symbols and icons of the United States of America. In fact, he probably understands this better than any person in politics today.
Trump has hit a nerve on this issue and this will become more and more apparent over the next month or so. NFL attendance is already down and even television viewership is off. There are movements developing to stop taxpayer subsidies to the NFL and a boycott of NFL advertisers is beginning to take form. They will be inundated with calls and emails beginning this week.
While the NFL protesters may have a valid point on some issues, refusing to salute the flag, respect the National Anthem and so on is a particularly bad way to express that. Even the most avid sports fans are uneasy with it -- particularly Veterans and their families -- of whom there are a great many. Trump will eventually win this one, and in a "bigly" way.
12
Mr. Wilcox, perhaps "even the most avid sports fans are uneasy with" the growing evidence of CTE in football players and that reckoning is affecting viewership as well? To me, Trump's "flagsploitation" (great term, Ross) is an offense secondary to his bemoaning how concussion rules are ruining the game. Just another clear example of how Trump is moving our country backwards.
17
You may be right that Trump will win this one. His base will certainly eat up his jingoistic rantings. But it needs to be pointed out that when our president had a chance to serve under that flag he's so proud of, he ran away as fast as his bone spurs would allow.
Why does the base not see this?
14
You may be right about Trump grabbing a narrow, temporary "win" on this, but that only serves to reinforce the author's point.
Sure, Trump has talent as a demagogue. Lacking intellectual depth or honest curiosity, he nonetheless has the raw jackal cunning of any successful con man.
He therefore might well nudge his approval numbers up by a few points (still lower than any recent President's) and increase the number of rural, older white folks yelling nasty things at black athletes on Sunday afternoons.
But what does that accomplish for the country? Will it reduce questionable police shootings? Lower homicide rates in Chicago? Create jobs and infrastructure?
Everything this "man" does is done to serve his huge brittle ego or his bank account, or both. America needs to do better.
9
The culture war about race, always bubbling in the states of the former Confederacy, was taken national as a major aspect of the silent majority. Reagan invited the Democratic South to switch with the symbolism of beginning his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi without mentioning what had happened nearby, and with this, Republicans made white ressentiment a major part of their party. But a fruitful discussion did not ensue, because the issue was discussed in terms of dog whistles, stereotypes, and such symbols as welfare queens and Willie Horton, and the overt racism of unrepentant segregationists was condemned in public while winks and nods made clear that the condemnation was to deprive the other side of a main issue.
The worsening of race relations took new strength with the birther movement, rumors that Obama was a Muslim, and other things that added up to a denial by many Republicans of Obama's legitimacy as President, and the G.O.P.'s milking these developments for votes instead of putting them forcefully down. These happenings and others created a large boil that was just waiting for something like Ferguson to pop it.
Trump, one of the main birthers, was the ultimate expression and beneficiary of the culture war on race. Since he has no use for consistency, he goes both ways, mixing explicit racism with the usual postracial boilerplate, but his supporters know what he really means and that the boilerplate is just to throw the liberals off.
145
The problem is that culture wars have become monetized, so that our media can/do make huge profits off promoting divisiveness and 'stupider' ideas.
To wit, "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS" - Les Moonves, (bless his little heart) head of CBS, Feb. 29 2016, speaking of the GOP'er primary circus:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/les-moonves-donald-trump_us_56d52ce8...
When the information stream gets polluted/manipulated, the functions of a democracy get perverted - chaos/misinformation, portrayed as 'disruption', can overwhelm the processes of democracy's institutions.
116
The media is the message.
Culture wars are necessary even if they can be messy when they result from the clash of competing ideas. And those ideas need to be based in reality But that's not what's happening in one of the examples you give: de-incarceration.
Empirical evidence is overwhelming. It works. Yet that war still rages because one side isn't discussing ideas as much as it is doing the bidding of the for-profit prison industry. The situation is the same in the healthcare debate, in education, taxes etc...
What has changed since that time, not so long ago as you say, when both Parties could support good ideas is that one of them, more than the other, has sold it's soul to the highest bidder, 49 to 3 in the latest healthcare clash.
60
Nothing reveals us so transparently as the games we play.
Trump’s game is re-election, which requires that he hold on to his more retrograde base while expanding it with people who benefit from an economic expansion that, frankly, I think he and Republicans will get with more sensible regulation and taxes. A rising economy always is good to an incumbent party and president seeking re-election. He’ll need those ideologically marginal adherents who benefit from an abundance of jobs and the competition for skills that organically drives up wages because, hey, it’s unlikely that voters will have Hillary to kick around anymore.
Before responders seek to punish me (or Trump, for that matter) for excessive cynicism, recall that Trump’s game is more or less identical to that of just about all first-term presidents, of BOTH parties.
So, Trump’s culture wars aren’t so empty, at least not to him and those who ride his coattails.
As to their nature, I’d open by stating that a “bad” culture war is a war that refuses to acknowledge that we will not in the foreseeable future eliminate the need by humans, forget about just Americans, to form communities as distinguished from other communities, whether their basis is looking the same or worshiping (or not) the same, or law-and-order or Kumbaya, or whatever. The Upper West Side of Manhattan is every bit as culturally rigid and iconoclastic as the red clay of Georgia.
11
But an even worse war is one that takes that need too far and refuses to acknowledge that a large, populous and highly diverse nation must embrace compromise-based values, as distinct from any single community. So, a “good” culture war is one that seeks greater inclusiveness on central issues, while accepting that inevitably there will be differences at less-than-national levels. For “good” cultural wars to be won, progressive cultural values inevitably will result. But I’d guess that Ross might disagree with me on that definition of a “good” culture war, despite the smoke and haze he threw up about legal grounding that obscures his religious motivations.
Ross demonizes Trump as being supportive of excessive tribalism on NON-progressive lines. I find that argument uncompelling. For over forty years of public life Trump has made numerous statements that make clear that he couldn’t care less about sexual identity, isn’t a racist merely because he doesn’t think much about race, isn’t particularly religious regardless of the camouflage he’s needed to adopt to appeal to his base, has supported Roe, and even believes that people shouldn’t lose economic lifelines such as Social Security and Medicare. He’d be a natural for “good” culture wars if not for the base he needs to cultivate at least through 3 November 2020.
Imagine how culturally progressive he’d be once he no longer needed to cultivate that base. Maybe that’s why Ross detests him so intensely.
6
Rick: Trump continued to insist the Central Park Five were guilty after evidence was discovered proving their innocence.
Ross, and other intelligent conservatives detest Trump for the same reasons liberals detest Trump:
We know a dirt bag when we see and hear one.
549
Why does he HAVE to cultivate that base? There are far more votes outside of it. And why is cultivating THAT base when/if he doesn't really share their opinions, any less offensive then what he sneers at as "political correctness"? Pushing that agenda when you don't really back it is a whole new sort of sickness.
47
We first need a national policy on police use of force continuum that compels police to use deescalation tactics before using force in cases where neither the police officer nor any public person is in immediate danger of harm. The assessment of harm also has to moved from in the police officers mind to a reasonable outside observer. There also need to be much stricter limits on the use of deadly force and Tasers need to be included in that since they have caused many deaths.
Violence should be the last resort of police but all too often, it is the first response when their commands aren't being followed.
156
Unfortunately, I do not see that happening until unarmed white people start to get killed in higher numbers. All you have to do is look at the opioid problem in this country. While the problem was mostly in the cities and in poor minority communities, the response was to put addicts in jail. Now that the opioid problem has infested white communities and higher class communities, everyone is talking about how these addicts need treatment, not jail.
5
"The assessment of harm also has to moved from in the police officers mind to a reasonable outside observer. "
So the next time a cop is facing a criminal with a handgun he should .... text a reasonable outside observer (BLM?) to assess the situation?
You have a future as a NY Times OpEd columnist.
1
No. The next time an unarmed unthreatening suspect is murdered by police they should be required that there was some legitimate threat that an outside observer would recognize. The idea that "self-defense" is a viable defense to murder even if a suspect had no weapon, isn't attacking, and has broken no laws, simply because it's not impossible for them to have had a weapon, not impossible they might have attacked, and not impossible that they might have broken some law-- is a license to kill. If someone is killed police should have to demonstrate an actual threat. Killing people on the off chance that one of them might actually be dangerous isnt policing.--It's a terror campaign.
Ross, call me old an old school liberal in this regard, but IMHO the police function as "the thin blue veneer of civilization" in our era of mounting income inequality - and thus police are asked to keep the lid secure on the cauldron of unaddressed economic grievances that our various coalitions of the bribed, in both state capitals and Washington, DC, refuse to do anything meaningful about.
Trump, like the traditional post-Nixonian conservative, uses culture war to support his financial agenda - in his instance, the personal enrichment of his family. He may do it in a fashion that is more egregious than his predecessors, but his specific dog whistles emanate from the same dark corner of the human psyche as Reagan's embrace of state's rights in Philadelphia, MS, the Willie Horton ad, etc.
However, IMHO, the crux of the authentic culture war that we're presently engaged in involves a face off between a defensible elite culture, a culture underpin by the best knowledge we possess, and the various forms of folk culture that persist across the nation. These folk cultures can be as different as the white supremacist movement, a science-denying conservative evangelical movement, and the various isolated ethnic and racial subcultures that thrive amidst the poverty of American inner cities.
Because each of these cultures rejects the primacy of a defensible elite culture, a spirit of anything goes persists - and with it, IMHO, the continued unraveling of our Union.
227
There must be, somewhere beneath the fake folk cultures, a profusion of real folk cultures that doesn't compete with elite culture but adds a form of humanity that elite culture lacks. Don't ask me what those cultures might be, but there must be something out there besides what we see now--attitudinal, libidinal, exploited, NASCARized, NRAized, turned into parodies, entertainmentized, and bullying.
10
There are two cultures in the US, one composed of those individuals, talented, ambitious, and bold enough to move away from their old home town to seek opportunity and make themselves successful, and the other composed of those too timid, lethargic, and uneducated to do anything but stay in their decaying home town and stew about how it is some "other" or evil elite that is causing their lives to slowly go downhill. Trump and the republican culture warriors have been manipulating the latter as cannon fodder for the Oligarchs that have bought and paid for them.
8
I agree that it is very difficult to be a cop in 2017. Gun ownership has soared since D.C. vs. Heller review in 2008. Open and concealed carry laws are sprouting like mushrooms. Since 2009, many states have basically dumped the mentally ill into our streets, where they live volatile and terrified lives, and opiate abuse is through the roof. Surely a national focus on police procedure, with innovations and empathy but not blame-setting, would be very much in the interest of our police forces. This is a crisis, and we should never waste a crisis; but we must listen carefully and find solutions.
4