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By the time they reach college many assume that diversity discourse exhausts political discourse, and have shockingly little to say about such perennial questions as class, war, the economy and the common good. In large part this is because of high school history curriculums, which anachronistically project the identity politics of today back onto the past, creating a distorted picture of the major forces and individuals that shaped our country. (The achievements of women’s rights movements, for instance, were real and important, but you cannot understand them if you do not first understand the founding fathers’ achievement in establishing a system of government based on the guarantee of rights.)

When young people arrive at college they are encouraged to keep this focus on themselves by student groups, faculty members and also administrators whose full-time job is to deal with — and heighten the significance of — “diversity issues.” Fox News and other conservative media outlets make great sport of mocking the “campus craziness” that surrounds such issues, and more often than not they are right to.

The media’s newfound, almost anthropological, interest in the angry white male reveals as much about the state of our liberalism as it does about this much maligned, and previously ignored, figure. A convenient liberal interpretation of the recent presidential election would have it that Mr. Trump won in large part because he managed to transform economic disadvantage into racial rage — the “whitelash” thesis. This is convenient because it sanctions a conviction of moral superiority and allows liberals to ignore what those voters said were their overriding concerns. It also encourages the fantasy that the Republican right is doomed to demographic extinction in the long run — which means liberals have only to wait for the country to fall into their laps. The surprisingly high percentage of the Latino vote that went to Mr. Trump should remind us that the longer ethnic groups are here in this country, the more politically diverse they become.

Finally, the whitelash thesis is convenient because it absolves liberals of not recognizing how their own obsession with diversity has encouraged white, rural, religious Americans to think of themselves as a disadvantaged group whose identity is being threatened or ignored. Such people are not actually reacting against the reality of our diverse America (they tend, after all, to live in homogeneous areas of the country). But they are reacting against the omnipresent rhetoric of identity, which is what they mean by “political correctness.”

93henfan wrote:In your mother **** face JSO:

The media’s newfound, almost anthropological, interest in the angry white male reveals as much about the state of our liberalism as it does about this much maligned, and previously ignored, figure. A convenient liberal interpretation of the recent presidential election would have it that Mr. Trump won in large part because he managed to transform economic disadvantage into racial rage — the “whitelash” thesis. This is convenient because it sanctions a conviction of moral superiority and allows liberals to ignore what those voters said were their overriding concerns. It also encourages the fantasy that the Republican right is doomed to demographic extinction in the long run — which means liberals have only to wait for the country to fall into their laps. The surprisingly high percentage of the Latino vote that went to Mr. Trump should remind us that the longer ethnic groups are here in this country, the more politically diverse they become.

Finally, the whitelash thesis is convenient because it absolves liberals of not recognizing how their own obsession with diversity has encouraged white, rural, religious Americans to think of themselves as a disadvantaged group whose identity is being threatened or ignored. Such people are not actually reacting against the reality of our diverse America (they tend, after all, to live in homogeneous areas of the country). But they are reacting against the omnipresent rhetoric of identity, which is what they mean by “political correctness.”

I've been saying this for years now.

In recent years American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing.

93henfan wrote:In your mother fucking face JSO:

The media’s newfound, almost anthropological, interest in the angry white male reveals as much about the state of our liberalism as it does about this much maligned, and previously ignored, figure. A convenient liberal interpretation of the recent presidential election would have it that Mr. Trump won in large part because he managed to transform economic disadvantage into racial rage — the “whitelash” thesis. This is convenient because it sanctions a conviction of moral superiority and allows liberals to ignore what those voters said were their overriding concerns. It also encourages the fantasy that the Republican right is doomed to demographic extinction in the long run — which means liberals have only to wait for the country to fall into their laps. The surprisingly high percentage of the Latino vote that went to Mr. Trump should remind us that the longer ethnic groups are here in this country, the more politically diverse they become.

Finally, the whitelash thesis is convenient because it absolves liberals of not recognizing how their own obsession with diversity has encouraged white, rural, religious Americans to think of themselves as a disadvantaged group whose identity is being threatened or ignored. Such people are not actually reacting against the reality of our diverse America (they tend, after all, to live in homogeneous areas of the country). But they are reacting against the omnipresent rhetoric of identity, which is what they mean by “political correctness.”

I've been saying this for years now.

Ibanez wrote:

93henfan wrote:In your mother **** face JSO:



I've been saying this for years now.

That was probably the best section of the article. The failure of liberals to look within is downright appalling. After the 2012 elections, the RNC said it would look inward. It would take a critical look at itself. The Democrats have gone the other direction and have lashed out (trigger warning for Ralph) at their fellow citizens. It's as if their opinion, political ideology and way of life is the only one that mattered.


For all the times that JSO tries to link Trump to Hitler, he misses the point. Liberals wanting everyone to think and act like them and resorting to violence when things don't go their way is more like the Brownshirts than anything every done or said at a Trump Rally.

GannonFan wrote:

Ibanez wrote: That was probably the best section of the article. The failure of liberals to look within is downright appalling. After the 2012 elections, the RNC said it would look inward. It would take a critical look at itself. The Democrats have gone the other direction and have lashed out (trigger warning for Ralph) at their fellow citizens. It's as if their opinion, political ideology and way of life is the only one that mattered.


For all the times that JSO tries to link Trump to Hitler, he misses the point. Liberals wanting everyone to think and act like them and resorting to violence when things don't go their way is more like the Brownshirts than anything every done or said at a Trump Rally.

Indeed, and sadly it's still continuing with many of the protests to the election and I'm sure we're going to have a pretty raucous inauguration as well. I think 89 had a good quote in another thread about college campuses - "We want everyone to look different and think the same". Diversity doesn't seem to extend to thought, and that's a big issue on the liberal side of things in today's politics.

Ibanez wrote:

GannonFan wrote:
Indeed, and sadly it's still continuing with many of the protests to the election and I'm sure we're going to have a pretty raucous inauguration as well. I think 89 had a good quote in another thread about college campuses - "We want everyone to look different and think the same". Diversity doesn't seem to extend to thought, and that's a big issue on the liberal side of things in today's politics.

I saw that quote. That perfectly sums it up. When I was in a punk band, back in college, we got called out b/c we didn't look punk. Jeans and tshirts. Our drummer made the astute remark that he didn't want to "be an individual, just like everyone else."

Ibanez wrote:

93henfan wrote:In your mother fucking face JSO:



I've been saying this for years now.

That was probably the best section of the article. The failure of liberals to look within is downright appalling. After the 2012 elections, the RNC said it would look inward. It would take a critical look at itself. The Democrats have gone the other direction and have lashed out (trigger warning for Ralph) at their fellow citizens. It's as if their opinion, political ideology and way of life is the only one that mattered.


For all the times that JSO tries to link Trump to Hitler, he misses the point. Liberals wanting everyone to think and act like them and resorting to violence when things don't go their way is more like the Brownshirts than anything every done or said at a Trump Rally.

Liberals dominate the national media (and most local media, too) — as well as Hollywood, Broadway and Silicon Valley. Red America has no choice but to listen to Blue America all the time.

And, sorry, it’s Blue America that routinely screams “Shut up” to voices it doesn’t want to hear. That’s the essence of political correctness, and not just on campus: Recall, for example, the PC condemnation of the incredibly sensitive and nuanced “red” film “American Sniper.”

When you can’t understand how your fellow Americans could make “that man” our next president, maybe it’s time you stopped assuming it hasn’t heard you, and started listening yourselves.

GannonFan wrote:
Indeed, and sadly it's still continuing with many of the protests to the election and I'm sure we're going to have a pretty raucous inauguration as well. I think 89 had a good quote in another thread about college campuses - "We want everyone to look different and think the same". Diversity doesn't seem to extend to thought, and that's a big issue on the liberal side of things in today's politics.

Conservatives complain loudest about today’s campus follies, but it is really liberals who should be angry. The big story is not that leftist professors successfully turn millions of young people into dangerous political radicals every year. It is that they have gotten students so obsessed with their personal identities that, by the time they graduate, they have much less interest in, and even less engagement with, the wider political world outside their heads.

As a teacher, I am increasingly struck by a difference between my conservative and progressive students. Contrary to the stereotype, the conservatives are far more likely to connect their engagements to a set of political ideas and principles. Young people on the left are much more inclined to say that they are engaged in politics as an X, concerned about other Xs and those issues touching on X-ness. And they are less and less comfortable with debate.

The politics of identity has done nothing but strengthen the grip of the American right on our institutions. It is the gift that keeps on taking. Now is the time for liberals to do an immediate about-face and return to articulating their core principle

Pwns wrote:https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-libera ... 1502456857

Another piece in the same theme. It's really longer that it needs to be, but it's spot on.

Conservatives complain loudest about today’s campus follies, but it is really liberals who should be angry. The big story is not that leftist professors successfully turn millions of young people into dangerous political radicals every year. It is that they have gotten students so obsessed with their personal identities that, by the time they graduate, they have much less interest in, and even less engagement with, the wider political world outside their heads.

As a teacher, I am increasingly struck by a difference between my conservative and progressive students. Contrary to the stereotype, the conservatives are far more likely to connect their engagements to a set of political ideas and principles. Young people on the left are much more inclined to say that they are engaged in politics as an X, concerned about other Xs and those issues touching on X-ness. And they are less and less comfortable with debate.

The politics of identity has done nothing but strengthen the grip of the American right on our institutions. It is the gift that keeps on taking. Now is the time for liberals to do an immediate about-face and return to articulating their core principle

kalm wrote: Doesn't sound very liberal.

I've noticed in interviews lately a push by some "libertatian" types to defend "classical liberalsim" and define the college campus/identity types as progressives.

Which doesn't seem very progressive.

Labels...

Chizzang wrote:My strong distaste for "Progressives" and Campus Social Justice
is probably the closest thing I can think of in my world that would be a mirror
to a normal healthy faithful person and their relation ship with Televangelism

Here's why I say this:
Progressives and Campus militants HIJACK common sense Liberalism and derail it at high speed
The ensuing jumbled train wreck is then called "Liberal"

Televangelism HIJACKS common religion and does that same thing
and the wreckage is called Religion

kalm wrote:

Chizzang wrote:My strong distaste for "Progressives" and Campus Social Justice
is probably the closest thing I can think of in my world that would be a mirror
to a normal healthy faithful person and their relation ship with Televangelism

Here's why I say this:
Progressives and Campus militants HIJACK common sense Liberalism and derail it at high speed
The ensuing jumbled train wreck is then called "Liberal"

Televangelism HIJACKS common religion and does that same thing
and the wreckage is called Religion

The campus militants self identify as progressive or, in the case of the brave ones, the co-opted term...liberal. The right wingers also define them as such. They are neither.

The fundies (way better descriptor than evangelists who can be positive), self identify as Christian's or followers of Jebus. Smarmy, smug pricks such as you and I do the same. They are neither.

kalm wrote:

Pwns wrote:https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-libera ... 1502456857

Another piece in the same theme. It's really longer that it needs to be, but it's spot on.

Doesn't sound very liberal.

I've noticed in interviews lately a push by some "libertatian" types to defend "classical liberalsim" and define the college campus/identity types as progressives.

Which doesn't seem very progressive.

Labels...

kalm wrote:
The campus militants self identify as progressive or, in the case of the brave ones, the co-opted term...liberal. The right wingers also define them as such. They are neither.

The fundies (way better descriptor than evangelists who can be positive), self identify as Christian's or followers of Jebus. Smarmy, smug pricks such as you and I do the same. They are neither.

JohnStOnge wrote:All other things aside, the "Identity" thing is not what sunk Hillary Clinton. You are talking about a candidate who made a horrible decision a few years prior in deciding to have a private e mail server. As a result she spent much of the campaign under FBI investigation then had that issue re-surface shortly before election day.

I mean just think about it. A major Party candidate under FBI investigation for possibly mishandling classified information. It was a totally unprecedented scenario.

Had Obama been able to run for a third term he would've blown Trump out worse than he blew Romney and McCain out.

It wasn't the "identity" thing that defeated Clinton. It was other aspects of her situation.