tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post8987200715007686080..comments2024-03-27T19:01:21.504-06:00Comments on Enik Rising: What's up with the Right?Seth Maskethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-39557580624652476012009-09-10T21:41:46.907-06:002009-09-10T21:41:46.907-06:00Oops--I meant different colored "threads,&quo...Oops--I meant different colored "threads," not threats. But a pretty nice Freudian slip.<br /><br />-NWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-56005611893611614062009-09-10T21:40:59.266-06:002009-09-10T21:40:59.266-06:00Ok, a couple quick additions to this conversation:...Ok, a couple quick additions to this conversation:<br /><br />1) Racism, sexism, homophobia and classism aren't easily separable, like different colored threats. They fundamentally intersect in U.S. historical and political development: homophobia is part of hierarchically gendered worldview; racism is ultra-intertwined with classism (and vice versa), and they all are effectively produced through the dominant categories (white, male, heterosexual--oh, and Christian) that define the related "others" anyway. So we can't just say the right is both racist and sexist, etc. as if they could reasonably be just one or the other. If you hold tight to American tradition, you're mostly going to see diversions from the entire package as threatening. Racism is ALWAYS going to be at least a subtly operative subtext within the right's critique of a black president, as would sexism if it were H. Clinton. You can't fully isolate it out. It will rear it's head subtextually in the more threatening moments.<br /><br />2. Michael Oakeshott on the conservative disposition: [It] is “averse to change, which appears always, in the first place, as deprivation...For change is a threat to identity, and every change is an emblem of extinction.” The conservative disposition is, in essence, a fear-mongering OCD disposition. Unless you're talking about war, which is oddly comforting.<br /><br />NancyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-70470302754334080332009-09-09T16:17:12.735-06:002009-09-09T16:17:12.735-06:00I guess, now that you're talking about elites ...I guess, now that you're talking about elites manipulating the message and the messenger, I'd want to hear more about what you mean when you say "the right". If we're talking about elites, that's one thing. If we're talking about movement conservatives, that's another. And if we're talking about the most reactionary elements of the electorate, that's still a third thing. I think each of these things grow in size, from first to third. And I think the role that racism, sexism, and homophobia play as a motive force grows similarly, though I have precisely no good evidence to prove that.<br /><br />In other words, I think that many elites on the right are happy to leverage social issues and/or the culture wars for political gain. These same people are most likely perfectly comfortable with gays and lesbians, Jews, African-Americans, etc. Dick Cheney is only one example, but he'll serve us in a pinch. From there, we move to members of the movement, people who give money to hard-core conservative causes. These people, I imagine, are often more tolerant of overt racism, sexism, and homophobia. And, whether because they don't know any racial or ethnic minorities -- or homosexuals for that matter -- or because their politics are fueled by hate, they're also more likely than the elites to occupy the most reactionary social or cultural ground. Finally, we have the rank-and-file Southern winger. These people, I think, have given us ample evidence that they despise brown people, teh gayz, and everyone else who doesn't fit their cartoon version of what constitutes a good American. <br /><br />Is that fair, do you think? Even though we could obviously keep splitting the categories into even narrower sub-sections of "the right"?arihttp://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-49997356787671848082009-09-09T11:01:57.544-06:002009-09-09T11:01:57.544-06:00They'd be calling her a feminazi and lesbian. ...<i>They'd be calling her a feminazi and lesbian. They'd be carrying huge puppet Vince Fosters to town halls. But most of all, they'd be calling her an emasculating bitch.</i><br /><br />I think this is right. I also think that if a pre-scandal John Edwards had gotten elected and were pushing for health reform today, the right would be calling him an effeminate socialist class traitor whose judgment was compromised by his love for his dying wife. And then once the scandal broke... well, we've seen that one before.<br /><br />Now, we can take all this as evidence that the right is not only racist and sexist, but also homophobic and classist and a few other things. Or we could say that deep-seated anxieties are causing them to lash out and grab any reed they can find. Or, probably more accurately, we could say that opinion-making elites recognize these anxieties and are using whatever arguments they can come up with to get the anxious people motivated.<br /><br />Again, I'm not saying that there's no racism on the right. I just think it's incidental to what's actually going on right now.Seth Maskethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-27793080250839763172009-09-08T20:54:14.080-06:002009-09-08T20:54:14.080-06:00Do you think the right would be behaving better if...<em>Do you think the right would be behaving better if Hillary Clinton were president right now?</em><br /><br />Better, no. Differently, yes. They'd be calling her a feminazi and lesbian. They'd be carrying huge puppet Vince Fosters to town halls. But most of all, they'd be calling her an emasculating bitch. Which is to say, sure, the right is both sexist and racist. I'm happy to be expansive in my critique. <br /><br />And again, my point is that there were many counties in the South where McCain did demonstrably better than Bush and Obama demonstrably worse than Kerry. Race matters, is all, which isn't to say that the research you point to isn't interesting or potentially important. I've actually passed your post on to a few people, as I quite like the stuff contained therein.arihttp://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-11811790997817329552009-09-08T16:49:19.368-06:002009-09-08T16:49:19.368-06:00Sorry, Ari, for putting words in your mouth. That...Sorry, Ari, for putting words in your mouth. That seemed to me to be the gist of what you were saying, but I apologize for inferring too much.<br /><br />To answer your earlier question ("How do you explain the voting maps?"), I can explain the 2008 vote with the 2004 vote. You can explain about 95% of the 2008 vote distribution just by looking at how the vote went down in 2004, an election that featured two (very) white candidates.<br /><br />Now, of course, race is folded into that equation somewhat. For the past 40 years or so, the Democrats have staked out a pro-civil rights position and the Republicans have often opposed that. And the South has become a safe place for Republicans while the Northeast has become safe for Democrats. So all this is intertwined somewhat. If you're a Southern racist, you're probably voting Republican these days. No shock there.<br /><br />The evidence suggesting a race effect in last year's election has actually been pretty modest. Some polls show that Obama's race actually helped him on balance. Another <a href="http://www.themonkeycage.org/2009/03/how_much_did_racial_prejudice.html" rel="nofollow">calculation</a> I've seen is that Obama suffered about one percentage point because of his race. Now, that's obviously not nothing, and it could flip a really close election, but most of what I've seen suggests that an overwhelming percentage of Americans would have voted the exact same way last year if the Democratic nominee had been a white guy named Barry Dunham.<br /><br />My point in this post was not that there was no racial component to last year's vote or this year's animus. It's just that you can largely explain these phenomena without reference to race.<br /><br />Here's another way to phrase it: Do you think the right would be behaving better if Hillary Clinton were president right now?Seth Maskethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-18612829960274882342009-09-08T12:40:19.383-06:002009-09-08T12:40:19.383-06:00Because I feel like we're arguing, and I don&#...Because I feel like we're arguing, and I don't much like arguing with friends, I just want to say that I think your former advisor's research is interesting. And I'm happy to grant that what he's found may help explain why conservatives are having such visceral reactions to President Obama. But your statement re. race, which I quoted above, strikes me as both an overblown and insufficient explanation for what we're seeing from the right wing. And by taking race out of the equation, you're exculpating a lot of people who really are racists.<br /><br />Now I'll stfu. Sorry for serial commenting.arihttp://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-57202668600878667732009-09-08T12:35:40.732-06:002009-09-08T12:35:40.732-06:00Seriously, Seth, your contention is that race does...Seriously, Seth, your contention is that race doesn't matter in this case? Or that it doesn't matter much? I'm asking because I just want to make sure I've got this clear. Which is to say, I'm truly not trying to be a jerk.<br /><br />And by the way, I don't think the maps I cited above are dispositive. But I do think they're suggestive. And more than that, I want to know how people explain the voting patterns in the most recent election without talking about race. That, in sum, is my question.arihttp://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-73290513097917720412009-09-08T12:31:43.570-06:002009-09-08T12:31:43.570-06:00I didn't say that people who don't like Ob...I didn't say that people who don't like Obama are racists. I said that this statement<br /><br /><em>Yes, it's possible there's some racial animus folded into all this, but you can explain much of it without reference to race.</em><br /><br />seems dubious to me. <br /><br />So, a couple of things. First, there's no reason to put words in my mouth. Second, the anti-Clinton rhetoric was poisonous, to be sure, but the voting patterns were very different. You know that. <br /><br />So, what about this?<br /><br /><em>Just because there is a correlation between the county-level 2008 presidential vote and the ownership of slaves in 1850 does not mean that they are motivated by the same thing.</em><br /><br />Do you have another explanation beyond race? If so, I'm incredibly eager to hear it. If not, socio-biology continues not to sound very compelling to me, as compared, again, to culture.arihttp://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-19188193887758871942009-09-07T21:05:52.592-06:002009-09-07T21:05:52.592-06:00Ever heard of the ecological inference fallacy? I...Ever heard of the ecological inference fallacy? In this case, multiply it by 160 years. Just because there is a correlation between the county-level 2008 presidential vote and the ownership of slaves in 1850 does not mean that they are motivated by the same thing.<br /><br />And even to the extent they are, it's one thing to say that racists don't like Obama. It's a total jump to say that those who don't like Obama are racists.<br /><br />Besides, while the anti-Obama folks are pretty crazed, they're really not much more crazed than the anti-Clinton folks were in the 90s. Remember them? They called him a murderer, they called his wife a lesbian, and then they impeached him. A lot of things motivated that, but I don't think race was one of them.Seth Maskethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17178036016555722068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-56289351357315038282009-09-07T18:48:20.166-06:002009-09-07T18:48:20.166-06:00Which is to say, how do you explain the voting map...Which is to say, how do you explain the voting maps? The ones where Southerners voted Republican in higher numbers than people in other parts of the country? The ones that overlaid so well with old maps of concentrations of slave ownership? I think cultural explanations, rather than socio-biological ones, are your friend here.arihttp://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412583847145043520.post-7678676213189134172009-09-07T18:45:14.600-06:002009-09-07T18:45:14.600-06:00Yes, it's possible there's some racial ani...<em>Yes, it's possible there's some racial animus folded into all this, but you can explain much of it without reference to race.</em><br /><br />Not really, no.arihttp://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com