New Republic’s race-baiting of Scott Walker just a 2016 warm up
White Liberals bashing White Republicans for being White is an intellectual cheap traffic trick we will see a lot of in 2016.
Many people were taken by surprise by the rather harsh treatment of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) dished out by The New Republic in its cover story this week. (See featured image.)
John Hinderaker hits the nail on the head: Walker is being smeared as a potential 2016 GOP nominee in the worst way possible by The New Republic. The Left is now using the mere fact of someone being “white” or “conservative” as analogous to racism.
What we see here is one more attempt to convince voters that it is “racist” to be a conservative. Governor Walker has turned a state deficit into a surplus, lowered taxes, reformed education, and returned power to the people rather than corrupt, coercive public sector unions. What on Earth is “racist” about that? Nothing, of course. People of all races benefit from clean, efficient government and lower taxes.
I often hear it said that people are intimidated because they are afraid of being called “racists.” Can this possibly be true? One wouldn’t think so. At least 99% of the time, the Democrats’ charges of “racism” relate to matters that have nothing whatever to do with race. That being the case, the Democrats’ claims should be met with scorn, derision, contempt, laughter. Their huffing and puffing about race is obviously a symptom of a party that is intellectually bankrupt and morally depraved. It is time to punch back twice as hard.
Despite the headline, the topics of racial strife or Walker’s “whiteness” are barely mentioned throughout the TNR piece. The piece collection of interviews with Wisconsin political players who have either a strong like or dislike of Gov. Walker. It is “guilt-by-association and anecdote” of the worst order.
TNR’s Alec MacGillis discusses the same type of urban flight of the middle class from urban Milwaukee as has happened in every single large city across the United States since the 1970s. The red/blue map of Milwaukee versus its outlying counties is not much different than Atlanta, Philadelphia or Austin. This has nothing to do with Walker being “white.” It is a national trend that has always been in an ebb and flow.
Furthermore, a landmark Pew survey came out just last week illustrating that all of America has become much more polarized since the end of the 1990s.
Viewed broadly, the results of the Pew survey suggest that the two political parties are increasingly becoming two entirely different nations — and warring nations at that. Politics has become personal, and vice versa. Common ground in either of those spheres looks like a quaint relic of the past.
Walker’s “whiteness” has nothing to do with his electoral win any more than Ted Cruz’s “Hispanicness” vaulted him into the Senate.
Touching the electrifying rail of racial politics and imposing it on Scott Walker seems nothing more than a stunt by TNR’s new leadership. TNR has always been left-of-center, but its new publisher — Chris Hughes — has much more invested in Democratic politics than his predecessors. Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook, is now bankrolling his husband’s campaign to capture a Congressional district in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Ironically, Hughes claimed he wanted TNR to get back to basics when he took the helm last year.
The journalism in these pages will strive to be free of party ideology or partisan bias, although it will showcase passionate writing and will continue to wrestle with the primary questions about our society. Our purpose is not simply to tell interesting stories, but to always ask why these stories matter and tie their reporting back to our readers. We hope to discern the hidden patterns, to connect the disparate facts, and to find the deeper meaning, a layer of understanding beyond the daily headlines.
Yet the Walker hit piece is personal, hyperbolic, mean-spirited and misleading.
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Comments
Here’s reality:
The Collective is the home of racism in modern America. THEY are the only people who support racial discrimination in law, regulation, and policy.
THEY are the ones who knee-jerk to counting faces for their melanin content, and surnames for their “racial identity”.
THEY are the ones keeping the racial dividesssssss alive and suppurating.
This needs to be trumpeted and hammered. State the truth. State it HARD and EFFECTIVELY.
“Breitbart their asses…!!!” That is my war-cry.
“Breitbart their asses!” I love it!
They don’t care about melanin! After all, they gave that “coffee-colored” socialist in the white house a pass.
(coffee-colored is a description of Obama from the liberal remake of the movie Arthur if you were curious)
Modus operandi. What are left-wing ideologues to do when they lacks sufficient leverage to impose their will? This isn’t South Africa. It is not feasible to murder several million black and white Americans… Well, other than through abortion/murder… in order to consolidate capital and control. So, they remedy their impotence through progressive efforts to marginalize (e.g. denigrate individual dignity, redistributive change) their competing interests.
That said, technically they are not bigots (i.e. sanctimonious hypocrites). Their principles are selective (e.g. pro-choice).
It most certainly is feasible if the left could turn the entire US into NY or CA with regard to gun control. Obama is already talking about imitating Australia, which confiscated by force and without compensation tens of thousands of guns from its population.
With overlapping and convergent interests they could do it now; but, clearly there are significant competing interests which limit their leverage. This may change later, or perhaps sooner; but, that dynamic has not changed yet. American interests still dominate, or at least balance, the power ledger.
The irony is … well .. ironic. Scott Walker can’t change the color of his skin, so he is therefore unfit as a human being, or to try run for a public office.
And all of this from other white men.
It’s only ironic from our perspective. Their perspective is limited to exploiting differentials in order to create and exploit leverage.
That said, I wonder if they have a moral conscience, which responds to evidence of hypocrisy. Does it affect their sleep.
Are you saying he lied…?
Grasp the nettle, hold it tight, and jerk it out by the roots.
PS. Be sure to wear gloves.
Let’s have that conversation about race. We can begin with presumption by Alec MacGillis of the New Republic, that being white is somehow disqualifying in Scott Walker’s case.
Does Alec MacGillis have a racial screwdriver? Is that his only tool?
I refuse to use the term “his husband” unless it is in quotes. A man can’t have a husband, not as that term has been understood for the sum of human history.