That is a really awful way of looking at the world. Not saying that it isn’t true for a lot of people, but it would really make you miserable.
If you can convince yourself that the other side really is trying to do what is best, you just think their methods aren’t as good as yours, then nobody has to be a bad guy.
When it’s readily apparent that the other guy really doesn’t care about what is best, then things start getting ugly.
I agree with this.
But part of what that “Strangers in their own land” pointed out is that a lot of working class (white) men don’t want help getting back on their feet, because that is humiliating. Needing that help is exactly what they have been complaining other minority groups have been doing. Money is not worth the humiliation. (At least, that’s how I remember the book; it’s been a while since I read it.) That isn’t inconsistent with your point above, but gives a fuller picture of how it affects people.
Advocates for equality and social justice are trying to remove existing hierarchies in which, for example, whites are placed above minorities, either explicitly or implicitly.
Part of the point I am trying to make, and which I think Brooks also makes, is that those advocates still often bring their own hierarchies with them. They just don’t notice them as easily.
For the equality example: there may not be those hierarchies in the final state of equality envisioned by activists. But a hierarchy does seem to exist in the process for purifying the United States of its racism. There are the people leading to the promised land of equality, and there are those who need to be led. And at least in some cases, becoming one of the people who lead seems to depend on a college education. It requires knowing the hidden effects of systematic racism in our society, or in knowing the right language to use, such as “enslaved person” instead of “slave.”
This doesn’t invalidate those efforts at equality. It doesn’t excuse people who are blindly ignorant of inequalities. And it doesn’t excuse people who magnify these aspects to try to make people angry, as some Republican politicians do. But I do think it is there, or at least potentially there.
Really? Interesting.That’s not how I feel but the sentiment is certainly expressed on this forum.
That’s because the things Replicas disagree about are things like “gay people deserve equal rights,” “white nationalism is bad,” “people shouldn’t impose their religion on others,” “racism is real and bad,” “the phrase ‘the domestic supply of infants’ isn’t something that should appear in SCOTUS decisions,” etc.
Edit to add: “everyone should be able to vote,” “global warming and dinosaurs are real,” “democracy is better than fascism.” I can go on if you want me to.
You missed this part, which might be the reason for people’s opinions you think you see
On the right, you have AM radio and Fox news, trying its best to scare everybody to make a buck. More seriously, you have anti abortion activists arguing that our society is murdering millions of babies a year.
On the left, people say words are power, and that power becomes violence. If you don’t believe that, it’s probably because you are white, or rich, or both, and have the privilege to not be threatened.
Fox News is a joke. Unfortunately, it’s a Trumpian joke, meaning it’s on us.
But the other two challenges are more serious. In light of this, how do we stay truly tolerant, which is rooted in the humility one might be wrong? On the right, that means you are sacrificing babies. And on the left, comfortably propagating racism, like the Southern moderate whites who bedeviled MLK Jr.
I am bothered by Brooks a lot mainly because of two reasons. Firstly change will always happen and the agents of change are normally those who find the status quo uncomfortable. Educated minorities who are being marginalised will have better means to deal with the marginalisation than those marginalised but at a lower rung economically so they appear forceful and louder. Just to use women as an example
More females than males are going to universities from the seventies because it empowers them (among other issues). This applies even to other groupings. Education being associated with those with a social agenda is not a happenstance. Education was their only way from marginalisation.
My second point has to do with who exactly is the bad guy. I don’t think it’s us the educated. In the 2000s between Miss Universe and The Apprentice Trump spent a lot of time engaging in reality tv and perfecting the art of reading the crowd. In 2009 when Trump leaves the Democrats and joins the Republicans one of the issues he starts doing is attacking Obama about his nationality and even after Obama’s birth certificate is released he doesn’t apologise. That’s when I started being worried that Trump was working his followers on social media for unknown agendas. Then there was that wresltemania 23 stuff that he did. In 2016 he worked on the Clinton email issue so much that he eventually won that election. in 2020 he started doubting the elction results long before the election seeding doubt in his followers minds and he eventually got some of them to storm that Capitol. He now has his own social platform as well. Underestimate Trump’s ability to manipulate the crowd at your own peril. That’s what he has being doing for the last few decades.
This original op-ed was really about American anti-Trumpers and liberals, but I think it probably could apply more broadly to other liberal countries. On that note, I noticed that in Germany this right-wing “Alternative for Germany” party (AfD) has gained ground in the polls over the years and more recently, now polling at 21% according to the article.
So what do liberal Germans do to combat the increasing popularity of a right-wing political party that their liberal policies arguably helped create? Well of course they want to ban it.
The usual left-wing rhetoric about “protecting democracy” is being rolled out, but according to my reading of AfD’s wiki page, I struggle to find policy stances that are actually anti-democratic or anti-constitution although admittedly I’m unfamiliar with Germany’s constitution. It seems more like AfD are anti-immigration, racist, and/or hateful and the canned “protecting democracy” line is just the excuse to do undemocratic things. That’s how it seems to me.
I thought Germany was done with banning political parties after what the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and also East Germany did. In any case, it certainly seems apt for this topic, leftists trying to ban political opposition while crying about saving democracy. Polling in Germany shows about 50/50 support for banning AfD. What if they’re the bad guys here?
Germany considers ban on far-Right AfD
Call to ‘defend democracy’ as party surges to 21pc in opinion polls
Germany is debating whether to ban the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as the party surges to 21 per cent in the polls, amid warnings from intelligence officials that its members are becoming increasingly extreme.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president, warned in a speech to the country’s domestic intelligence agency that “we all have it in our hands to put those who despise our democracy in their place”.
His speech at the castle where the German post-war constitution was created has widely been seen as support for a ban after Thomas Haldenwang, the domestic spy chief, warned about growing Right-wing extremist influence in the party.
Mr Haldenwang said: “We see a considerable number of protagonists in this party that spread hate against all types of minorities here in Germany.”
It comes amid warnings of the increasing influence of Björn Höcke, the leader of the AfD in the eastern state of Thuringia.
Mr Höcke, a former history teacher, is known for his Hitler-esque language – with his allies sweeping the board for European lists at the party’s conference in Magdeburg in August.
In a rare move, the respected Der Spiegel news magazine weighed into the debate with a leader titled: “Ban the enemies of the constitution!”
It warned that “the AfD has become more and more radicalised. It’s time to defend democracy with better weapons”.
The co-leader of Olaf Scholz’s ruling Social Democrats also said a ban should be considered if the AfD is categorised as a group of “proven Right-wing extremists” by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
However Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, warned that “banning parties has never actually solved political problems”.
Meanwhile, the German Institute for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation, declared last week that “the AfD have reached a degree of dangerousness that they can be banned according to the constitution”.
They warned in an analysis that the party is actively and methodically trying “to implement its racist and Right-wing extremist goals” and “shifting the limits of what can be said so that people can get used to their ethno-nationalist positions”.
Germany has a troubled history of parties being banned, with Otto von Bismarck, the country’s first chancellor, banning the Social Democrats for disloyalty to the Kaiser.
When the Nazis came to power, they banned all other parties.
The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) also banned other parties not affiliated with the ruling Socialist Unity Party.
The post-war German constitution, keen to avoid this authoritarian excess, made a party ban legally difficult. Attempts to ban the neo-nazi NPD party in 2003 and 2017 both failed at the highest court.
Volker Boehme-Nessler, a political scientist, said he does not believe the party meets the high legal hurdles for a ban.
He warned that a failed attempt would only give the AfD an additional boost in the election campaign, he told eastern German broadcaster MDR.
“You can’t simply ban a party that gets 20-30 per cent approval” in various states, he added.
Germans are evenly split on whether the party should be banned, with 47 per cent of the country in favour of a ban and 47 per cent against.
A ban is more popular in the west and among liberal Greens.
Read the wiki. Some of their positions are vile.
That being said, I do not support the banning of a political party.
Are those political parties in Germany as corrupt and dishonest as Trump and his allies?
The center of American politics has been too the right of Europe for a long time. Anti trumpism is not about policy, it is about recognizing Trump is a shitty person and dangerous person as POTUS.
People (judges, other government officials) across very broad range of political views have stood up against Trump. Trumpism is not a political position, it is just blind support for single person.
Liberal are the bad guys only because Trump supporters are snowflakes that can’t handle their crooked leader being criticized.
Racist German ethno-nationalists.
No surprise they’re against feminism and LGBT people in general, and climate change deniers. Every country has their idiots.
Just to play devil’s advocate, a large portion of Trump’s supporters feel that he gets them while most other politicians come across as out of touch with the everyman’s struggle. A politician harping on climate change doesn’t really resonate with people who are seeing there job outsourced and that the jobs (and lifestyle) that their community had for generations are disappearing.
Then along comes Trump with his uber-nationalism and says we are going to nuke chyyna and bring back every last job. Whether or not his plan makes sense, this resonates with a lot of people.
Isn’t that basically the backstory of every dictator? Fascist or communist - it’s the same story.
He is just treating them like chumps.
Not saying I disagree, I think the only ism Trump believes in is Trumpism. I am trying to see it from their viewpoint.
If only a more centrist politician could make the middle class feel like they matter…
I can’t imagine seeing a (supposed) billionaire fly his private jet cross-country to attend his various legal hearings, then fly his private jet home to his country club, and thinking “he’s just like me, I should give him money!”
I can’t imagine a lot of things that Trump supporters do apparently seem to think. That’s probably one of the less strange things, actually.
If you bought his limited edition NFT you would understand
Shit I missed it. How many Trump steaks for an NFT? Or I have some old Trump Airline tickets around here…
He appeals to their baser selves. Like a bartender setting up outside an AA meeting offering free drinks. “Come back to your drinking ways. Have one on me and remember what it feels like.” Simply believe Trump, believe the GOP and all your problems are caused by others.
You are right the last 50 years of American Corporate Capitalism has stripped people of their identity, primarily rural people. Their job, their land, their community, the media they consume, even for some their church. They cannot keep up with the change. They are left behind desiring some of the new things globalism offers, and missing those old things they valued were stripped away. And they have been told to be individuals and not trust the government all their lives so they don’t. They don’t demand from this global society and its representative the federal government, a recompense for what they lost when their local society was destroyed.