The Bulwark's cast of contributing writers has diversified a bit and Cathy goes to great lengths to try to defang whataboutism in her article. Still, I just have to shake my head at it. The stated goal of The Bulwark, as far as I understand it, is defending Democracy by helping form and support a pro-Democracy coalition against Trumpis…
The Bulwark's cast of contributing writers has diversified a bit and Cathy goes to great lengths to try to defang whataboutism in her article. Still, I just have to shake my head at it. The stated goal of The Bulwark, as far as I understand it, is defending Democracy by helping form and support a pro-Democracy coalition against Trumpism. Its niche in this fight is helping to pull more center and center-righters more firmly into that coalition. Great, but wouldn't that goal be accomplished more easily by selling the strengths of the pro-democracy center and center-right's new coalition partners than harping on the flaws?
I don't mean that flaws should be ignored. What those 3 council members said should be called out and punished (as they are) but linking them to progressivism more generally rather than making them bad apples or even a bad subset of progressivism seems like it only serves to alienate the good parts of the progressive base (which I think is most of it) from this pro-democracy coalition while simultaneously reinforcing the biases of the right against them that have allowed so many centrists and center-righters to see their choices as fighting for democracy or fighting against a damn near demonic left which supposedly eats the blood of children, wants pure communism, a litterbox for every kindergarten student, to cancel all conservative voices with constant twitter mobs, and every other fringe to straight up fabricated story.
I would assume most anti-racists believe that we need to do more to solve our legacy race issues and think that because they think the inherent biases everyone has from living in a society that is clearly not yet colorblind (see nationwide and statewide candidates of a major party straight up pandering to racist attitudes almost openly) make being colorblind impossible without constant effort and self-examination which most people just can't, won't or don't think to do. Therefore, some nudging out of our collective ruts is required before a more colorblind society can be achieved. They'll differ on what the word nudging means in practice. That said on the political side I think most would want protections against minorities encoded in law to give a recourse against egregious discriminatory behavior. On the cultural side I am guessing most would deem simply informing a friend or acquaintance making off color remarks that they don't appreciate it and explaining why is plenty. No twitter mobs required. They'd also want to give these historically marginalized groups some space to be heard and recognized both to grant equality of *opportunity* to them and in the hope that more knowledge of their existence would foster more tolerance and that equal opportunity will help even results across groups over time and in turn weaken the siege mentality that can reinforce racial identity. I don't see how acknowledging that racial identities currently exist and have an effect on people's actions necessarily entrenches racial identity or how you could fix something without recognizing it exists. There are people that want and/or do go further but it is a fringe of the fringe that is progressives. How small must that be? As I said, I am assuming here, and I do so because I agree with that position and try to be one of those moderate anti-racists as best I can. If you think I am just refusing to see reality here then please try to correct me but I'm pretty confident I've weighed what information and experience I have as open mindedly and thoroughly as I can and I just don't see more harm in the moderate anti-racist position than good and I don't see most progressives going overboard with it.
Now I get that even if I am right the moderate progressive anti-racism position I just described could be more than what many center and center-right people would want to accommodate. It is fine with me to minimize this potential disagreement with some people in that group in the context of this fight for democracy. But it seems to me I am not being afforded the same courtesy here which is quite frustrating still even if it isn't surprising anymore. It seems that this was an opportunity to play up what the pro-democracy coalition has in common, a willingness and ability to punish bad actors in one's own coalition for example, but instead it feels like this site is still stuck thinking they need to push out progressives from the pro-democracy coalition to make room for the center-right. Oh well.
I appreciate the gentle tone of this scolding, so I'll try to respond in like spirit.
Cathy Young is one of my favorite Bulwark writers because her mind and her way with words make her work stand up on its own, so the reference to the Bulwark having "diversified a bit" its cast of writers struck me as oddly patronizing. Not surprisingly, I found her take on the issue she addressed congenial: I consider the articulate Left's focus on racial identity as the fundamental aspect of personhood and the treatment of politics as a zero-sum competition among identity groups to be mostly unconstructive. I'll confess, though, that I thought that we'd already heard enough about the LA Council brouhaha and had drawn all the lessons that were there to be drawn from it. But writers write what they want to write about, and readers who like their work read it.
To the bigger question, the need for an alliance that crosses ideological lines to save democracy is crucial enough to postpone arguments on policy differences, no matter how deeply felt. The importance of that one issue should be enough to keep us from gratuitously insulting each other, and if that isn't enough, then common courtesy should be. This is, nevertheless, an alliance in which some people will have clenched teeth, at least some of the time. Not every article can be about Trump; if it were, we'd be playing his game. Publishing an article that someone disagrees with is not the same as pushing that person out. To find that in Ms. Young's article is, I think, to look for and find something that isn't there.
The Bulwark's cast of contributing writers has diversified a bit and Cathy goes to great lengths to try to defang whataboutism in her article. Still, I just have to shake my head at it. The stated goal of The Bulwark, as far as I understand it, is defending Democracy by helping form and support a pro-Democracy coalition against Trumpism. Its niche in this fight is helping to pull more center and center-righters more firmly into that coalition. Great, but wouldn't that goal be accomplished more easily by selling the strengths of the pro-democracy center and center-right's new coalition partners than harping on the flaws?
I don't mean that flaws should be ignored. What those 3 council members said should be called out and punished (as they are) but linking them to progressivism more generally rather than making them bad apples or even a bad subset of progressivism seems like it only serves to alienate the good parts of the progressive base (which I think is most of it) from this pro-democracy coalition while simultaneously reinforcing the biases of the right against them that have allowed so many centrists and center-righters to see their choices as fighting for democracy or fighting against a damn near demonic left which supposedly eats the blood of children, wants pure communism, a litterbox for every kindergarten student, to cancel all conservative voices with constant twitter mobs, and every other fringe to straight up fabricated story.
I would assume most anti-racists believe that we need to do more to solve our legacy race issues and think that because they think the inherent biases everyone has from living in a society that is clearly not yet colorblind (see nationwide and statewide candidates of a major party straight up pandering to racist attitudes almost openly) make being colorblind impossible without constant effort and self-examination which most people just can't, won't or don't think to do. Therefore, some nudging out of our collective ruts is required before a more colorblind society can be achieved. They'll differ on what the word nudging means in practice. That said on the political side I think most would want protections against minorities encoded in law to give a recourse against egregious discriminatory behavior. On the cultural side I am guessing most would deem simply informing a friend or acquaintance making off color remarks that they don't appreciate it and explaining why is plenty. No twitter mobs required. They'd also want to give these historically marginalized groups some space to be heard and recognized both to grant equality of *opportunity* to them and in the hope that more knowledge of their existence would foster more tolerance and that equal opportunity will help even results across groups over time and in turn weaken the siege mentality that can reinforce racial identity. I don't see how acknowledging that racial identities currently exist and have an effect on people's actions necessarily entrenches racial identity or how you could fix something without recognizing it exists. There are people that want and/or do go further but it is a fringe of the fringe that is progressives. How small must that be? As I said, I am assuming here, and I do so because I agree with that position and try to be one of those moderate anti-racists as best I can. If you think I am just refusing to see reality here then please try to correct me but I'm pretty confident I've weighed what information and experience I have as open mindedly and thoroughly as I can and I just don't see more harm in the moderate anti-racist position than good and I don't see most progressives going overboard with it.
Now I get that even if I am right the moderate progressive anti-racism position I just described could be more than what many center and center-right people would want to accommodate. It is fine with me to minimize this potential disagreement with some people in that group in the context of this fight for democracy. But it seems to me I am not being afforded the same courtesy here which is quite frustrating still even if it isn't surprising anymore. It seems that this was an opportunity to play up what the pro-democracy coalition has in common, a willingness and ability to punish bad actors in one's own coalition for example, but instead it feels like this site is still stuck thinking they need to push out progressives from the pro-democracy coalition to make room for the center-right. Oh well.
I appreciate the gentle tone of this scolding, so I'll try to respond in like spirit.
Cathy Young is one of my favorite Bulwark writers because her mind and her way with words make her work stand up on its own, so the reference to the Bulwark having "diversified a bit" its cast of writers struck me as oddly patronizing. Not surprisingly, I found her take on the issue she addressed congenial: I consider the articulate Left's focus on racial identity as the fundamental aspect of personhood and the treatment of politics as a zero-sum competition among identity groups to be mostly unconstructive. I'll confess, though, that I thought that we'd already heard enough about the LA Council brouhaha and had drawn all the lessons that were there to be drawn from it. But writers write what they want to write about, and readers who like their work read it.
To the bigger question, the need for an alliance that crosses ideological lines to save democracy is crucial enough to postpone arguments on policy differences, no matter how deeply felt. The importance of that one issue should be enough to keep us from gratuitously insulting each other, and if that isn't enough, then common courtesy should be. This is, nevertheless, an alliance in which some people will have clenched teeth, at least some of the time. Not every article can be about Trump; if it were, we'd be playing his game. Publishing an article that someone disagrees with is not the same as pushing that person out. To find that in Ms. Young's article is, I think, to look for and find something that isn't there.