Ben Domanech: Are Republicans For Freedom Or White Identity Politics?

[Winehole23]

Dismiss Donald Trump if you will, but tonight in Alabama he is expected to draw 35,000 people (http://vlt.tc/229n). Try to do that with any other presidential candidate. The phenomenon is real, and the danger Trump presents for the Republican Party is real. Even without winning the GOP nomination, which is still a remote possibility at best, his statements have tapped into a widespread anger that has the potential to transform the Republican Party in significant ways. Ultimately, Trump presents a choice for the Republican Party about which path to follow: a path toward a coalition that is broad, classically liberal, and consistent with the party’s history, or a path toward a coalition that is reduced to the narrow interests of identity politics for white people.



For decades, Republicans have held to the idea that they are unified by a fusionist ideological coalition with a shared belief in limited government, while the Democratic Party was animated by identity politics for the various member groups of its coalition. This belief has been bolstered in the era of President Obama (https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-clinton-machine-is-alive/), which has seen the Democratic Party stress identity politics narratives about the war on this or that group of Americans, even as they adopted a more corporatist attitude toward Wall Street and big business (leading inevitably to their own populist problem in Sen. Bernie Sanders). What Trump represents is the potential for a significant shift in the Republican Party toward white identity politics for the American right, and toward a coalition more in keeping with the European right than with the American.


What Trump represents is the potential for a significant shift in the Republican Party toward white identity politics for the American right.


“Identity politics for white people” is not the same thing as “racism”, nor are the people who advocate for it necessarily racist, though of course the categories overlap. In fact, white identity politics was at one point the underlying trend for the majoritarian American cultural mainstream. But since the late 1960s, it has been transitioning in fits and starts into something more insular and distinct. Now, half a century later, the Trump moment very much illuminates its function as one interest group among many, as opposed to the background context for everything the nation does. The white American with the high-school education who works at the duck-feed factory in northern Indiana has as much right to advance his interest as anyone else. But that interest is now being redefined in very narrow terms, in opposition to the interests of other ethnic groups, and in a marked departure from the expansive view of the freedoms of a common humanity advanced by the Founders and Abraham Lincoln.


http://thefederalist.com/2015/08/21/are-republicans-for-freedom-or-white-identity-politics/

[Winehole23]

Trump is very unlikely to prevail. His “deport them all now” view, while held by roughly 20 percent of the American people depending on which poll you read, has limited popularity. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/184577/favor-path-citizenship-illegal-immigrants.aspx) The normal grievance-based white identity politics platform that promises protectionism, tariffs, infrastructure, subsidies, entitlements, and always blames the presence of immigrants for the creative destruction of the global marketplace, has consistently performed best in the GOP prior to any actual Republicans voting. But should his ideas prevail and win – or if, in the most extreme scenario, Trump were to sustain his path and take the Republican nomination – it would set America’s political path on a direction along the lines of what we have seen in democracies in Europe.

Should his ideas prevail and win…it would set America’s political path on a direction along the lines of what we have seen in democracies in Europe.


Consider what it would look like for America to follow the path of France, devolving toward a new two-party system which has on the one hand a center-left / technocratic party, full of elites with shared pedigrees of experience and education, and on the other a nativist right/populist party, which represents a constant reactive force to the dominant elite.

[Winehole23]

The European experience suggests that the burgeoning administrative state, whether run by putative leftists or putative rightists, engenders a reaction against itself. That antithesis usually is illiberal and adopts an aesthetic of anger, because it is the sort of citizenry that the administrative state produces, and because it is in the interest of that state to have that sort of enemy. Everyone who believes in the values that the administrative state at least claims to support and defend — societal pluralism, common decency, some sort of liberalism — gravitates toward it on Election Day. This is a story repeated across Europe – and in rare places like Hungary, we see what happens when the populist-right actually wins, and it isn’t pretty.

There is a slim possibility that what’s happening in the GOP primary campaign this summer is actually healthy and salutary, as conservative intellectual Yuval Levin argues here. (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/422631/little-details-and-big-picture-yuval-levin?target=author&tid=1842) But it is also possible that it represents one more way America is becoming more European. A classically liberal right is actually fairly uncommon in western democracies, requiring as it does a coalition that synthesizes populist tendencies and directs such frustrations toward the cause of limited government. Only the United States and Canada have successfully maintained one over an extended period. Now the popularity of Donald Trump suggests ours may be going away. In a sense we are reverting to a general mean – but we are also losing a rare and precious inheritance that is our only real living link to the Revolutionary era and its truly revolutionary ideas about self-government.

[boutons_deux]

"Now the popularity of Donald Trump suggests ours may be going away."

The popularity of DT is on the extreme, racist, "white identity", right wing, not in the general populace. "white identity" and Euro-white racism/supremacy "overlap" so much as to be identical. Certainly the Euro-white racism dominates Repugs politics in intensity.

The "small govt" bullshit has been fanned, inflamed, prioritized for 45 years by the VRWC/BigCorp that wants small govt (no (enforced) regulations, eg, IRS, EPA) so they can continue to buy/rig it, and rape and pillage people and the planet for MORE profit, rather than any natural, autonomous "regression to the mean".

Europeans know the social welfare state is expensive, but they have for decades kept it in place because they also know one day they may or will need it, admitting much more than hoodwinked Americans ("everybody can be a billionaire" myth when in fact American socioeconomic upward mobility is BELOW that of Europe), with 40M on always-declining, low-level public assistance, that their well-being is precarious.

[Winehole23]

you missed the part where Domanech says the technocratic state creates discontent and dangerous populisms across the ideological spectrum. losing the ideological veneer of classical liberalism and kicking non-whites out of the big tent would be a fateful move for the GOP and for the USA, and not for the better.

[Winehole23]

Domanech's attack on Trump from the right beats anything I've seen from the left, hands down.

[boutons_deux]

you missed the part where Domanech says the technocratic state creates discontent and dangerous populisms across the ideological spectrum. losing the ideological veneer of classical liberalism and kicking non-whites out of the big tent would be a fateful move for the GOP and for the USA, and not for the better.

You Lie. I didn't miss "technocratic state creates discontent and dangerous populisms across the ideological spectrum".

I would say in general belief in govt as positive for society is prevalent in left and centrists, and totally absent from the populist right/Repug, but the BigCorp/VRWC right ADORES govt as its rigged subsidiary.

Of course, any belief in govt as positive is countered by govt at all levels rigged in favor of BigCorp/1%, rather than For The People.

The discontent with govt is misplaced. It's not the govt technocracy that is the threat, but BigCorp technocracy is, eg, see my last post in the War on Employees thread, and how BigCorp is pushing so hard for TPP/TTIP for escaping the authority of sovereign govts.

[Winehole23]

out of touch political parties dominated by self-serving managerial/technocratic elites lead to the sort of situation you describe.

the corporatocracy can't do without the Dems -- I can think of no bigger friends to the 1% and corporate domination of politics than Barack Obama and Bill Clinton..

[Winehole23]

15 out of the last 23 years, a Democrat has held the White House. Bill Clinton's financial reforms set the table for the epochal 2008 bust that concentrated corporate power like nothing else in our lifetime, including Citizen's United.

[boutons_deux]

15 out of the last 23 years, a Democrat has held the White House. Bill Clinton's financial reforms set the table for the epochal 2008 bust that concentrated corporate power like nothing else in our lifetime, including Citizen's United.

Presidents can't do anything unless their party also controls Congress. Clinton was too balless, and duped, to veto the shit coming out of the Repug Congress.

"Clinton's" financial reforms? Clinton signed financial deregulation WRITTEN by Repugs who controlled Congress. He admitted he made mistake sigbing GLBA, which lead directly to Banksters Great Depression. Of course, 8+ years of Repug witching hunting/obstructionism of the Clintons left him weakened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act#Legislative _history

[Winehole23]

you've left out Summers and Rudin. they pushed it as hard as anyone.

[Winehole23]

your notion that Republicans are to blame for everything, to say nothing of the putative blamelessness of sitting Democratic Presidents for legislation they sign, carries no water.

[m>s]

Who writes this stuff lmao the overwhelming majority if Americans support deportation of all illegal immigrants in this country that's why trump is so popular right now.

[boutons_deux]

you've left out Summers and Rudin. they pushed it as hard as anyone.

Rubin.

I had "Rubin-ites" in my original response, but yes Slick Willy, out of his depth on economics (and PIC/mandatory sentencing/incarceration/War on Drugs questions), got stars in his eyes about Rubin and Summers. Obama hasn't much if any better. In brief, BigFinance owns Federal govt, and the Fed. BigFinance is out of control, a systemic risk, and untouchable. No surprise BigFinance is pushing hard for TPP/TTIC.

[Winehole23]

Who writes this stuff lmao the overwhelming majority if Americans support deportation of all illegal immigrants in this country that's why trump is so popular right now.is that factually supported or is that, just, like, uh, your personal opinion, man?

[Winehole23]

Rubin.

I had "Rubin-ites" in my original response, but yes Slick Willy, out of his depth on economics (and PIC/mandatory sentencing/incarceration/War on Drugs questions), got stars in his eyes about Rubin and Summers. Obama hasn't much if any better. In brief, BigFinance owns Federal govt, and the Fed. BigFinance is out of control, a systemic risk, and untouchable. No surprise BigFinance is pushing hard for TPP/TTIC.gets the biggest and most consequential push from Obama, tbh.

[Winehole23]

I had "Rubin-ites" in my original responsewhy did you leave it out?

[boutons_deux]

why did you leave it out?

I goofed up in my meticulous editing.

[boutons_deux]

gets the biggest and most consequential push from Obama, tbh.

yep, he's screwing up badly there. I really hope the Senate Dems block deny TPP/TTIP.

[Winehole23]

I goofed up in my meticulous editing.That might be the least credible thing you've ever said here. If your posts are the product of meticulous editing, I recommend that you stop doing so immediately.

[Winehole23]

it's more likely you left out Rubin and Summers because they reflect badly on blue team

[boutons_deux]

it's more likely you left out Rubin and Summers because they reflect badly on blue team

It's more than likely that You Lie

GBLA was a Repug/BigFinance crime, that Clinton acquiesced to.

[TeyshaBlue]

Aquiesced. :lmao

[Winehole23]

Who writes this stuff lmao


Ben Domenech is an American conservative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_conservatism) writer and blogger (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Blogger) who co-founded the RedState (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RedState) group blog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog).[1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech#cite_note-1) Domenech is also the managing editor for health care policy at The Heartland Institute (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institute), editor-in-chief of The City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%28journal%29), and hosts a daily free market podcast, "Coffee and Markets," at BigGovernment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Breitbart#Big_Government).[2] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech#cite_note-2)[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech#cite_note-about-3)[4] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech#cite_note-winter-4) He also authors a subscription-based daily email focused on politics and economics called The Transom. In 2006, he was involved in a plagiarism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism) controversy.[5] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech#cite_note-5) He is co-founder of the web magazine The Federalist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_%28website%29).[6] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech#cite_note-Domenech130918-6)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech