@Finn dAbuzz,
Quote:Understandably the Left wants to see the Trump phenomena as confirmation of what they have always thought: That Republicans and conservatives are a bunch of angry white racists and xenophobes who are getting more and more afraid, and more and more desperate as the reins of power in America slip more and more from white hands.
The Trump phenomenon is clearly confirmation of something. And something not good as I fully expect you agree. There is confirmation to be found here as regards the warnings of many of us that American conservatism - as manifested in base voters' responses and as manifested in candidates' statements and behavior and as manifested in a broad degradation of political rhetoric and process. Though unlikely, Trump could become the GOP candidate and could become the President of the US.
Quote:Of course there is some truth to this perception, such people exist and Trump attracts them, but not all of the people who support him fall into this category. I’ve spoken with a number of people who claim to support The Donald and they are not all racists and xenophobes.
To the first sentence, yes, you're right. And I'm sure your second sentence reflects reality as well.
Quote:they feel he is speaking for them; saying the things millions of people want to say but are afraid to do so because PC bullies will be on them like white on rice if they do.
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the "politically correct" meme has regained a ubiquitous use in current rightwing rhetoric (georgeob has been throwing it out too) after a period of relative submergence. That in itself is a very interesting phenomenon but I'm not going to get into it here.
It is surely the case that Trump is speaking a "populist" message, of a particular sort. In his case, like Cruz and to a lesser extent, the others, a main target has become the GOP itself. This is a fundamental break from the prior Reaganism of never speaking badly about another Republican. But of course, it was a key rallying cry from Goldwater and has existed as a key element of evangelicals, libertarians (of the John Birch variety, and now strong within the Koch brothers' media operations). This species of populist sentiment goes back to the beginnings of US history, of course. It ebbs and flows. And there are two main species of it - a "liberal" or "progressive" species which posits that citizens are improperly disempowered by (mainly) the forces of wealth and privilege which have a corrupting influence on media and government. The "conservative" version sees disempowerment of citizens as well but posits that the blame lies with intellectuals corrupting education, media and government. Occupy Wall Street was an example of the first and Trump and militias and evangelical politics are examples of the second. As a quick aside here, while I was engaged in discussions at NRO, I forwarded the notion that left and right had a potentially fruitful meeting-ground here. Nobody posting bought in. Not one.
As regards racism in America, that's not a discussion I'll bother with here. Experience advises me that my breath, links, information, etc will be almost certainly be wasted.
Then you write more on "politically correct". I won't bother other than...
Quote:In the case of Europe they even file charges for hate speech
Yes, we do. We, as a nation, have decided that speech rights are not absolute. That has long been my personal position as well. It is also, we can note, the position of the people who run this blog. Robert has actually written up a rationale for this position which is probably as well-reasoned and compelling as anything one might find elsewhere.
Quote:(Just out of curiosity, is there anything about the Democrats or the liberal movement, in general, that concerns you or do you honestly think that their flaws are relatively minor and they remain not only the only hope for America, but a bright one as well?)
A bright hope, yes. The push for (and valuation of) democratic ideals - equality among citizens, the restraints on individuals and entities that would hold and retain policy-making and law-making power while disregarding the wishes of citizens, maximal voting rights, the rights to gather and speak freely etc are all a rejection of how Plato and Burke thought a city or a nation ought to be run. Those are liberal and progressive notions, as we normally understand those terms in the present. Western culture has benefited immeasurably from these values and principles. Communities that don't share these ideals are not nice places for their general populations.
What do we get wrong? Here, I will briefly take up the "political correctness" argument. That term gained popular fame on the right about 25 years ago with an essay in Esquire written by D'Souza (a book followed). I read that essay when it was published and liked it. But he was cribbing from an earlier book and argument from Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind", which I also read when it was published (well, some of it anyway). Bloom gave a wonderful example of asking his students to consider the issue of the Brits, when in control of India, passing laws to criminalize the stoning deaths of women where their dowry was deemed insufficient. He said that, at this time, mid to late 80s, his students had real trouble dealing with this question, commonly evading the moral dilemma through some response like, "Well, the Brits shouldn't have been there dominating another culture". There is a clear example of where many on the left, particularly at that point in time, crippled their own thinking through adherence to an ideology - it is evil for one nation/culture to dominate others (richer than that actually, but we'll settle on this for simplicity).
Or, take the feminist movement. At one point, Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon held, among other notions, that "all sex is rape". They were very influential (and indeed, were brought in to help the Canadian government write policy). Their influence now is much diminished but it is an example of the feminist movement going pretty badly awry.
Another interesting and conflict-ridden aspect of how we get things wrong can be seen in the neoconservative project re Iraq. This one's a bit tricky because neoconservatives lie. They have licence to lie, indeed a moral obligation to like as laid out by Strauss ("the noble lie"). PNAC documents are explicit in the contention that American must dominate other nations and prevent any other nation (or entity - thus the refusal to grant the UN much credibility, stature or power as voiced most openly by John Bolton). A key rationale advanced at the time for this attack and war was to help Iraqi citizens who were clearly suffering great injustices. I still find no reason to accept that this was a motivating drive for the neocons but it played on the liberal notion that we ought to alleviate suffering and injustice in the world (this is also a fundamental American christian notion going back to the nation's inception, as it happens). I certainly don't reject that ideal or moral quest. And it is not uniquely American, of course. We liberals can be deluded into thinking that our moral righteousness - the purity of our moral notions - will inevitably lead to a happier community elsewhere if that community is induced to abide by our moral notions (if after a belated period of protest). We can, and commonly do, reject what is usually termed the "realist" arguments. There have been, for example, a whole lot of arguments here among liberals on a2k over the last couple of weeks regarding what Obama has done and what he should! have done.
I'll finish by stating a failing I personally see or believe about the Dem party in the US (true here if less so, and true elsewhere as well). We've let the financial institutions and large business entities grasp far, far too much power through corrupting influences on government processes. To some extent, I understand why this has happened and to some extent recognize the incredibly difficult problem it is. But as a liberal populist, it is my main beef.
Now, I have promised to read an edit a manuscript (oh woe is me) so I'll have to take a lot of time over the next while to get this done in a proper manner. I'll pop in now and again but excuse me if my replies are short or unsatisfactory or not there at all.
