The Gravitational Center of the Republican Party is White Nationalism

Bonus article: Trump's long history of racism

The disintegration of the GOP is something they brought on themselves and accelerated when they began a media based propaganda campaign. They ended up polarizing everybody so badly that they polarized their own party and it pulled itself apart.

I think if you look at the nationalist parties all across Europe and today's Republican party, you don't see much difference. It's all about fear of immigration and protectionism. In the US there is also a strain of cutting the social safety net for the poor, but otherwise it looks very similar. You don't hear talk about "conservative principles" from the rank and file, it is all about "us" vs. "them" with the definition of "us" being pretty narrow. Trump is pretty much the perfect representative of the base of the Republican Party. I fully believe that if Trump were black, his "accomplishments" would be rightly ridiculed, but because he's in the "us" crowd, he gets a pass and even praise for his mediocre at best success.

Roy may be right about the Republican Party but IMO he's completely wrong about the beginning cause of it. Goldwater was probably the last chance America had to have an honest discourse between its leaders and the public.

Instead, the public chose bullshit over substance. They responded to an emotional appeal in a commercial with a little girl, a daisy and a mushroom cloud rather than reason.

Goldwater was against the civil rights act because it was fatally flawed. There is only one legitimate basis on which to defend rights - the rights of the individual. As soon as you start defining groups with rights, you generate resentments and hate.

And yet, the civil rights act has worked pretty well. History proves that Goldwater was wrong.

Goldwater was completely down with the rights of businesses and individuals to discriminate against people they don't like and to gather collectively to discriminate against minorities. He was not so down with the rights of individuals to be treated fairly. He was for the right to victimize, not for the rights of the victim. As the article pointed out, the public read this call very clearly.

Seems to me that the GOP is undergoing the 1948 Democratic convention in reverse.

Instead of the party standing on principle and kicking out the racists as happened with the Democrats, the principled people are waking up to the ugly racist underbelly of the GOP and are making their exit.

Ask an average black man whether that is true or not.
Discrimination occurs in the heart of man. Laws cannot address that problem. History proves my point, not yours.



We never got the chance to find that out, did we.

The real progress in civil rights has occured in the hearts people, not laws and not because of laws.

Witness the shunning of North Carolina by people and organizations after they passed discriminatory laws. THAT is how progress is made on civil rights.

I don't think it's been hidden - but Trump did put it on the mainstage.

I know some Republicans who are not racists (to the best of my ability to tell). I want to have the conversation "what are you going to do", but honestly, they are so in shock that I don't know how to approach it with them. I have some family in the deep South that vote Republican. Maybe I can approach them next week when I see them, but I only have one brother that is comfortable discussing politics. I mentioned my neighbor above. He likes to discuss politics, but he's gone from subtly racist out outright, flagrant racism so it's a hard conversation. I was kind of hoping that some of our more thoughtful righties would come along and discuss the issue, but we've had the "Republicans are really champions of civil rights" conversation that the article refers to before so I doubt we'd get there. I can sympathize with them. I floated along in the Republican party all through the 90's even though I was increasing uncomfortable with their politics. I even voted for Bush over Gore although I remember thinking at the time that I was not voting for the best candidate. It took the second Iraq war for me to say enough. Maybe Trump is that event for some, but I see a lot of people making excuses, saying he won't be that bad, that he doesn't mean what he says, that he will hire good people, that he will defer to the cooler minds in the House, etc. In this, I have to admire Kasich for his stand. He is not saying "I might come around if I hear more". He is not waffling and making excuses. He is not angling for a future office or cabinet position. He's just saying enough.

Yeah. I've pushed back on my step-father-in-law a few times in the past, letting him know that I'm not willing to just go along with his racist BS, but it's gotten a LOT worse since Trump started blathering on. Not sure if I'll be able to go to dinner at their place until this is all behind us. Out to dinner, maybe, but it's too uncomfortable to be a guest in his house.

I've largely ditched facebook, but I know that it's getting ugly.

And, yeah, it's hard to have honest conversations about this. Do I really want to know whether the guy sitting next to me at the office is a Trump supporter?

It's really tough. If someone said he supported McCain or Romney, I would disagree, sometimes strongly, but it didn't cause me to look sideways at them. Those candidates had a different vision for the country than I did, but it was still an American vision, they were still touting values that I thought were in the American mold, just not implementing them they way I would. Someone tells me straight up they support Trump, and there is a part of me that responds in shock that an intelligent, well meaning person could take that position. It's not that the US has a stellar track record or doesn't occasionally backslide, but Trump is almost completely anti-American in his beliefs. Of course at this point his supporters will point out that he is accurately representing a lot of Americans, but it's part of the American myth that we support equal rights, that we accept each other and embrace our differences, that we're there for our allies and we're willing to be good allies to those who will be good allies to us. That "there is nothing to fear but fear itself", "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Whether you like Reagan or not, his vision of the "shining city on the hill" is so different from Trump's call of fear that only he can protect us from. This, about Michelle Obama's speech last night kind of captures it for me.

Trump's speech was remarkably similar to the message of Nixon's 1968 campaign, though.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/fear-and-voting-in-america/490631/

A central theme from your link, and spot on about the effects of the Civil Rights Act.

do you allow your children to spend time with this person? it's come up again in our circle where people are not letting their children spend time with the grands (supervised or unsupervised) for a variety of reasons (including moral standards, religion, politics, access to candy, discipline, lack of discipline).

Supervised, yes. Unsupervised, no.

https://www.reference.com/history/did-civil-rights-act-1964-accomplish-3be30af3d0ff2419

First of all the terms "white" and "nationalism" whether separate or conjoined don't necessarily conjure the same nightmarish images to all who hear them.

I do, however think that Trump's primary constituency can be described as White, working class males, who can be considered Nationalists.

Notwithstanding their support of Trump, I don't have a problem with this group of people? Do you?

White Progressives are quick to argue that members of this group and white people in general can't hope to truly understand the experiences of black people (regardless of their level of education, socio-economic status, or actual life experiences), and yet they are also quick to judge the positions and experience of white people with whom they have nothing more in common than skin color. And they are quicker, in fact, to judge black conservatives, whose life experiences are apparently no mystery to them.

Black Progressives who champion the notion that a white person can't truly understand the life experiences of blacks, seem to have no problem understanding those of whites, at least enough to judge whether or not they are stupid and racist.

It is largely unreasonable for this group of whites to argue, in effect, that they are the new minority in America; with all the attendant negatives and none of the positives, but this is what they honestly think and feel and isn't that what matters to progressives?

I think it is also largely unreasonable for blacks to argue that the police force in America is out to harass, harms and even kill them, but isn't that what so many of them honestly feel, and therefore shouldn't I just accept it as a reality?

Trump may not win this election, but he will come close, which means that there are a whole lot of his voters who folks like Roy consider to be "white nationalists," and we all know what he means by that.

Consider that. Even if he loses with 40% of the vote (which will be deemed a landslide defeat) millions of American will have voted for him.

Now you can choose to see this as a sign that America is filled with more bigoted white nativists than we have seen in decades or that maybe they have a reason to feel left out, and that a guy like Trump understands them.

I like most of the conservative intellectuals, like Roy, who have come out against Trump, and in many ways I agree with them, but I think they do suffer from the flaw of snobbery and self-importance that just about all intellectuals have. To some extent they are nerds who want to be accepted by the cool kids in school. They happen to be more intellectual in their arguments and positions than most of their counter-parts on the left, but they never get any credit. The NY Times Book Review still pans their written work...unless of course it is an admission that they were wrong.

To some extent, working class white males who unabashedly love their country are the step-children of the populace. The Democrats turned from them after their Reagan betrayal in favor of creating a quilt of special-interest, identity based patches. Republican's Republicans don't want much to do with them either, lest their crudeness rub off on them.

Except of course, at election time. They may no longer be of as significant a number as they were in years past, but they can still swing elections one way or the other.

Trump is counting on them and Clinton selected Kaine so as not to drive any more away from her.

It is a shame that it's Trump who has emerged to represent them because he does appeal to their base instincts in the manner of an Al Sharpton or Elizabeth Warren...it's what polarizing, populist demagogues do, but perhaps Roy and the other conservative intellectuals should spend more time examining why their brand of academic ideology isn't much appreciated by a whole lot of people who consider themselves conservative. I love The National Review, but it tells you a lot that it is funded by donations rather than subscriptions.

Yes. I do have a problem with this group of people. I don't like them in real life... and I haven't liked them from long before Trump decided to jump into politics.

The problem is with the "Nationalist" not with the middle-class or the White. This is a group of people who think that they own the country and oppose every other ethnic group or religion. They are against civil rights, against immigration, against any religion other than Christianity, against woman's rights. And, they are angry that America is a diverse country.

I don't like racist people in general. Not all White middle-class people are racist. But there is a significant group of angry White middle class people who are racist... and this is the core of Trump's support.