LogFAQs > #888929879

The writer unpacks a lot. I think he's off-base in some parts, especially in the set-up where he talks about black people and their problems. Personally, I think it would be kind of nice if white folks could talk shit about other white folks without also talking shit about black folks. Especially since anti-intellectualism in black Americans has always been overblown, and hip hop has countless examples of artists who defy the "thug" stereotype which the writer doesn't mention, since it's obvious he's not a fan of the genre. He also doesn't talk about the "why" behind his observations. What is responsible for the upsurge in anti-intellectualism among white Americans? One thing he also seems to miss: the average Trump voter isn't some poor rural ne'er-do-well. He got a ton of middle-class votes. Seems to me this disrupts his thesis a little bit.
But the piece certainly provides food for thought. I wonder how Trump supporters feel being likened to ghetto dwellers.

Besides the end of the article wasn't too far off.
"Feeding such people the lie that their problems are mainly external in origin that they are the victims of scheming elites, immigrants, black welfare malingerers, superabundantly fecund Mexicans, capitalism with Chinese characteristics, Walmart, Wall Street, their neighbors is the political equivalent of selling them heroin. (And I have no doubt that it is mostly done for the same reason.) It is an analgesic that is unhealthy even in small doses and disabling or lethal in large ones. The opposite message that life is hard and unfair, that what is not necessarily your fault may yet be your problem, that you must act and bear responsibility for your actions is what conservatism used to offer, before it became a white-minstrel show. It is a sad spectacle, but I do have some hope that the current degraded state of the conservative movement will not last forever."

That last paragraph is great, and something I would have expected to see in the New Yorker, not the National Review.

Mal_Fet posted...

Is this their attempt to divide white people into opposing camps?

Hilarious.

Lol