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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Party of Q [1]
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Date: 2023-01-19
Meredith McCarroll of New Lines Magazine exams how newly-elected Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance uses the myth of “white exceptionalism.”
Success for a white person in America is not the exception. White exceptionalism is an oxymoron. In his 1997 book “White: Essays on Race and Culture,” Richard Dyer observed that while factors like region, religion, socio-economic class, gender expression and other identity markers can have an impact on overall experience, “whiteness generally colonizes the stereotypical definition of all social categories other than those of race. To be normal, even to be normally deviant (queer, crippled) is to be white.” In other words, whiteness trumps other markers of identity. J.D. Vance has positioned himself within an oxymoronic white exceptionalism of his own design, which is derived more from frameworks of Black exceptionalism than American exceptionalism and relies upon a history of the Appalachia region as “not quite white” or “unwhite” — existing outside the realm of white American experience. His reliance on personal experience allows him to carve out a white victimization that is at the heart of contemporary white identity politics. What is confounding, upon closer examination, is Vance’s assertion of the intractable flaws of the (white) people who raised him, and his reliance on the narrative of Black exceptionalism to claim his own place as an individual success. His success, given this complex position as a person who claims whiteness but asserts his ancestors’ predisposition to failure, makes him an exception to the rule. He got up and out on his own accord. Now that he has done so, his response is to blame the poor for their poverty, blame the addicted for the opioid crisis and blame Appalachia itself for the extraction of its resources.
Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post says ix-nay to the idea that Democrats should be as ruthless as Republicans.
Democratic activists often complain that their side is not as ruthless and partisan as Republicans — as though this is some sort of handicap in politics … [...] In the past week, Republicans have predictably served up evidence of their recklessness and disregard for the well-being of their fellow Americans. Instead of acknowledging their solemn obligation to protect the full faith and credit of the United States, they are scheming to use the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to force the Biden administration to meet their demands. They are even preparing an emergency plan in the event that the United States breaches the debt limit directing the government to prioritize certain spending. The Post’s Jeff Stein, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer reported: “Such a move would be unprecedented and hugely controversial, and even releasing the plan could turn into a major political liability for the GOP. A hypothetical proposal that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and the military would still leave out huge swaths of critical federal expenditures on things such as Medicaid, food safety inspections, border control and air traffic control, to name just a handful of thousands of programs.” The White House was gobsmacked that Republicans would be so eager to show how willing they are to inflict so much suffering on Americans for the sake of a political stunt. But Republicans specialize in tone-deafness.
Charles Blow of The New York Times shows how the New York City Draft Riots of 1863 continue to be a case study in how to keep the working class divided by race.
A lot has changed since 1863, but devices of division and provocation remain, a means of dividing the white from the nonwhite working class by stoking a combination of grievance against outsiders and against the government and wealthy elites seen to be favoring their interests over those of “ordinary” (i.e., white) citizens. For much of American history, the holy grail of liberal politics and activism has been to find a way past such divisions, a way to make poor and working-class people of all races see that their fates and interests are linked. But race, then as now, remains a powerful tool for driving a wedge in the working class. This is not to say that a coalition can’t be built, or has never been built. In the New Deal realignment of the 1930s, Democrats built a coalition that supported the working class, to at least some extent, regardless of race. It wasn’t perfect, of course, because it still accommodated racist Democrats in the South, but it was a coalition.
Caleb Ecarma of Vanity Fair writes about the escalating feud between white evangelical leaders and Number 45.
Last month, I spoke to a few of the evangelical leaders that Trump is now lashing out at, including Family Leader president Bob Vander Plaats, who said that “a silent majority” is forming among conservatives opposed to another Trump bid. One major evangelical leader, who asked to remain anonymous in our conversation, argued that the aversion toward Trump stems from the view that Republicans would “get crushed” in the general election should Trump win another Republican primary. Washington Times column, Everett Piper, the former president of an evangelical university, charged Trump with bleeding the possibility of red wave dry. “The lesson of this midterm is simple and clear: Mr. Trump’s endorsements hindered rather than helped the much-anticipated ‘red wave,’ and his petty selfishness could likely lead to another series of runoff losses in the days ahead,” wrote Piper in a midterm autopsy. “The take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go. If he’s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.” Early signs of Republicans’ electability problems came in the midterms, where Democrats over-performed expectations, keeping the Senate and ceding only a small majority to Republicans in the House. In a widely circulatedWashington Timescolumn,Everett Piper,the former president of an evangelical university, charged Trump with bleeding the possibility of red wave dry. “The lesson of this midterm is simple and clear: Mr. Trump’s endorsements hindered rather than helped the much-anticipated ‘red wave,’ and his petty selfishness could likely lead to another series of runoff losses in the days ahead,”in a midterm autopsy. “The take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go. If he’s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.” Trump, however, is laying blame for the GOP’s most recent electoral failures on the feet of evangelical leaders. “I was a little disappointed because I thought they could have fought much harder during the election,” he told Real America’s Voice. “A lot of them didn’t fight or weren’t really around to fight, and it did energize the Democrats.”
Spanish novelist Javier Cercas held a wide-ranging conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron for El País in English.
[CERCAS]: For me, the fundamental problem with creating a united Europe is that it remains an elitist project. It’s not what it should be: a popular project. I’m afraid that people today don’t feel that Europe is essential to their lives. [MACRON]: Can I contest that point? [CERCAS]: Of course! [MACRON}: Europe is a project that has been structured through popular projects. The euro is a popular project – the idea of going from one country to another and having the same currency. If inflation hasn’t skyrocketed, if there hasn’t been a crisis, it’s because of the euro. The euro is very strong, it’s popular. Who does it protect? The richest people always manage during hard times… the middle and popular classes are the ones who lose the most from financial disorganization. The euro protects them. Even the extremists in France who once promised to leave the Eurozone are no longer saying it, because this message was making people afraid. In 2017, when I launched this debate in France, the middle and working classes were clear that they didn’t want to abandon the euro. People are intelligent: they know that the euro is good for them. And this Europe that has opened up – with freedom of movement that allows you to travel and trade – is extraordinary. This is a very solid project...
You owe it to yourself to read the entire conversation.
Touqir Hussain writes for the Pakistan’s largest English-language newspaper, Dawn, about the reasons for anti-Americanism in Pakistan. Hussain gives us a very detailed timeline going back to the 1950s, so this excerpt will begin with Pakistani perceptions of the “growing relationship” between India and the U.S.
India’s growing relationship with the US, especially the nuclear agreement, and Washington’s refusal to give Pakistan the same deal, fostered perceptions that India and the US were opposed to its nuclear programme, among the army and general public alike. Anti-Indian sentiments and anti-Americanism merged. Religious, nationalist rhetoric was co-opted by secular and liberal circles who affixed it to their existing unhappiness with the wars on account of how Pakistan was dragged into it by a dictator leading to a prolonged undemocratic rule. So, democracy, Islam, honour, sovereignty and nationalism all came to provide a common platform — anti-Americanism — to a wide cross section of political opinions, religious beliefs, and social statuses. [...] The consummate politician that he is, Khan tapped into anti Americanism, Pashtun nationalism, resistance against a big power, and Islamism with a single stroke — support for the Taliban. More than an expression of support for the Taliban, it was a symbol of opposition to America. He created a base in KP from where he could now expand his appeal to the rest of the country. He did so by stoking long-standing public anger and feelings of injustice at the hands of the country’s established political leadership, and a sense of victimhood, incited by America’s post 9/11 wars.
I assume that it’s the 2008 nuclear deal between the United States and India that is being referred to.
Paul Krugman of The New York Times explains why news of a population drop is not good news for China.
So why isn’t population decline good news, an indication that China and the world in general will have fewer people placing demands on the resources of a finite planet? The answer is that a declining population creates two major problems for economic management. These problems aren’t insoluble, given intellectual clarity and political will. But will China rise to the challenge? That’s far from clear. The first problem is that a declining population is also an aging population — and in every society I can think of, we depend on younger people to support older people. In the United States the three big social programs are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; the first two are explicitly targeted at seniors, and even the third spends most of its money on older Americans and the disabled. [...] China’s social safety net is relatively undeveloped compared with ours, but older Chinese nonetheless depend on government aid — especially the state pension. And China’s old-age dependency ratio is skyrocketing. This means that China will either have to inflict a lot of economic pain on its elderly, sharply raise taxes on younger citizens or both.
Grant Duncan of the New Zealand Herald explains why Wednesday’s resignation of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wasn’t much of a surprise to regular followers of New Zealand politics.
Ardern’s resignation will come as a shock to many New Zealanders, and especially to people overseas – given the international reputation she earned as prime minister over the past five years. But this is less of a surprise for close watchers of New Zealand politics. Back in November 2021, I wrote in The Conversation: “Might Jacinda Ardern stand down?”, after Labour changed its rules to make it easier for the party’s leader to be replaced. [...] Ardern made herself world famous for her management of the pandemic, and she did an extremely good job as a leader over that period. But Covid-19 also completely derailed her prime ministership, meaning she was stymied in pursuing many of the key social objectives such as child poverty and housing that she would have liked to put more effort into.
Finally today, Amanda Katz of The Washington Post presents the word of the year for 2022.
2022 was the year that FAFO, on the rise since 2020, hit the pop culture zeitgeist. Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer and editor of the book “The F-Word,” told me he has traced the phrase as far back as 2007, originating in African American slang, but that he only really became aware of it a couple of years ago. On Google Trends, you can see FAFO gradually pick up steam and then soar this past December. That was the moment that Kanye West got booted off Twitter for tweeting an unflattering photo of the platform’s memelord-turned-overlord, Elon Musk. How did Musk explain his executive decision? In a four-letter tweet that forced the actual adults following this squabble to look up what FAFO meant. Sorry, everybody. In its brevity, FAFO recalls YOLO (“you only live once”), a similar acronym that burst from obscurity to ubiquity after a Drake song put it on the map in 2011. But if YOLO is largely a sunny, big-hearted term, FAFO has a harsher effect. It is confident, sure. But it is also a warning, and an expression of glee at someone getting their comeuppance — a 2022 vibe indeed, both cathartic and queasy-making. tax scams, , making overinflated weed-meme offers for social media sites) would finally face some consequences. “Can you do that?” many asked during the Trump era. Could you just lie, cheat, swindle, funnel taxpayer dollars to your businesses, grab people’s genitalia with impunity? Well, 2022 suggested that you couldn’t, or at least not entirely. “Eff around, find out” was a bratty, satisfying way to reclaim the high ground. On the bright side: 2022 was a year when maybe, just maybe, people who did dumb or awful things ( coups attacking smaller countries , making overinflatedfor social media sites) would finally face some consequences. “Can you do that?” many asked during the Trump era. Could you just lie, cheat, swindle, funnel taxpayer dollars to your businesses, grab people’s genitalia with impunity? Well, 2022 suggested that you couldn’t, or at least not entirely. “Eff around, find out” was a bratty, satisfying way to reclaim the high ground.
Have a good day, everyone!
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