Nicholas Kristof does it again, demonstrating the all-too-common inanity of the NY Times’ op-ed pages. He’s very concerned that college campuses have become “echo chambers”.
I share apprehensions about President-elect Trump, but I also fear the reaction was evidence of how insular universities have become. When students inhabit liberal bubbles, they’re not learning much about their own country. To be fully educated, students should encounter not only Plato, but also Republicans.
We liberals are adept at pointing out the hypocrisies of Trump, but we should also address our own hypocrisy in terrain we govern, such as most universities: Too often, we embrace diversity of all kinds except for ideological. Repeated studies have found that about 10 percent of professors in the social sciences or the humanities are Republicans.
“We” liberals? Kristof is more of a privileged center-right kind of White Dufus. Just the fact that now, in the time of Trump, he finds it important to wag his finger and tut-tut at those damn liberal universities tells you that he isn’t one of us. He’s the sleazy con man cozying up to you, smarmily reassuring you that he is on your side, while he’s planning to pick your pocket.
It is ridiculous to even suggest that students live in a bubble, and that we need to make a special effort to help them meet Republicans. We are surrounded by them. Many grew up in Republican families. There are Republican students here, and Republican student clubs. Republicans have been aggressively plastering campus bulletin boards with Republican political slogans. We have a far right Republican alternative paper littering the campus. If 10% of our professors are Republican, it’s rather definite that students will encounter them. Even his own numbers make it clear that his whine is nonsensical.
Since 40% of Americans are creationists, does that mean, that using Kristof’s calculus, we should be hiring more biology professors who deny evolution and reject all of the evidence? We should aim to be representative of all good ideas, not simply all ideas; we should have standards. Education is not simply the indiscriminate dumping of every delusion that has been farted out into the world into students’ heads.
Some of you are saying that it’s O.K. to be intolerant of intolerance, to discriminate against bigots who acquiesce in Trump’s record of racism and misogyny. By all means, stand up to the bigots. But do we really want to caricature half of Americans, some of whom voted for President Obama twice, as racist bigots? Maybe if we knew more Trump voters we’d be less inclined to stereotype them.
That’s standard right-wing cant coming from our so-called fellow liberal. How do you know that “many” of them voted for Obama twice? Only about 40% of eligible voters did their duty this time around, you know; it is possible for [Obama voters] and [Trump voters] to be non-overlapping sets. I expect that there are some who did vote that way, but keep in mind that 3% of the electorate voted for Gary Johnson. There’s a fair bit of noise and badly informed voting going on.
But this is the tired old “I have friends who are black” or “I’d let a black man use my bathroom” excuse. It doesn’t matter. Trump campaigned on nativism, discrimination, and open racism. The people who voted for him didn’t see any of that as a problem. That makes them implicitly racist.
I know a few Trump voters. It’s not stereotyping to say they made a bad decision for very bad reasons. And yes, the entire white population of America is racist to varying degrees, so it’s not a caricature, it’s a statement of fact. (Which statement will, no doubt, elicit louder howls of protest than the fact that unarmed black men get murdered by the police. I know my people.)
The weakest argument against intellectual diversity is that conservatives or evangelicals have nothing to add to the conversation. “The idea that conservative ideas are dumb is so preposterous that you have to live in an echo chamber to think of it,” Sunstein told me.
Of course, we shouldn’t empower racists and misogynists on campuses. But whatever some liberals think, “conservative” and “bigot” are not synonyms.
Good grief. Liberals didn’t equate conservatives with racists and misogynists. Conservatives did, by happily embracing the Southern strategy, making theocracy a key plank, using racist gerrymandering to pad their representation, engaging in voter suppression, and now, electing a racist, misogynist incompetent to the presidency. You don’t get to complain that conservative and bigot have become synonymous when that is precisely the identity modern conservatives have consciously adopted!
I’ve known conservatives. I’ve listened to conservative ideas, and even when I’ve disagreed with them haven’t necessarily thought them stupid. I consider Obama to be a moderate, sensible conservative, too, who has implemented quite a few policies I find wrong…but Jesus, at least he’s been a competent bureaucrat. But those were conservatives before Reagan, the Gingrich revolution, the Tea Party, and the ascendancy of Trumpkinism. I’d be willing to agree that those crappy ideas are actually radical, reactionary bullshit that is not conservative at all, but when Republicans, the conservative party, have become the willing reservoir of the brain-eating prion disease of far-right loonitarianism, they’ve bought it, they own it, and they don’t get to now claim conservative thinking isn’t a vile toxin infecting the Republic because Eisenhower was pretty restrained and sensible, once upon a time.
So are you saying this is the result of some kind of discrimination, either conscious or unconscious? Are you proposing some form of affirmative action to correct the imbalance? Would that be ironic…
*wouldn’t
Repeated studies have found that about 10 percent of professors in the social sciences or the humanities are Republicans.
Don’t ask “what’s wrong with the 90%,” ask “what’s wrong with the 10%.”
Oh come on, it’s right there – how could someone write “not only Plato but Republicans” rather than “not only Plato’s Republic but actual Republicans”?
Though Plato was pretty much an arch-conservative himself, who had a native aristocrat’s dislike of democratic government. The great 20th century marxist ancient historian G.E.M. de Ste. Croix once said that his entire academic career had been devoted to showing what a nasty little shit he was.
I consider most of the people who call themselves “conservative” to be right-wingers – non-conservative, extremists – not conservatives. I’m a liberal by pretty much every standard today, but I recognize that traditional conservatives were not so bat-guano extremist that they could not engage in rational discourse. Sometimes they would be right, at least partly. I like to point out that church-state separation is a conservative ideal, as it’s a limit on what governments can do. It was a liberal idea in the 18th century, but if someone really believes in “limited government,” then keeping religion out of the government, its laws and its policies, is absolutely necessary. For that matter, evironmentalism is a conservative idea, as it used to be called “conservation,” protecting something existing, such as clean air or water, and preserving areas of nature unchanged by “progress.”
But today’s right-wingers live on lies, nothing but lies. In their paranoid world view, they are surrounded by enemies. They are cowards, plain and simple. But I also see something else going on beneath the surface. Maybe coming of age in the South in the 1960s opened my eyes to this.
Most people who call themselves “libertarians” today are not. They use libertarian language but happily abandon that supposedly conservative ideal when it comes to putting religion into the government in various ways (bans on contraception and abortion, anti-lgbt laws, etc.). In the later 1960s, I saw the smarter types of segregationists began using libertarian language as a code word for segregation. Because the federal government was powerful enough to push racial integration, “limited government” became a catchword for re-segregation. A typical example was the idea of school vouchers or school “choice.” In the South, that was never anything but a round-about way to re-segregate schools, as white students would naturally choose (it was assumed) to attend the same school(s) while black students would somehow be excluded or driven off.
The segregationists were joined by conservative Christians (the two groups largely overlap) bitterly angry that the government, particularly the Supreme Court, was stopping them from forcing their garbage onto everyone else, notably in public schools. These theocrats likewise began whining about government being too big and powerful. If they could starve the government of needed funds and restore “states’ rights,” they could create their own little white theocracies. That was why Reagan was so nasty about the government while dog-whistling to segregationists and theocrats. That’s why those two groups idolize Reagan (beyond doubt the worst president in U.S. history).
So I consider all “conservatives” to be whining, cowardly theocrats or racists unless they say things that clearly put them outside those categories. And, yes, living in the deep South, I know some real conservatives and others in a gray area who are not necessarily racists or theocrats but don’t understand the history that lies behind right-wing talk about “limited government” and whining about how those mean ol’ liberals love big, constitution-violating government. The right-wingers’ real hatred is for the principles of equal rights and church-state separation that liberals recognize in the Constitution, despite its creators’ blindness toward those principles in various ways.
Yes, he isn’t a very good liberal, but like-minded people do tend to isolate themselves. Consider the sheer surprise in circles at your uni and on this blog about the election outcome. I think because I am forced to interact with detestable people every day, I had no such illusions. This just goes to the point about isolation eventually blurring certain realities, I don’t expect a cookie for it.
Isolation of a group doesn’t imply that group’s ideology is unjustified, however, so he’s 100% wrong about that. It’s mainly people’s expectations of their values’ acceptance that become increasingly unjustified, not their values themselves.
re @5
QFT entirety of 5
I’d like to add, that I see today’s “conservatives” as taking the barest concept of “conservative” and cranking it up to 11. In short: “conserve everything to be exactly the same as they were originally, no matter the consequences, change is by definition inherently bad.”
The original concept was changes should be adopted carefully, after considering all possible unintended consequences. Today, the so-called conservatives refuse to make any changes no matter how well presented the cost-benefits analysis. Conservatives today are more the party of “refusal” than the party of “careful there”. I too think they’ve moved themselves onto the more of the radical side of the fulcrum than the conservative side.
ugh word salad, add dressing to make it more palatable.
In fact, this election has been quite clarifying. People like Rick Wilson, Evan McMullin, and David Frum have many views and associations I find abhorrent, but they recognized Trump for the kleptocrat and fascist that he is and rejected his misogynistic and white supremacist movement. I’m sure their stand has come at a personal and professional cost, but they’re on the right side of the most important question in our lifetimes. “Trumpist” and “conservative” are not synonyms.
PZ, is “Freethought Resistance” something you’re setting up or a new blog here?
New group blog. More information later.
Like cartomancer said, Plato was not even remotely liberal, nor is he in any type of education program the “only” figure who is encountered (if he is at all). Instead of pontificating, maybe Kristof should learn something — anything — about what an actual university education is like … or stop lying about it, since he seems to have forgotten his Harvard experience a few decades ago.
It’s an odd kind of “insularity” when a person is (or may be) encountering a philosopher from an ancient foreign country (who doesn’t share anyone’s current ideology) along with numerous other important figures throughout history, while a “non-insular” person needs to encounter the oblivious jackass who lives next door and thought voting for Trump was a decent idea. What is a higher-education system supposed to do about the latter, anyway? Send their literature students on field trips to the nearest gun club or the nearest country club? What the fuck will they learn which is of any value? (That is, something other than “people can be horrible,” something they couldn’t get by watching a slasher movie.)
Some ideologies are wrong. It’s not “hypocrisy” when we don’t “embrace” ideas that are wrong while criticizing others for embracing ideas that are wrong. The assumption going into this is of course that diversity in regard to race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexual orientation/identity, etc., is not embracing ideas that are wrong, because being a black person for instance is not wrong. Kristof is an idiotic hack, so who knows what the fuck he’s thinking; but whether he understand this or not, he can fuck right off with that bullshit.
It’s not necessarily a representative sample, but if I recall correctly the MSNBC correspondents interviewed the leaders of the Republican and Democratic student organizations at the universities where the presidential debates were held, and the Republican clubs weren’t Trump supporters and seemed pretty friendly with (or at least not hostile toward) the Democrats. Even at Liberty a number of students defied Falwell and the school hierarchy to stand against Trump. Kristof seems to want to abandon these brave kids in his effort to push toleration of fascism.
Kristof:
That’s what people are doing. Stop quibbling.
Trump voters weren’t half of Americans. They weren’t even half of voters.
Liberals don’t “govern” most universities – or at least they don’t govern them all that liberally. I hate to refer to it, because it’s ridiculously and unnecessarily long, but the introduction to the book Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex gives some idea of how illiberally universities have long been governed.
Further, and I can’t emphasize this enough, if a fascist, kleptocratic, corporate-dominated administration comes to power, it will mean a threat to any last vestiges of the liberal university. Complicity in the Holocaust, as I’ve mentioned, and Studying the Jew offer portraits of how universities’ liberal values can be gutted and they can be turned into motors of oppression and violence. (And let’s leave aside the acceleration in the casualization of academic labor and its political effects.) In this moment of crisis, for Kristof to be complaining about purported liberal bubbles and the marginalization of Trump followers on campus is preposterous. This isn’t a fucking drill. Defend these values or see them, and universities, destroyed.
…and so it ratchets, norm-wise.
New York Times then wonders why they don’t get more subscriptions.
how universities’ liberal values can be gutted
And of course we don’t need to look outside the US.
You’re right, PZ. College campus liberals should not be opening their ears to rightwing republicans. But they should be listening to the working class that work in factories surrounding those colleges. No doubt, a few miles beyond U of M Morris, you’ll likely find factories such as this
https://cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/content.kare11.com/photo/2016/06/07/MyPillow2_1465350068600_2813878_ver1.0.jpg.
Perhaps all college professors should give their students the day off to visit these factories and engage with those workers. Talk to them about their fears of losing their jobs to automation or outsourcing. Maybe then liberals would turn things around and make sure that Pumpkinhead or worse don’t get elected in the future.
@ragdish #16:
Your suggestion seems to be based upon the assumption that small town college students attending their small, local university don’t themselves come from working class families– indeed, possibly from the very families supported by that factory. I think it’s safe to say that assumption is inaccurate. Although I can attest as someone from a working class family who also attended a small, local university, while that assumption may be inaccurate it’s definitely not uncommon. The belief that the only types of students found at universities are sheltered and middle to upper class (oft liberals) is, sadly, quite pervasive. Wrong, but pervasive.
They don’t even have to leave campus.
ragdish:
The complaint is often that we don’t have many worker-filled factories. So if you went to a factory and spoke to those workers, you’re probably not going to hear from them that their problem is that they lack a factory job. Most likely, if the experiences of myself/friends/family/acquaintances are any guide, they’ll tell you that working there sucks. Because it usually does.
Education is also more correlated to Trump/Clinton voting than economic class (and do note that Trump was supported quite a bit by the wealthy), so it’s not only an issue of class, despite what some pundits may have told you in the last month. There are, obviously, factors like racism and sexism and homophobia, which is where a proper education can help: if you become less ignorant about a great many things (via a formal education or otherwise), you will act in less bigoted ways. Your perspective about yourself and your society will be broadened to whatever is beyond your personal history or work environment. Plus, you will be less susceptible to the transparent lies of fascists like Trump who will do nothing to alleviate your economic problems. Maybe you’ll actually learn about what a Democrat like Clinton will actually do in office, instead of going with your gut and checking the same (R) box you habitually check or getting your “information” from liars and frauds.
What do we talk to them about? The fact that they, as an economic class, should not be in conflict with minority groups who have all of the same interests, but should instead unite with them to stand against the fascist dumbfuck they voted for? The fact that liberals have all along been trying to turn things around in a way that will directly help them, but that they can’t do so with no control of the government, since people are voting in conservatives all over the place who want to do the opposite?
Or did you assume liberals didn’t know what their problems were and/or weren’t doing anything about it? Who actually has the task of learning things in this “talk” which they didn’t already understand? Is there a polite way to inform them that they evidently weren’t doing a good job of listening in previous talks?
It is interesting how often I hear about how the social sciences and humanities are dominated by liberals. I never hear anyone complaining that economics and business departments at universities are dominated by conservatives. But I’ve been in enough universities over the past few decades, and taken enough courses across the curriculum, to suspect that, if the studies were being done more broadly, rather than as an attempt to “prove” liberal bias in education, we would find that there are plenty of conservative professors, and that some departments are dominated by conservatives.
And my experience? I never had a liberal professor who threatened to fail someone (at least, other than as a joke) for registering Republican. There was a professor of political science at a school I attended who required you to register to vote, and show him your voter ID to prove it. If you registered Democrat, you could forget about your grade. He was well known, this was a practice that everyone knew about, and students either registered Republican and changed once they were out of his class, or did like me, and avoided his class altogether, taking the classes I needed under another professor.
Until we get past this insistence on just looking at one particular part of the campus, we will continue to have this nonsense spewed in the press, by both liberals and conservatives alike, this pretense that students are being exposed only to one side.
@ #12
“Trump voters weren’t half of Americans. They weren’t even half of voters.”
There’s no reason to think that voters don’t represent non-voters in about the same percentages.
tomh:
There’s at least one: voters vote (therefore care enough about who wins), non-voters don’t.
(Then, there’s that famous Yeats quotation from his poem:
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”)
@22
yah whats next?
uncle frogy
Politics is the art of the possible, which means that you will have to engage with people you don’t like.
Acknowledging this does not mean you should stop trying to change other’s mind or calling out the assholes.
Understanding your enemy does not mean surrender, it means a more effective fight.
I acknowledge that the argument is being used to normalize the current situation, it shouldn’t: understanding should not come at the expense of fighting, but both are needed.
tomh. #21
I disagree on that. Leaving aside Republican attempts at disenfranchising poor, ethnic minority voters in many states with unfair voter ID laws, those who didn’t vote also made a choice – in effect they voted for apathy. Or for neither as a protest.
I think you’re buying too uncritically into this notion that politics is an intrinsically binary thing, and that all people are somehow naturally in one camp or another. Just because the US electoral system is arranged that way doesn’t mean that it’s a reflection of some underlying psychological reality. That is like saying that because the only restaurant in town offers only chicken or fish, therefore those who don’t eat there must all like one of the two.
Basically what I was going to say, but also for the professoriate. I am a liberal, progressive, atheist, feminist science professor in the northeast. I am exactly what Kristof and his ilk would point at. But in response, I’d like for each family member and friend I have ever had who are conservative Republicans to walk up and slap him in the face. It would take a long time. My dad’s first real job was at a steel mill. He worked his way through a bachelor’s degree one night class at a time for a decade, and got into computer science. Know where he works now? The fucking steel mill. Well, what’s left of it, since it’s shut down. His brother and nephew got laid off. But they have to keep the computers running for the one corner of the place that’s still functioning, so he still has a job for now, waiting every day to find out if this is the day he gets canned too. Almost my entire extended family is blue collar. My second cousin is a fundamentalist church pastor. Hell, half of my best friends in college are in the ministry (fundamentalist evangelical). Almost everyone in my life from birth until I got into graduate school is a conservative, working-class or just barely into white collar. Not all of them went into Trumpism, but I know some who did, some who were conflicted about it, some who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him but still couldn’t vote for anyone else either. So Kristof can take his “liberal elite college people need to encounter Republicans” and shove it up his ass. He can go project his own inadequacies of knowledge on someone else, thanks.
In my experience, the people on campus who are listening most carefully to the working class are liberal faculty and students in the social sciences, humanities, economics, journalism, environmental justice, etc.
Not counting all the students who are already in the working class, or from working-class families, of course. They skew liberal too.
tomh:
There are several. Voting propensity increases with age – people who are 60+ are far more likely to vote than people 18-29. We know from surveys that younger people today are far more liberal. The population of voters is skewed toward older voters, and toward Trump, in a way the population isn’t.
White people also tend to vote in higher percentages than other categories, even as their/our share of the general population declines. Income is a predictor of voting:
You have to take rates of participation into account.
Incidentally, the fact that younger people tend to be more liberal or leftwing is the reason the Right has campaigns to target college campuses for propaganda. Kristof is helping their efforts along.
Or even if they did, they didn’t view it as a dealbreaker, which is bad enough, too. It speaks to their privilege, that they consider whatever economic woes they might have worse than the very existential threat a Trump presidency – not to mention a Republican SCOTUS, Senate and Congress – present to so many of their fellow citizens. Worse still, they ended up voting against their own interests, too, since Trump will continue the destructive trickle down economics of Reagan and Dubya, so they fucked everybody over with that vote, themselves included.
#5 wsierichs – That was a spot on comment. Prior to 911 even Conservatives used to question the military budget, not anymore. Their ideology is terrible and non fact base, where in the past it was not.
I have read Kristof plenty and while he claims to be a liberal, he is a Christian Liberal, so those worlds are colliding and he is embarrassed because he spent his time back packing around the world with “underprivileged” while ignoring the fire burning in his own country. Instead of hobnobbing around the NYC or some backwater in a foreign land, he should have been questioning the rise of christianity in politics and the terrible messaging of the Democrats.
In essence I believe that there is waste in government, not that government is a waste.
I ran for Congress as a Republican in 2002, I worked for Kerry, Obama campaigns and I voted for Hillary, but I will say the Democrats and their focus on “their issues” cost them the race and is costing them a relatively winning narrative.
The Things Liberals NEED to do to Win.
1. Develop a Message and HAMMER IT. Rush Limbitch gets it done day after day while people like Kristof and the MSM ignore the messaging that is getting pounded into the heads of the white working class.
2. Embrace the Constitution! – Stop pandering on the 2nd Amendment OR The Electoral College. If the MESSAGING is correct the Liberal viewpoint can be achieved while drowning out the Conservative Causes. There are liberal causes to be advanced, even on gun control, if the Liberals are shown to love the Constitution. Bernie had the tone correctly, Hillary’s pandering concerning Gun Manufacturers was a loser and Rush Limbitch could take this one down easy. However, embracing the 2nd Amendment in all its facets “well regulated” has the ability to achieve the desired control goals without losing the messaging. Same is true to the Electoral College, it could be used to advantage of the Liberal Messaging if the Messaging can be developed and the chorus can start singing.
3. Religion – It’s influence over American Politics as well as Allies HAS to be called out all the time, but the Messaging from Liberals is terrible on this matter. Yes I get what Crap Religion is; however, there is only ONE Religion we have to address and the rest will take care of itself. However, discounting the beliefs of the Faithful plays into the Conservatives hands. Liberals and the MSM have REFUSED to take on the Religious power in this country and Atheists and their condescension of the Bible is a REAL Issue, but not unlike the Constitution, the ability to craft a liberal message out the Bible is available. I have ideas on the focus of the Message but once the Message is formed, then it has to be hammered, until the pastors have to answer the Liberal Message, based on the Bible.
4. Great Society – Liberals have to address the Great Society and Race issues. I understand the desires of the Great Society and has a white child that was born in Dayton Ohio in 1963, I have watched the implementation and it totally failed in the Rust Belt States. If Liberals had the proper messaging on this issue then winning back the white working class would be much easier. Again the messaging has to be repeated and hammered, but it would be educational and eye opening for blacks and whites. Yes the Great Society has been a success in some places, but overall the whites and millennials have not received proper education on exactly the odds stacked against blacks in the past. The Economic Policy Institutes The Making of Ferguson should be HAMMERED by the Liberal Messaging and required Reading and Analyzed by all high school and colleges so people get it. Get a clue please, in some parts of the Country the only black people that people see are the President ,maybe, and the shows on Cable TV. Tying the Making of Ferguson to the First 48 as well public school disparity is a area ripe for a well crafted message.
5. Education – Again Liberal Messaging SHOULD be easy on this one, but it is not. Liberals have never figured out the Feminism in America ruined the cheap model of public education. When I grew up slave labor taught America in the form of underpaid nuns and white women. Somehow Liberals let the idea of economic reality go when the best and the brightest Women had a choice outside of Education and Health Care. Continuing to ask for the Data on why Charters Schools are the choice, when the Data indicates that Paying Teachers More, brings in better Teachers. The data is out there and the messaging is simple, but Liberals won’t say it. Pay and Respect = Better High School Students and Less need for College and its associated Debt.
6. Trade – Free Trade. The Message is clear, but people in power do not want to admit that it cost America its working middle class, while elevating working people around the world to make a decent living. Wall Streeters won the world on the backs of the industrialized workers and they got sold out in the end.
7. Technology – The Liberal Message can win this argument as well, technology is taking jobs, but our Tax Policy is not recognizing that inequality has lost the American Middle Class its way of making money, but the Messaging is available. When I grew up Popular Science said I would have to work less and have a flying car. Well a great number of people have to work less (The Poor and the Rich) while a great number have to work more…These issues can be worked out with simple messaging and a consistent policy. I think these issues can be worked together as soon as the cars are self driving, then self flying would be the next logical step.
8. Public Lands – This one is easy and liberals could form partnerships along the working class americans as well as Veterans that would benefit from Keeping Public Lands Public. I see a message that could address the Public Lands that helps out the Electoral College issues Liberals currently fret.
Simple Messages can be developed, but will the Liberals (Cats) be herded in a consistent message that they will all sing is the question?
@carlie #26:
My own family’s work history is timber. Parents are fundamentalist, NRA card carrying republicans. When I was in college, I was also a single parent working as a line cook, which makes it really fun to be told that I was just some out of touch elitist by virtue of being enrolled in a proper university.
Hell, conservatives IME take that view of even their own family members if those family members happen to leave the conservative values they were raised with. Seems the moment you grow up and move away you suddenly “don’t understand” your own upbringing and relatives simply because you realized that a lot of their positions are wrong. It’s allowed for one to attend a university but once one graduates they are supposed to come back, buy some guns, put that whole concern for minorities and the environment and being queer thing behind them, and rejoin the fold. Not doing so relegates one to “liberal elitist” who “doesn’t understand real Americans.” Shit, I’ve had my mother explain the weather patterns where I grew up to me as if I didn’t grow up there because I live in a liberal, mid sized southern town now. No acknowledgement that they might not understand me, though, or that they might be the ones who are out of touch with half of the country. That’s unpossible and/or something which cannot be expected of them, simple, hardworking folks that they are. (and of course the only sort of people deserving of that label)
My how I do find it interesting, this framing of care and concern for people not oneself, for the planet, the ability to see a larger picture than the one you grew up with, as citified, elitist, and out of touch with rural white people, though. My, my. Very interesting and effective piece of propaganda, that. Been around quite a while, too, to where even progressives who hail from that background don’t really question it any more.
Stop Stop Stop! Kristof is NOT a liberal. Never has been, never will be. Even if he drives a Prius and has been to ONE gay wedding. He would not recognize liberal political economy if it bit him in his half ass.
this whole thread and mr. kristof is not alone in this sentiment
can be summed up with this
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. Mark Twain
if universities are full of liberals it might have something fundamentally to do with education
more and more it is becoming clear that conservative is coming to mean ignorant
when the main strategy they have and the tools they use to get their agenda implemented involves a willful ignoring of any evidence that contradicts the way they want reality to be., so much so that the use of the expression “a tissue of lies’ is not out of place when trying to analyze there statements for truth.
do not how ever forget the other two motives that travel with them, Greed and lust for personal power
uncle frogy
I find a this tut tuting of liberals by conservative media to be so tiring. Aside from the fact that he is fractally wrong about pretty much everything, he is ignoring the fact that the Democrat won the popular vote and only lost because our government is fundumentaly broken. All this talk about how “oh but it’s constitutional” is so much rubbish. If that argument is true then the formation of the USA is illegitimate as the colonies had “virtual representation” in Parliament and had no grounds to complain. The USA is in a trajectory toward dissolution if MAJOR constitutional and economic reform is not undertaken. I, for one, would gladly dissolve the union if the orange tire fire wins in four years via some abortion of democracy.
(Sorry to post to what may well be a dead thread at this point. When it came up, the cookie keeping me logged in had died, I had apparently lost my password, and my e-mail provider had decided that all mail coming from freethoughtblogs.com was spam, so I couldn’t use the password reset option — this is why I hate spam blacklists! Anyway…)
Yes, calling Kristof a “liberal” destroys all meaning to the word, but frankly, the word “liberal” had already lost all meaning, so why worry?
Seriously, during this election, I got to repeatedly see the spectacle, including on this very blog’s comments section, of seeing people claim as “liberal” a pro-war, pro-bank, pro-wall-street, pro-fracking candidate, who chose an anti-abortion running mate, refused to embrace Black Lives Matter, refused to take a stand on the Dakota Access Pipeline, refused to take a stand on Keystone XL, and continually attacked whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning.
If Clinton is liberal, Kristof is liberal. The word effectively lost all meaning certainly no later than the end of the Democratic primaries, and probably long before that.
@#28, SC (Salty Current)
Lots and lots of younger people turned out in 2008, especially in the primaries. They did so because they believed Obama when he claimed to be an outsider who was much further to the left than the usual Democratic candidates, a view which was in part bolstered by his skin color. When he immediately turned around and demonstrated that the new boss was the same as the old boss (remember the FISA immunity vote? He didn’t even wait 3 days!), they concluded — quite logically — that the Democrats were not worth the effort.
Younger voters can be energized, but spit in their faces and treat them as fools, which the Democrats have been doing more or less explicitly now for 30 years, and they won’t keep being energized. The Democrats did the same thing over again when they rejected Sanders, and now it will probably be another generation before young, left-leaning voters will be willing to turn out for the Democrats in really significant numbers.
I really, really wish this wasn’t the case, but repeatedly going with Clinton-style DLC hucksters has probably doomed the Democratic Party, and they’ve been so good at making sure there’s no viable replacement that that’s a dismal outlook.