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Steelmanning the Strawman: Trump Has A Point About Kamala
OR
Bill DeBlasio is Blacker than Kamala Harris
TLDR: Trump’s attacks against Kamala, while characteristically garbling a more logical point, get at a deeper truth: why should black Americans (or anyone else) vote for Kamala as a Black Candidate when her experience of blackness (inasmuch as such a thing exists) is atypical? This demonstrates how progressive racialists lack a cohesive philosophy of why diversity is good, and who qualifies for diversity points and why.
Trump’s instantly infamous remarks* at the NABJ conference have been universally decried and only sporadically defended. As is typical, Trump has made a mush of a very incisive argument: when progressives tell us that Kamala Harris is an historic candidate for being a black woman, what does that mean? When they say, or at least imply, that Kamala Harris’ Blackness gives us a reason to vote for her, what are those reasons and why should we care about them?
To be clear, Kamala Harris is of course, literally half black and has never hidden that fact or pretended otherwise to my knowledge. She had a Jamaican black father, an Indian mother, attended Howard University (the premier Historically Black College), where she joined a black sorority. We can’t rule out that she lied about her race in some small way at some small point, perhaps lied to somebody in high school, or misreported her race on some official documents where she thought it might benefit her. But let’s compare her to another Democratic politician who traded on a questionable claim to blackness, one who I think was very briefly her competitor in the 2020 presidential primary:
Bill Deblasio is Blacker than Kamala
Kamala starts the comparison with a significant lead, on DNA and her Howard degree and whatnot. But let’s consider some other metrics! Bill has more black kids than Kamala does. Bill has more black spouses than Kamala does. Bill’s immediate family (prior to his divorce anyway, but we’ll ignore that for the exercise) had more black people in it than Kamala’s. Kamala hasn’t had a close relationship with her black father in decades, leaving only her sister; Bill had a black wife and black kids. Even if we expand a bit to give Kamala credit for her brother in law and nieces and nephews, Bill pulls away further: his wife had three siblings who probably also had some kids. Bill DeBlasio had more black loved ones than Kamala has now.
That may seem meaningless, but think about how black advocacy groups construct the idea of a leader being “one of [us]” as an important factor. Barack Obama said Trayvon Martin would have looked like his son. Bill DeBlasio could say that. Kamala Harris can’t. In all honesty, many of my friends have talked to me about “the talk” that their parents had with them, that cops would not treat them well and shouldn’t be trusted. Bill had that talk with his son, Kamala never has. When you hear about hate crimes on the news (let’s assume they’re a real fear ad argumentum) Bill would be worried about his wife and his kids, Kamala wouldn’t be worried about the Emhoffs or her mother.
So if DEI, in the sense that its important to put Black Women in charge, is about experiences, then DeBlasio should get more points than Kamala in some ways. But clearly he doesn’t, and no one would say he does. So what does it mean? It’s not in the blood, because no one would say that Harris or Obama before her are less black than Clarence Thomas. So it’s a minimum blood quantum, the one drop rule, but then after that nothing else matters. Which is either a silly way to insist that I make judgments about our country’s leadership, or an offensive one. Silly, because there’s no logical connection between the one drop rule and leadership if we don’t consider anything else, not experiences or percentages. If it's a DNA trait, we should see some who have more and some who have less. Offensive, because if the theory is that leadership is tied to non-Yakubian blood, then they should say that out loud, that this is a racial hierarchy. This dilemma becomes immediately apparent once we strip away the idea of questioning one’s experiences.
The question that Donald Trump is brave enough to ask, even if everyone else is too PC, isn’t “Is Kamala Harris Black?” It is, why should we care? If diversity is good, we should be able to measure its effects, and when it appears and when it doesn’t. I don’t know that Kamala ever lied about her heritage or altered her history. But she has certainly chosen to emphasize one aspect of her heritage where it offered her political advantages dating back quite a while. I’ve heard a hundred times that she grew up in Oakland, never that she spent a lot of time in Canada growing up. I’ve heard a lot about how she identifies with her distant father, little about the mother that raised her. And that just strikes me as, for lack of a better word, corny. I don’t like being told who to vote for based on race, but if you’re going to do it, then it becomes a political question that can be discussed, and it isn’t offensive to bring it up.
If only we could be having that discussion instead of a birther rehash.
*For what it’s worth, here’s how I would script an answer the question asked:
Idk, just playing Sorkin, I’m sure Trump is better at this than me.
Kamala Harris was accepted into Alpha Kappa Alpha, one of the Blackest sororities you can find. I trust them to vet & measure Blackness better than Donald Trump (or TheMotte) can.
If she's Black enough for them, she's Black enough to me. Total distraction of an issue, not unlike talking heads asking if Obama was Black enough during his primaries.
ASIDE: Is there a programming term for classes with predefined variables that are declared but not defined? It's the only analogy I can think of that approximates the issue.
I stated all that in OP.
What I'm getting at is that the idea that people, regardless of their race, are obligated to vote for her based on her race is incoherent if the concept of race and the terms of that obligation aren't really defined.
I actually did miss your mention in OP, thanks for calling my attention to it. (I also actually have no idea who Bill Diblasio was before this thread, so am not keen to comment on him in particular.)
If the concepts of races get more defined than they are now, you'll find a lot more Diogenes "Behold!" cases cropping up. Blackness in particular is a more interesting thread after the Drake/Kendrick throwdown earlier this year.
I prefer to think of Black as an ethnicity, much like how the Jews are. It's less DNA than it is culture. "This is our music, these are our dances, this is how we tell history to each other." If you were raised in it, you are at least informed by that culture - even if you reject it later in life.
And because these identities are going to be internally & externally checked, the edge cases will keep coming. Generally, I'll defer to the groups who have more at stake to claim her or not.
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Yep, fully agree with all of this. It's infuriating how leftists have spent decades educating us about how "race is a social construct," celebrating the rich culture of African-Americans, teaching us not to appropriate their culture, and inventing new racial/cultural groups like ADOS and BIPOC to emphasize that being black isn't just a box you check on a form...
Until we get to Kamala Harris. when, apparently, it is. We have always been at war with East Asia!
Hell, it was only a few weeks ago that her supporters were proudly calling themselves "coconut-pilled." I thought it was odd they were so boldly using a racial slur for her, but I guess they wanted to reclaim it? I mean, she's the child of an Indian biologist and a mixed-race Jamaican economist. She was hardly growing up in the mean streets of Oakland- they were always moving from one university to another, and eventually landed in Montreal, pretty much the whitest city in North America. She's like the perfect example of an Oreo/Coconut. White people love Harris because she makes Obama look like Malcom X
Which, you know, is fine. People are influenced by their culture. Harris acts and talks like a white acadamecian because that's the environment she grew up in, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it is, however, deeply "weird" to see her suddenly flip and pretend like she's a true-blue, urban, southern, ADOS black sista, in a cynical ploy to try and grab the kind of black voter support that Obama got.
For what it's worth, I thought Trump handled it pretty well. As usual you have to take him "seriously, not literally." His exact words were a jumble, but I think everyone understood what he was getting at, and I have to imagine there are quite a few voters out there (including some black voters) who appreciate his blunt honestly on the matter.
This is a version of the coconut tree meme, which references an off-the-cuff remark Kamala Harris made back in 2023:
If they were reclaiming anything, it was owning this unusual and memorable quotation as something positive, not a reference to any sort of coconut-based racial slur (which I'm not familiar with). But in my Harris-negative bubble I've only heard it as an example of her trying to be fake-folksy and coming off as off-putting.
Yeah I know that was the original reference. But when you start to repeat "coconut" or an emoji of a coconut, over and over, with no further context... well, it's hard not to see the racial angle. It doesn't seem like it was a particularly inspiring speech, and no one is quoting the actual contents of it. I don't see why it would have gone viral without also being a little bit edgy as reclaiming the racial slur (which not everyone knows, but should be well-known enough among brown-skinned people who are super into politics).
A coconut is white on the inside... Really not a great thing to meme into existence.
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Trump stepped into a fairly obvious trap. Remember: political progressives are the people who do things like call Bill Clinton the "first black president," say that Clarence Thomas is white, or flatly declare that black Americans who vote for Donald Trump "ain't black."
Scott Alexander explained this a long time ago but Americans in general still don't get it. Even the Leftists tried to explain this, by capitalizing "Black" and explaining why:
Being Black is important, because Black people share a sense of identity and community. Sometimes it is asserted that this has to do with being descendants of American slavery (DOAS), but if that were really true then Kamala would not be Black. No, the reality of Blackness is that Black is a voting bloc. People who deviate from that bloc, are not Black, even if they're black. White people are not a voting bloc; ergo they must not have a sufficiently shared sense of identity and community to be of value as a political unit. Kamala Harris is Black even if she ain't black; she could be Black if her parents were, say, Bill and Hillary Clinton. Sure, DOAS might find it tasteless or even offensive, but what are they going to do about it--vote Republican? Not a chance.
Audre Lorde once wrote,
This is the fundamental problem with the Identitarian Right. Yes, embracing the politics of grievance and oppression can allow one to beat the Left at their own game sometimes (often in hilarious ways), but then one is fundamentally playing the Left's game. Arguing about whether Rachel Dolezal is "really Black" means focusing your attention on categories over which you have no actual control. It means turning away from the real individuals around you to obsess over cultural judgments governed by a never-ending churn of bureaucrats and theorists and busybodies seeking to endlessly manipulate humanity for their own venal ends. "Fine, let's endlessly obsess over race (etc.)" is not the victory the Identitarian Right seems to think it is.
So yeah: Trump isn't really wrong. Harris is a grifter and a buffoon whose sex and ancestry are, as far as I can tell, the only reasons she was invited to join the Biden ticket in the first place. But even so, Trump's comment was a mistake, if his goal was to win the election; it wasn't the kind of comment that persuades the unsophisticated undecideds. Whether it ultimately costs him the election, well, I doubt that this particular comment matters, in the grand scheme of things. But while it would be nice if society at large could have a reasonable discussion about the interesting things happening in the intellectual background of his commentary... I think most people would be completely baffled by the attempt.
You are part of the identitarian left since you support identity politics for Jews, and the default on the republicans which is to promote identity politics for blacks, hispanics, etc but not for whites. Which is actually a far more identitarian and racist position than if the republicans pandered more towards white Americans. Which they ought to and it is antidemocratic and antiwhite and antiamerican and racist for them not to do this.
To talk of an existence of an identitarian right in American politics is to promote a false concept. Everyone in American politics supports and promotes identity politics, especially those claiming otherwise who are far more extreme and have a very racist anti-native platform.
The so called identitarian right are basically the only people who don't adopt the leftist ideology to support identity politics for non whites and oppose it for whites on antiwhite grounds, while laundering this ideology under universalist pretenses. The more moderate version of this, people like Jon Harris are genuinely objectively promoting something far less racist than antiwhite identitarians. https://gab.com/jonharris1989. A lacking identity politics for whites is basically antiwhite and could be very well argued to be treasonous in european countries and xenophobic demand in non european countries. While of course limitless white identity politics shares morally the problem of the kind of identity politics both you and more hardcore identitarians of the progressive stack.
Now, you aren't directly progressive stack for non Jews , but by focusing on opposing white identity politics, supporting immigration, and tolerating nonwhite identity politics, you still qualify as part of that faction and team. People who sincerely claim to oppose any form of collective identity should hate the current establishment right and should focus especially their rhetoric against Jewish organizations and two tier society they demand and of course other progressive organizations, not try to focus so much on trying to influence the group that is getting discriminated to have no advocates and collectivism. When that is obviously related to them getting screwed over. Obviously people who focus on the not real problem of excessive white identity politics and cover up the real problem of excessive Jewish (especially this because the republicans have promoted enormous level of jewish identity politics including in legislation), Black, Hispanic, etc identity politics among the fake establishment right, are not promoting a valid argument. It is also valid to argue that they align with progressive faction.
Of course "no nations, family, religion, collective identity" is commie immoral ideology anyhow that has lead to enormous persecution of normal people by fanatical ideologues and also mass murders. And done also in all particular singular axis, including ethnicity/race.
Moreover its adherents often are inconsistent and also see certain ethnic groups as inherently bigger enemies of their racial utopia than others. Anti-white racism is obviously motivated by the idea that white identity politics is inherently evil, from the pretense of universalist opposition to racism. Which is about the idea that they are uniquely reactionary and evil while nationalism for groups like blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, Asians, is not.
But there is a validity in opposing certain forms of overzealous tribalism, and especially where it is more illegitimate. Even native nationalism can go out of hand but in european countries it is antinative nationalism the problem today and persecuting the native european people. As for how tribalism levels can change based on context, for example, Nigerians should be nationalistic to a point in Nigeria, but shouldn't even be in any significant numbers in say Britain, and to the extend there are a few of them there, should respect Britain as the homeland of British ethnic groups like English, Welsh, Scots and be much less for Nigerian nationalism in Britain that belongs to the British.
Native identity politics is a key element of justice, both national (lack of it being treasonous and in various constitutions it is explicit that the rulers should prioritize the interests of the nation and going against their nation would qualify as treason) and of international justice specifically, and foreigners respecting the rights of foreign nations is anti-racist. The demand against white identity politics is not about anti-racism but about anti-white racism and not respecting the human rights of white people in their own homelands. It is about an agenda of colonizing these countries and treating its native inhabitans as lesser class citizens and making any resistance to this vilified and illegal.
Note that if we define the USA as a country that isn't just the homeland of European americans and that other groups have a right to it, like blacks, and the relationship to it of more recent mass migration is a huge can of worms, but even then the genuine politics people try to gatekeep which is "pander towards other groups but not whites" which leads to whites being discriminated increasingly not hired in corporate america, make zero sense. See: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-equal-opportunity-corporate-diversity/
Why shouldn't the majority ethnic group have their collective interests be taken seriously by its rulers? Why is oppressing them by adopting immoral commie politics (which also are the immoral politics that foreign extreme nationalists follow against foreign nations they dislike and try to keep down) against normies belonging in their ethnic community, a good thing at all?
Actually giving the majority ethnic group a positive collective identity and taking in consideration their interests as a group (well to a point, you don't invade your neighbors to gain more land and displace them for example as that goes too far) is part of promoting the common good. It is also part of what being a country is about and national sovereignity is about things like limiting immigration, and promoting the continued existence of ethnic community or at most and it is quite more difficult thing to do, particular ethnic communities.
The dominant strain of American politics is of a two tier society hiding behind pretenses of opposing identity politics that nobody, or almost nobody follows consistently. The correct take is that this is obviously racist antiwhite politics by the continuous success of activists who have influenced society (including in the Republican party) that want to put the interest of non white groups first and to completely disregard the interests of whites, including the basic interest in their continued existence as ethnic groups. Which is why there is a problem with NGOs and Jewish organizations which particularly played and play important role that are racist and have obviously promoted this two tier society, but also black activist organizations and other organizations, because of this overzealous nature they have in not respecting the rights of their white christian outgroup.
Uh, no. I don't, and I'd appreciate you not putting words in my mouth. Who do you think you're talking to? What "identity politics" do I support for Jews? What do you think "identity politics" means in this context?
For the sake of clarity, when I say "identity politics" I mean "advocating for and allotting special benefits to individuals purely based on their membership in a particular category." So for example, I favor the state of Israel against Islamic terrorism because (1) terrorism is bad and (2) Israel is a reasonably successful pluralistic state in a region of the world that desperately needs more such things. And you might say "aha! This is still advocating for special benefits based on nationality!" But I would disagree, because there are no benefits I would extend to the Israeli people that I would not cheerfully extend to anyone whose behavior is reasonably comparable. Since I do not give any special consideration to the Jewish people or Israeli nationals (many of whom are not Jewish), it is nonsense to say that I "support identity politics for Jews."
In fact if the world were arranged according to my principles, there would be little to no government at all, anywhere, but the world is not arranged according to my principles. This is not a "commie immoral ideology," it's much closer to libertarian anarchism... but I'm not really a libertarian, so much as a classical liberal. I'm conservative enough to think we probably need some regulation, and some government. But mostly I think people need to be left alone, and not have their social existence engineered by the Leviathan. If people want to form interest groups, they should be free to do so. And government actors should be forbidden from giving any of those groups special treatment based on group membership.
Objective differences between individuals is a different story, and sometimes these will be expressed in the language of groups. But for example treating "men" and "women" differently (in situations where the realities of sex matter) is fine, but strictly speaking that's not allotting special benefits based on membership in a category, it's arranging behavior in response to real individual differences.
Because there's no such thing as collective interests. Or, perhaps it would be better to say that collective interests are an abstraction which erode proper attention to individual circumstance. My rejection of interest aggregation in moral reasoning (I am a Scanlonian contractualist) extends to a rejection of interest aggregation in political action.
Of course, in practical terms, it's very difficult to carry out sweeping government intervention without engaging in interest aggregation. To me, this seems like an excellent reason to not have sweeping government interventions. Government should focus on coordinating behaviors for the good of everyone. Thus for example, having a standard for traffic flow is good. It doesn't matter who you are, you stop on red and go on green; this is not a deep moral principle, it's just the otherwise-arbitrary standard we all follow so we can all accrue benefit from the common use of roads. That's a totally appropriate use of government power, on my view, and there is not so much as a whiff of "identity politics" in it. Many things are good for everyone, and many things can be appropriately targeted toward objective individual differences rather than group membership.
Maybe you have a different definition of "identity politics?" But as far as I can tell, you're simply wrong. Certainly you're wrong about me.
Israel is a Jewish highly nationalist state that affords privileges to Jews on the basis of ethnicity and very willing to commit mass violence against Palestinians on basis of benefiting Jews and hating the foreign group treated as a hostile outside threat. It is a highly nationalist state because the Jews are collectively a highly nationalistic people, which is why they are so hostile to the nationalism of other groups.
It is certainly an exclusive state that sees itself collectively. That not only Jews are part of that state does not make it a pluralistic state, nor is there any significant movement to open Israel's border even to high human capital mass migration. Plenty of nation states can have a minority group. You are just using pluralism as an excuse to support and defend the Jewish nationalism of Israel. You want to get away with double standards by using rhetoric of pluralism where if you genuinely had a problem with nationalism and collective group interests, you would be criticizing Israel for how it fails pluralism in the region by supporting violence and regime change against other groups (now I am not blaming Israelis alone for being the only nationalists in the region of course), not trying to come with a frame that allows you to keep your cake and eat it too.
Moreover, the point isn't just Israel it self but its supporters and the Jewish supremacist faction in general who are authoritarian who try to maintain through slander, cancel culture and authoritarianism and through even legislation a two tier system that has Jews as a superior caste where they are treated as in the right and other groups as their oppressors both historically, and presently and where resources and support is advocated to be directed in favor of them. Where politicians who don't support funding Israel and aren't controlled by AIPAC like Massie are slandered as antisemites, which of course such behavior and rhetoric qualifies as identity politics in favor of collective interests of Jews.
Now, I am not trying to debate this issue with Jewish supremacists who support it and think Jews genuinely are a superior people that a convenient false slander label they come up with of "antisemites" have a problem with because they are evil and there is nothing wrong with the Jewish supremacist agenda (it doesn't exist but it is good and one is evil to oppose it).
I dunno if you are willing yourself to advance such an argument and try to paint it as not qualifying as Jewish identity politcs.
I reject outright that viewpoint, but the point isn't to debate it with Jewish identitarians (including non Jews Jewish identitarians)who support it, but that Jewish identity politics are pervasive. My view is that they are of a supremacist. overzealous form at expense of other nations, and uncompromising nature, but even if one disagrees with that, their existence, including especially among republicans too, is even less up to debate.
But, I wouldn't say that Jewish collective interests are illegitimate if not of an overzealous parasitical nature, although collective Jewish interests of any nature become much more illegitimate when there are enough Jews and even non Jewish overzealous supporters of Jews who deny collective interests of other groups. Additionally, they become illegitimate if we adopt that ideology and promote it consistently. The more these people advocate such arguments, the more we should not grant rights to those who don't believe such rights should be granted to others.
Does Israel have a right to exist? Certainly far less so when you claim there are no collective interests. The law of reciprocity, and applying rules consistently argues against Israel's rights since it is a particularist state that denies the opportunity to countless non Jews to be part of it.
Claiming that there is a problematic white identitarian right is covering for an establishment right that goes way above and beyond in promoting the collective interests of various groups but especially authoritarian on Jews and Israel. In an overzealous parasitical manner at expense of others.
So theoretically you treat everyone the same even though when push comes to shove you don't actually do that in terms of your stated positions since you support a Jewish nationalist state that takes in consideration collective Jewish interests in its policy but oppose the collective interests of Europeans. Somehow your double standards are ok because Israel is pluralistic.
It isn't my fault that your positions are contradictory.
At the current situation Israel is guilty of genocide in accordance to the International Court of Justice. Is your argument that Israel is exceptional in its behavior to justify your massive double standards? Jewish exceptionalism is hardcore Jewish identity politics 101. It is different because Jews deserve more because of their innately better behavior would be identity politics in addition to being inaccurate general, but doubly so in the current circumstances to advocate the neocon arguement of Israel as shining beacon of light upon the nations above the nationalistic tribal conflict typical in humanity.
I find your claim of consistency to be inaccurate.
Hypothetically, it is different but in practice, we have been here before, the end result of people doing this motte and bailey and claiming to be in theory against collectivism, is to support the abuse and disregard of the rights of their European outgroup. And this comes along with hardcore cancel culture too and authoritarianism.
Have you been as loud about shutting down groups like ADL, NAACP, AIPAC, and many more which are much more influential to justify focusing upon over white collective? Have you taken part in the debate of the goverment, including local promoting hate speech codes, including republicans, in favor of Jews and against non Jews, by opposing this?
If not, how is a status quo with identitarian overzealous groups that actually are succeeding in mistreating whites, and one where there are no acceptable white advocacy organizations, one that leads to where you claim you favor going?
Unless where you favor going is a two tier society that is excused under the pretense of exceptionalism, or justification of historical oppression.
This is pretty communist way to see the duty of goverment and must be rejected outright even if someone supported it sincerely as it is a very extreme nonsensical idea that has worked very poorly and disregards fundamentally important facets of constitutional governance. In practice, when it comes to the end result of what they support there very few commited antinationalists of a consistent civic libertarian viewpoint and many more people advancing such viewpoint that are neocons. Indeed I can't but think of Gad Saad as an example who has promoted this mantra of opposing identity politics, is an overzealous Jewish identitarian and admitted that he worked for Mossad once in an operation in Canada.
Neither the goverment, nor private institutions should limit themselves to only issues like traffic lights. Who is you or anyone, to decide that governments should deny and not promote the collective interests of people in their own homelands? Especially when you are supportive of Israel which does exactly that.
To destroy all precedent of nation and constitutional order, in favor of a regime that through such excuses violates native rights in favor of foreign groups. Just because you don't want it, doesn't mean you have valid reason to not want it, and that it isn't a terrible idea to deny them their legitimate rights and create a totalitarian society that oppresses people who belong in ethnic communities in general, and also more so in specific ones in particular.
Of course issues relating to group relations, national history, and immigration need to be decided and governments have a duty to promote the interests of their nation and people, well to a point where they don't act parasitically against other nations and there is some room for debate about where that line is. A reasonable application would require shutting down the machine/network out to oppress, and or destroy the continuing existence of white ethnic groups though.
I am going to also defend the precautionary value of connecting the dots of what people directly argue and also taking in consideration the fact that people who promote arguments against collectivism because of reasons of antipathy and sympathy are so pervasive that we ought to assume that a denial of collective interests against Europeans is about denying collective interests of Europeans because one favors other groups too much and is acting out of antipathy. One would allow people to continue doing this unimpeded by being gullible.
It doesn't matter how one tries to excuse things, if they support the establishment and are satisfied with how they are against identity politics, then what they compromise with is a situation where they support the dominant ideology which is motte and bailey between "I oppose identity politics, collectivism, tribalism" and "I support and promote it through law and policy the collective interests of X, Y other groups at expense of whites". And it really is about using the pretense of universalism to harm a particular outgroup. If someone has some doublethink about this and isn't aware of what they align with, it doesn't change the consequences of the ideology of the faction they prefer.
Of course there are collective interests. Including on ethnic issues. And we also need decisions to be made about such issues. For example X group has a collective interest not to be blamed for things it did do, or for things it didn't do. It has a collective interest to not be a hated minority in its own country. To have national sovereignity and self determination. It definetly has a collective interest to have recognised collective interests and to suppress enemies that want to mistreat it or destroy it, by denying it any of its collective interests.
The reality is that people who claim there are no collective interests do take a side that favors some collective interests far more than others.
There are even possible collective interests that might go too far for one group that violates legitimate collective interests of other groups. Claiming that there are no collective interests is a clear falsehood that is not really up to debate based on the fact that it is self evidently false. It is easier to violate the collective rights and interests of a group if you deny them.
It is very arrogant of you to deny collective interest to nations and you are walking a path that has failed catastrophically. Imagine non nations, religions, collectives is an impossible dream that leads to a violent repressive dystopia. Although in my view you are inconsistent and are advancing an argument to promote it against the outgroup.
Individual circumstance are definitely affected by collective interests. Individuals together form groups who individually benefit through their collective interests on many more issues than traffic lights. There is a reason why foreign extreme nationalists oppose national collectivism and rootedness for the ethnic groups they have on their sights. And the reason is because they want to harm and prey upon them, which is harder to do against a people who defend their collective interests and have a nation that tries to stop treason. No collective interests for the outgroup, makes it easy to harm them.
Which is why activists that are definitely collectivists have been the key drivers of this. Because they opposed the collective interests of their outgroup. So at the current situation we are at where collectivists for other groups, that oppose collectivism for Europeans, are getting their way.
But in general, I would deny what you claim even outside the particulars of the problem of the motte and bailey being a core part of "no collective interests". It is highly destructive to humanity in general to throw aside the valid ground gained related to collective group interests, relating to the valuable concept of the rights of ethnic community, value of rootedness and connection with ones history and ethnic community, national self determination, nation state, national sovereignty and international justice which is about recognizing such collective rights and recognizing limits and reciprocal compromise. Replacing them with an ideology of denial is self destructive for any group that adopts this and enables racial hatred from other groups who are now entitled in not allowing others to have those things.
The activists know this which is why activists who highly dislike X group but support Z, oppose X taking collective group identity and their rights as a nation in consideration.
We clearly disagree about some important things, but at this juncture it seems like you are more committed to making personal attacks and aggressively mischaracterizing my position, than you are to understanding and dialogue. So there doesn't seem to be anything else to say. I am only responding now to note to anyone else reading this thread that you've put a lot of words in my mouth, here, and all of them are wrong.
I am confident that I understood your position when I tried to explore your position and found it contradictory and not much different with countless neocons who argued that nationalism for Israel is acceptable under pluralistic grounds but identity politics for whites is unacceptable. I even give people whose position fits into that, as supporting or tolerating identity politics of more extreme and pervasive type, but overly focusing on white identity politics, an opportunity to actually support changing the situation into one where rules are enforced equally and identitarian organisations of the form of ADL, NAACP and similiar are shut down. But they don't even do the cheap rhetorical commitment of doing that.
The reality is if you have a kid that is being ganged upon by a group of other kids, and some of these kids include the establishment right, and you see both clear supporters of other kids, and people whose position might be a little less obvious but still support the other kids, argue that the beaten kid shouldn't fight back, well that position is a) clearly against the other kid b) it is legitimate for people to conclude that the person advocating it is doing it because he is out to get the other kid, and isn't doing it by accident because of an ideological commitment to pacifism.
Which is why people who exercise freedom of speech like Orwell, made exactly such suspicions about some people who promoted pacifism but were actually USSR sympathisers.
I fully understand why people who have such position want people to accept that they are doing nothing wrong, but it is not understanding that you want, but complimentary misunderstanding. Perhaps you would be ok with complimentary understanding where people are willing to accept different standards for Israel and for Europeans as a good thing which we have seen plenty of such rhetoric in both the motte and outside of it. And you don't show hostility to it ever.
Not to mention it is fair to explore the end results of what you advocate, and all the shared ground you plural who advocate similiar positions, and you singular have with blatant ethnic activists and far left activists, and to note such similarities.
Also fully fair to note that the fact that collective identity politics don't exist, is a self evidently false statement, including about ethnic groups and also a very destructive and radical notion. Just one that is pervasive promoted against right wingers by gatekeepers in the USA because of the success of activists who have been antiwhite, and have used it as part of motte and bailey against whites.
Establishment types in the places where this radical ideologues and activists have been successful and all sort of lower level "thought leaders" who share this type of ideology, have constantly, just as you have demonstrated again, be completely hostile to discussing such issues, showing a complete lack of respect towards any dissenters.
Political correctness in favor of the position against collective group interest and positive identity, and also against especially europeans is enforced through slander, vilification and censorship and enormous lack of charity. One especially willing to use such methods have been those who want two tiers world in regards to Israel and Jewish nationalism and European nationalism, where they are willing to support a huge excess of the first, while opposing the healthy legitimate rights of the later.
This is to say, people who try to accurately explore these issues are attacked for doing so, by people who want to enforce a doublethink on them and get away with agendas that are very destructive against certain groups. Supporters of the modern antinative establishment and negative group identity for europeans, do not and have never shown anything but lack of charity against anyone who opposes this agend.
Accurately revealing the ugly side of how the sausage is made leads to such reaction. So there is typically and here again a lot of of projection about lack of charity, when you are being incredibly uncharitable in dismissing everything the other party has said.
Although, while such issues ought to be adequately explored, it is also true that the advocate of X or Y radical destructive position, isn't in itself someone who ought to have any megaphone. This machine/network which is so enthusiastic about shutting down any timid collectivism for their oppressed outgroup, should be suppressed.
It is justifiable in general for people to both criticize, and oppose agendas that are very destructive towards other groups, (especially when the other group being harmed is their own group), and even more so when they don't fit into grey areas.
Opposing such things is being charitable towards the innocent and those harmed by them, while not opposing them is being uncharitable. Those who do promote a very destructive agenda, are not treated unfairly if their agenda is stated accurately and therefore are in that manner criticized for it. Nor if they are criticized more directly than I did here. And neither if they are stopped from harming people.
We ought to look at consequences, have important moral priors and not excuse ideological window dressing that tries to frame something that is very destructive and comes along with double standards, or oppressive, by misstating it and promoting an inaccurately complimentary positive frame. Whether it is the positive version of the strawman, or it simply indifferent to the damage the ideology does.
But we do need a world that discusses and explores such issues, which is a requirement to understand why some perspectives are destructive. And part of this includes sharing good moral priors.
Like the ones I argued about reciprocity, consistency, understanding the successes that comes from internationalism of reciprocoal nationalism, and the destructive nature of not allowing nations to exist, etc, etc. Or the importance of not covering the substance of what is happening by frames that excuse and mislead. Believe me, I don't explore and argue such things just cause I woke one morning and thought "I have it out against naraburns" but because such issues that you devalue, in a manner that is genuinely extremely destructive against Europeans, are legitimately valuable. When I say this path had lead to disaster, is because it did and does. That doesn't mean that in a place here, I am not debating it. But it isn't an issue where your position is a reasonable way to explore the issue of european group interests, or of nationalism.
There is plenty of debate to be had about legitimate issues that exist in the grey lines, even though whether collective group interests, or collective group interests exist, is not only the case where the position you have advocated is wrong, but it also is one of those issues that we can explore and have correct conclusions about why you are wrong. Note that this isn't an opportunity for a claim that justifies censorship on the basis of opposing close midnedness. Because the view that your position is very wrong, and advocating something destructive and self evidently unreasonable is legitimate. People don't have to treat proposition like "collective interests don't exist" as valid, when they are highly invalid claims.
The existence of illegitimate issues that political corectness tries to enforce is why political corectness comes along with postmodernism as a means to promote and weaponize excessive subjectivity on the issues it can be demonstrated to be wrong. And then assert very radical positions confidently and cancel dissenters.
Such as the arrogant path against nations, that so often comes along with authoritarianism. The advocates of the "antinationalist agenda" are pervasively, and not only on those openly identifying as part of the left, or woke, those where they see some groups as inherently more reactionary, and some as inherently more equal. This is a common trend among the anti nationalist anti collective group interest faction.
Both an agenda against the existence of nations, and even more radically, collective group interest in general and specifically the agenda against particular nations like European nations, is not hard to decipher that it is a destructive position. The "no collectivism" arguement against whites isn't a mystery, of how it is connected with current antiwhite practices, laws.
Nor is it had to imagine how the current radical status quo will lead in the future in a worsening situation, as the demographics who supporting doubling down on such issues, increase, and as authoritarian measures against dissenters are intensified. And while those doing so, gain legitimacy by advocacy against collective group interests who focus their ire the "identitarian right" and cover up for the establishment in the places where such establishment has been sufficiently captured by racist radicals and those who compromise and comprise with them on such issues a unipaty. Saying that what the position you advocate for, ends in those consequences is an accurate observation about the influence of what you advocate.
Of course, people should explore such issues enough to understand how certain perspectives pave the way to hell. Even if you want us not to be able to do so.
But the end point is to understand what is happening and stop building the road to hell. Not deny its existence, attack those who point it. And certainly not to compliment the ideologies that lead us there.
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I had been thinking about this whole shebang and wanting to formulate a comment on it, but I was struggling, probably because my brain secretly felt exactly what you write, but wasn't able to put it into words as well as you. Ultimately, I'm torn between this and what I was originally feeling/wanting to talk about.
...what I was originally feeling/wanting to talk about was that this really is prime "JUST TELL ME HOW THE FUCK RACE IS SUPPOSED TO WORK" territory. I got a feeling of that from what Trump said, and I wonder if it is at all plausible for the right to just triple down and constantly just demand that leftists actually explain how it's supposed to work. Because everyone knows it's broken. Everyone knows that it doesn't work. The emperor is truly naked. Just constantly point at the naked emperor and openly remind everyone that everyone can see that he's naked. There is example after example after example (Dolezal, Warren, the entirety of the definition of 'hispanic', etc.) Hell, I'm still remembering Trevor Noah making basically exactly this same point WRT Obama. Just over and over again say, "Why don't you tell me how this is supposed to work?" Don't tell them how you think it's supposed to work. Just ask them to explain.
They won't. They can't. They know they can't. So they're just going to go to the columns of places like the NYT and say how aghast they are that anyone would even ask the question. So ask it. Again and again and again. If Trump and however many high-profile Trumpists that he can control can bring a version of this up (hopefully a milquetoast version like, "Why don't you just tell me how you think race is supposed to work?") basically every time they have a mic in their face, the pressure of the question remaining unanswered will be glaring. Honestly, a sustained messaging campaign of, "Why don't you just tell us how you think race is supposed to work?" could be the single best... or single worst... thing to happen to race relations in this country in a while.
I think that's a tactical mistake, because it puts them in the position of authority. It makes you look like you're a student asking teachers to the professor, begging them to explain it to you more simply because you didn't do the assigned reading.
The stronger tactic is do your research, and then be unafraid to speak up with your own views on the subject. Don't back down, debate with them. Let the viewers at home decide who was right. Of course this only works if you both have the power to not get cancelled, and also enough rhetorical skill to debate a hotly contested issue on camera under pressure. Trump is one of the very few right-wingers who can do both of those things.
Possibly so. On the other hand, if the people "in authority", the "teachers" and "professors", are constantly and visibly completely unable to muster even the tiniest shred of plausible explanation, it eats away at any perception that they do, indeed, merit those descriptors.
Maybe if you have some power to really hammer them with questions for a long time, like a senate hearing. But most journalists don't have that power, politicians will just dodge whatever questions they don't like and end the interview or move on to a new subject. It was actually quite unusual for someone like Trump to sit down for a long form, hostile interview like he did with the NABJ.
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What do you mean "How is race supposed to work?". Normies don't think about such things. Everyone knows AADOS and native American identities get special privileges. Everyone who actually looks into it knows that Kamala and Obama are neither, but not enough people have looked into it to make common knowledge the same way as for Liz Warren and Meghan Markle. 'Black' to normies means culturally African-American and with a minimum(often literally one-drop rule) blood quantum. Not 'reliable democrat voter'. Everyone except the extremely online acknowledges Clarence Thomas as black after they look into it(he's literally Gullah- and contrary to @SSCReader below, there are differences between different kinds of blacks, even if they have the same assimilatory pressures towards each other that Southern White culture exhibits in the broader red tribe. Gullahs and Creoles and black belt Blacks and NOI and great migrators are different from each other).
If this is how you think race is supposed to work and that 'everyone knows it', then it would be highly productive to move this statement from the category of naked emperors that 'everyone knows' to the category of actual common knowledge that cannot even be implicitly denied on the pages of NYT.
Yes, it would, but that’s not going to happen.
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Just to point out, I didn't say there are no black sub groups. Just that overall one of those groups is a much more dominant slice of the pie compared to any one white group to a pretty major extent.
Edit: Though I agree with your main point.
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Well, or not vote at all. My wife is both black and Black (ADOS, urban, poor family, raised by grandmother etc.). She dislikes Kamala and doesn't think she is Black. That doesn't mean she is going to vote for Trump though she does like some of his economic and America First politics, but has other issues with him, which she felt might be assuaged by a Black VP pick. But she is considering not voting at all. And she isn't that far from voting for Trump honestly, or a slightly less crass version of him at least.
I think you're looking at what progressives think (note Biden had to walk back his comment later), and mixing that up with what Black voters themselves think. And obviously as a disclaimer not all white progressives nor all Black voters are the same. But I was at a family cook out and most of them do not like Kamala at all. A couple of cousins mentioned thinking of voting for Trump and it certainly didn't get them yelled at.
So being Black is seen as a voting bloc by the progressives (hence why they see Kamala as Black) , but it is also based upon a real thing, an (almost entirely ADOS) shared identity that is indeed closer than whites in general in the US. In the sense that any random US ADOS black person is likely to be closer culturally to any other random US ADOS black person, than any random white American is going to be to any other random white American. The comparison would be in white sub groups, like Cajuns or Amish, or WASPS. There are simply more different white groupings that people can be raised in. Whereas the Black community, spread from a single source in the fairly recent past, and was built on a nearly blank canvas due to the loss of whatever cultures they already had. It would be amazing if white people were a similar singular cultural bloc given the histories and numbers involved. To that extent I think it is true there is a Black identity and not a White one in the US as it stands currently. Being a voting bloc is downstream of being a cultural bloc.
Now it is true that groups can be assimilated into this Black identity and most of these are going to be black immigrants (Caribbean usually, although that is also complicated, see differences between Dominicans ("I no black, I Dominican" ) and Jamaicans), though some white people can also, usually "white trash" (See Eminem etc.). And that richer, more successful Blacks tend to remove themselves (remaining black, but not Black), and their families. But the fact remains I think that a much more similar US Black community, does indeed exist in a way that a US White community does not currently. So it is not that Black identity is more important than White, it is that it exists in a way White does not. And largely that is a good thing for white people. A singular White identity almost certainly means that Cajuns, Amish, Mid-westerners, WASPS, Borderers, Southerners et al, have all had to have their unique white identities erased.
To recap, to the progressive movement Kamala is black and Black, but to many Black people themselves, she is merely black. There is a real difference they see there. And that is why Obama derived significant Black credibility from his marriage to Michelle. And why Kamala lacking that, may not push many votes to Trump, but may well reduce Black enthusiasm for her (and thus turn out). Though of course smart Black Democrats should be aware of this, so should be working on something to boost her credentials here.
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Claiming Kamala isn't black won't get him any votes (nor lose him any). But it's a perfectly good deflection from the hostile question he was asked.
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I thought Kamala's dad was half white. So she is a quarter black.
Which explains why she doesn't look very black.
Her dad is allegedly descended from an 19th century Irishman, but I'm not aware of clear evidence that he's a whole 50% white.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris
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I just watched that video, and wow! Trump did a fantastic job with the first 5 minutes of that interview. Whatever you think about his candidacy, there's a lot to learn about rhetoric here. He instantly disarms a very hostile question and builds great rapport with the crowd. I wish I had 1% of his skill as a speaker.
I was annoyed by (one of) the interviewer's immediate leaping on the term "black jobs" (which was, previously , gleefully repeated by the press in the vein of "binders of women"--a pointless, meme-level, no-issue-whatsoever jibe) when he was talking about black employment. If he has said "jobs for African-Americans" I wonder if she would have had the same reaction. At least he basically ignored her. (I also noticed her continual use of the word "Sir" as if she had read somewhere that this is a way to make a sentence sound polite if you add it at the end of a question.)
Putting "Sir" at the end of the question with the right intonation doesn't sound respectful; it sounds hostile. It's a way of fulfilling the forms of politeness while conveying contempt.
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I refer to that as "the idignant sir." It's the affectation you use when you think you're speaking truth to power, subtly mocking your interlocutor's (obviously undeserved) authority, like you're the protagonist of an Aaron Sorkin show dressing down an arrogant superior.
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I've seen plenty of defense of it, and the 'decrying' only came from people with a vested interest in keeping blacks from voting for Trump.
And shows Trump's ability to triangulate himself into an advantageous position even after intentionally entering a possibly hostile arena. Same thing he did back in 2015-16 during the Republican Debates.
Almost goes without saying Harris would never put herself into a situation that could even BE that hostile.
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Harris is not Black because she is from the Jamaican slave-owning upper strata. She has nothing in common with the American Black experience which her father has made clear in his writings. When Kamala tried to insinuate that she knows about marijuana because she is Jamaican, her father publicly wrote —
Harris was raised by her mother anyway, who is as far from the median black American experience as you can be. When Trump says “she is not black” to the raucous applause of the largely black audience, he’s speaking (naturally) in a black way, where denying the blackness of a black person because of their personality is common.
To be fair, I expect the Euro component in ADOS people is also mostly from slave owners.
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This isn't actually as literal as you are lead to believe. Her father is partially of African descent. Her grandmother's maiden name is Finegan.
She is at most 1/4 African descent, maybe less.
This has now been edited to say "...who were Afro-Jamaicans".
I guess this wikipedia article is going to be a major culture war battle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_J._Harris&diff=1239033648&oldid=1238918997
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Eh, Trump’s attack is ‘Kamala doesn’t represent you because she is Indian’, going after the blacks who dislike and distrust Indians as a middleman minority. I don’t think it’s questioning lived experience or whatever. It’s just trump messaging to two groups at once.
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This type of argument has never seemed to stick because progressives, deep down, don't really believe that lived experience matters.
They believe in the power of DNA.
That's why elite institutions like Harvard are full of elites from other countries and 1/8th black people, but rarely any truly disadvantaged people, and almost never a person with a typical African-American experience. You don't need actual hardship to get on the progressive stack, just the right DNA and skin color.
And black people feel the same way. Given a choice between Eminem and Kamala Harris they'll choose Kamala every time, because they also believe in the power of DNA.
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In shorter form, Kamala Harris’ Blackness has a lot in common with the personhood of an unborn child: it depends on who’s asking and why, and it’s a political football in the hands of a Lucy van Pelt.
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