September 11, 2016

Middle America tired of elitist moral panic over racist/sexist folk devils

The more that Team Hillary and her media operatives try to fear-monger over the alt-right contingent of Trump supporters (the "basket of deplorables"), the more they look like the Moral Majority crusaders of the 1980s, with quite a different target obviously, but generally the same in tone and purpose.

Then the targets were non-traditional family structures, promiscuity and teen pregnancy, drug use, and heavy metal music -- all ultimately sharing the same cause of Satanic influence, for which a vigorous Christian fundamentalism was the only antidote.

Today's crusaders are not religious, but are no less paranoid and zealous in their witch hunts. The deviant behaviors are everywhere: voting for a closed border and deportation of illegals, flying the American flag non-ironically, living in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods, and sending your daughters to schools with no Muslim rape-fugee population. Underneath such pervasive social ills, the dark occult forces of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, etc. are working their evil magic -- and only multicultural globalism can reverse their spell over the hoi polloi.

Both phenomena are cases of moral panic, although sociologists would get fired if they studied the moral panics of the left. It's a shame that they don't do the sociologist thing and emphasize the class dimension of moral panics, since the culture war is fundamentally a battle between rival factions within the elite, over control of the masses. The only question is whether elitist conservatives or elitist liberals will wield that control. Their material needs are beyond being met, so they have plenty of time and energy to devote to airy-fairy concerns like whose ideology ought to prevail in government.

However, these panics rise and fall in cycles, and we're clearly near the end of the witch hunt against any normal decent person who wants to live in a cohesive and prosperous society, which cannot sustain itself under the constant influx of immigrants, who mix up our sense of shared norms and customs, and who form the reserve army of the unemployed that lowers American incomes. The victory of Trump in the Republican primaries, and soon in the general election, is the most visible sign of the turning of the moral panic wheel.

But you can feel it everywhere -- ordinary people, especially among the rebellious youth, are sick and tired of elite busybodies wagging their finger and scolding them for committing some supposedly sinful behavior that seems rather natural and common-sense. The Hillary Clintons of today, sermonizing about the alt-right, could not look and sound more like the Tipper Gores of the 1980s, who convened Congressional hearings on the corrupting influence of pop music (under the Parents Music Resource Center).

It doesn't matter that the Moral Majority is now secular rather than religious -- normal people are tired of their sanctimonious hectoring, and have begun to simply tune them out as yet another annoying political lobby, not the moral arbiters that they style themselves to be.

It's ironic that Hillary Clinton should be the one to finally run the "everybody's a racist" witch hunt into the ground, given her husband's role in putting the last nail in the coffin of the previous cycle. Back in 1992, the Cultural Right had just about run its course as a mainstream movement, and in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton hammered away at both its hypocrisy and its divisiveness -- sadly not without a grain of truth by 1992.

Here is the video, and here is the transcript. At 2h 41m, he says:

Frankly, I am fed up with politicians in Washington lecturing the rest of us about family values. Our families have values. But our government doesn't.

I want an America where family values live in our actions, not just in our speeches. An America that includes every family. Every traditional family and every extended family. Every two parent family. Every single-parent family. And every foster family. Every family.

Frankly, we are fed up with politicians lecturing the rest of us about cultural values. Our American culture has value.

Every traditional America and every free-spirited America. Every rural America. Every suburban America. And every urban transplant America. Every America.

Then at 3h 11m:

Tonight every one of you knows deep in your heart that we are too divided. It is time to heal America.

And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other - all of us - we need each other. We don't have a person to waste, and yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what's really wrong with America is the rest of us- them.

Them, the minorities. Them, the liberals. Them, the poor. Them, the homeless. Them, the people with disabilities. Them, the gays.

We've gotten to where we've nearly them'ed ourselves to death. Them, and them, and them.

But this is America. There is no them. There is only us.

Them, the white guys. Them, the conservatives. Them, the coal people. Them, the hometown loyals. Them, the downsized. Them, the flag-wavers.

It's disturbing how full-circle we've come in them'ing ourselves to death, and with Clinton's wife now acting as Them'er-in-Chief.

With the "everybody's a racist" witch hunt now effectively dead, we can celebrate for a little while -- but we ought to guard against spawning yet another cycle of leftist moral panic. I actually think keeping our targets as foreigners will keep things common-sense and survival-based. A moral panic only arises when it seems like one element of the society is turning on another. That's unusual and calls for an unusual explanation (witchcraft), whereas preserving the in-group against the out-group is basic human nature and requires no bizarre hidden forces to account for it.

From the Progressive era, which focused on ending immigration, through the New Deal era, which focused on curbing Communist subversion, there were no major sustained counter-movements to open the floodgates of immigration again, or to allow Communists to come and go as they please in positions of power. The only time it triggered a bit of resistance was when the anti-Communists targeted their fellow Americans more so than foreigners.

Within 10 to 20 years, nobody will be weeping crocodile tears over illegal immigrants who were sent back home under the Trump administration. The only measure that would overstep the bounds would be deporting blacks to Africa, or the Ellis Island descendants back to Europe. As long as we preserve Americans, and keep the focus external, we won't get too carried away and cause a backlash.

15 comments:

  1. Random Dude on the Internet9/11/16, 11:35 AM

    Hillary had to leave the 9/11 ceremony because she was not feeling well. Scott Adams on his Periscope this morning said that this is effectively the end of her campaign. She will have to spend the rest of her campaign talking about her poor health. Trump's remaining opponent now is the corrupted media.

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  2. https://twitter.com/deptofinfamy/status/775015753925873665

    Seizing up beautifully, thankfully after a 1 hour IV and Dialysis she was okay.

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  3. One of the most entertaining parts of this campaign has been watching old videos of Bill Clinton 20 years ago saying roughly the same shit Trump is saying today...

    Scott Adams said he didn't think the deplorable thing would matter much because they know who they are and aren't going to vote for Hillary anyway, but really this isn't the case. The left will accuse anyone of being a deplorable if it suits their needs, even up to even reasonable, intelligent people who are basically on their side like Charles Murray, James Watson, etc. Setting aside the issue of whether the worst groups are nonetheless real Americans (I believe they are), the middle of the road voter considering Trump is going to wonder if they're going to be tossed into that basket when the time is right.

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  4. The Clintons call us "deplorables," "coal people" and the like, and that shows what our elites think of a lot of the nation's old-stock white population. Given pronouncements like those, the theories about white dispossession and white genocide have actually started to sound reasonable.

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  5. "One of the most entertaining parts of this campaign has been watching old videos of Bill Clinton 20 years ago saying roughly the same shit Trump is saying today..."

    Clinton speaking at Ohio State 1992:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyfZc9bFNZ8

    Marching band and cheerleaders wearing red white and blue? Awkwarrrrrd.

    Slamming the Pres for subsidizing the off-shoring of a manufacturing plant? Xenophobic and socialist.

    I'd like to see a question on exit polls about who you voted for in '92, especially in states that only turned blue during the culture war period starting in '88 or '92. The talking heads would be shocked how many former Clinton voters are switching to Trump.

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  6. Anon for now9/11/16, 5:27 PM

    Journolist doubling down on the racist moral panic in the last two days, but especially today. I suspect they're trying to isolate nice Trump supporters who like to have fun with some of the bad boys on twitter (going extra hard on "Pepe is WN" meme just in last 48 hours). Thing is, people are having so much fun calling themselves "deplorable".

    Hillary's definition was too expansive with all the -ists and, frankly, probably does come to at least half of Trump's support. At least. They're retconning to "alt-right" to make "deplorable" as narrow as possible, except Christian cake bakers would fall into the deplorable basket. And way too many people relate or relate on someone's behalf, and are upset.

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  7. I am very interested to see what Trump's reaction will be to Hillary's death spiral today at the 9/11 thing. As of right now, he hasn't commented.

    My bet is that Roger Stone and he and the other big minds close to him are powwowing right now, as this is a serious gift that has dropped right into their laps, and they don't want to fuck it up or have it backfire by making Trump look jerkish for going after her. This is just gold for him and for us, like the enemy revealing to the whole world that half their troops are unfit for battle and their tanks are mostly inflatable decoys.

    I pray he plays it well.

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  8. It's especially funny because America is DE-facto the least racist country on the planet, not racist to a fault, and that Trump is the only racist people can even name is a proof of this. Whitey is afraid to tell his black neighbor to turn the music down, let alone anything else, blacks are treated like holy cows in India, when one wanders into the street, you don't dare to honk, honky doesn't honk, let that sink it. The evil White racist is more of an urban myth, similar to big foot, at this point, we believe he is out there, but we have yet to capture him on film. And don't get me started on the KKK, when it rode the last time into town to save the day, the world was still in black and white!

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  9. "I am very interested to see what Trump's reaction will be to Hillary's death spiral today at the 9/11 thing."

    We could be entering uncharted territory if she dies before the election.

    The only other time a candidate died during the electoral process was Horace Greeley in 1872. But he died after already losing the popular vote and EC big-time. His EC electors were free to go their own way, and they split their votes among four other candidates, with only three electors giving him posthumous votes.

    What the hell happens if she kicks the bucket before the popular vote is even in?

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  10. Random Dude on the Internet9/11/16, 7:17 PM

    Hillary will campaign from her deathbed if need be. She's in it to the bitter end.

    Democrat leadership is likely in a panic now as they wonder what they can do to stave off the bleeding of support because this absolutely is the end of her campaign as we know it. They must be thinking how can they prevent the GOP from capturing a supermajority in the House and Senate.

    My guess is that Hillary does very little campaigning moving forward but everyone else steps up: Obama, Biden, Kaine, various celebrities, and Hillary basically disappears from sight. Even Bill Clinton, who looks like he is near death himself, will make a few appearances. She will show up for the first debate but it will seem like a formality as Trump cleans her clock. She doesn't bother showing up to the other debates.

    Democrats will rationalize to themselves that it is okay to throw away the 2016 elections because the demographics game will favor them anyway. To them, they're going to win every election moving forward anyway so let Trump play President for four years. They will rationalize it as losing the battle but winning the war.

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  11. And do we know the rules on what the D's are allowed to do if a candidate dies/is too sick to go on after being chosen as the presidential candidate? I mean, can they straight up replace her with whomever they want, or do they have to go to Bernie Sanders, who got the second-most delegates? Or does Kaine become the automatic D pick because he's the VP on the ticket, and therefore official? Or do they have to do a run off?

    I'm sure there are rules about this somewhere, but the lefties commenting about this are going on and on about how Joe Biden or Crazy Lizzie Warren should replace her as they will "clean up." Which I find funny, since Crazy Lizzie's got way less name recognition than lefties think, and 60 days isn't enough to get her name out there, whereas Biden would be coming in and be seen as usurping her spot---and Trump, as I've said, would get Hairplug Joe so riled up he'd be making gaffes left and right.

    May you live in interesting times, no?

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  12. If there's a vacancy, the DNC votes on the replacement. That much is known, but it's completely unknown how it would affect the election since it's never happened before the election.

    The best hope is for her to live through the election, although continually in failing health to demotivate her partisans into staying home, and dissuade Indie voters from choosing her.

    I'd also like to see her and Bill alive through the first year of Trump so we can convict and punish them for anything they've done that can still be prosecuted.

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  13. "whereas Biden would be coming in and be seen as usurping her spot---and Trump, as I've said, would get Hairplug Joe so riled up he'd be making gaffes left and right."

    Don't get carried away there. Biden is the only one who could give Trump a tough time. Nobody cares about his hair plugs vs. Trump's hair, or his gaffes vs. Trump's. You're thinking like a Trump fan, not an undecided or Indie voter.

    Superficial things don't decide elections, fundamentals do. Biden would face the same difficult task as Hillary -- third consecutive term for incumbent party. But unlike her, he's incumbent and for two terms, and he's the VP. The only person more or less who can pull off that feat -- like Gore in 2000 (in the popular vote, and nearly in the EC).

    Biden's fav/unfav is 50/35, whereas Hillary's is 40/55.

    Trump would have almost no time to define and demolish Biden before the debates and election, as opposed to the months he's invested in weakening Crooked Hillary.

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  14. Oh, I call him Hairplug Joe because its funny; I don't expect anyone in the public to notice or care about the plugs themselves, though Trump could make him insecure about it, which would lead to Biden's tried-and-true natural reaction to insecurity---to say something completely boneheaded.

    And its not Biden's past gaffes that would sink him, it's the ones Trump would force him to make in a debate/on the trail going forward.

    Remember how Trump got Jeb Bush to give him five in a debate, and how it made Jeb look like a weak supplicant nerd to the Trump's cool kid? Or how he got Rubio to start yelling sex insults at Trump ("small hands") in desperation? Trump's debate performances are gold not just for what he says, but how he defines how others will behave for him, part of his natural alpha abilities.

    With Biden in a debate, he'd get Harplugs insecure on his intelligence---which Biden is extremely insecure about---and Biden would go off being a goofy gaffe-tastic mess. He'd make Biden into the idiot class goofball with the transam to trump's prom king-alpha jock driving a new porsche. And he'd goad Biden into doing more press conferences, too, which would lead to more gaffes.

    Although Biden would be hard to define for Trump this quickly, and as sitting VP he's got the name cred, leftists forget no one has ever rallied around VPs nationally, and how precious few sitting VPs have actually won the presidency (and that FDR went through them like water). Biden is seen as an empty suit by most, and even made statements to that effect when he started, mentioning how Obama would diminish the VP's influence after Cheney.

    Also, one of Hillary's "strengths" against Trump is that she doesn't come across smarmy or crass to the undecided voter (she's autistically polished), while Trump, of course, is wildly sarcastic at times, and can come off as crass. Biden uses sarcasm and crass-language as well in his schtick, part of his "common man Joe" routine. That neutralizes the reaction against Trump---"he's too brash for the presidency, too rude"----because Biden has similar tics.

    And I don't think Trump would have to work as hard as you think to define Hairplug Joe. Biden is easy to goad, as I've stated, and he is not the kind of pol who would know to hang back here; he'd go out and start to define himself right away, make it all about him, and a little needling by Trump would make him accidentally define himself as Dan Quayle 2.0. Campaign stress has made Hillary's Parkinson's worsen so much she literally stopped talking to the press for a year; with Hairplug Joe, the stress and panic on getting in the race now would make him start babbling (especially in the first few weeks, when his team is still coming together and everyone's freaking out about the situation).

    Anyway, it's all up in the air now, so let's see where everything lands. The first step for Trump is to use today's bombshell as a cruise missile, and not blow it; thus far, he's remained quiet on the issue, not even tweeting. Strangely (and heart warmingly) Ann Coulter has been relatively quiet about it; only tweeted twice about it, and the second was a retweet. This makes me hope and pray she's part of Trump's inner circle and they're planning something together.

    And you're dead right; I want Hillary to lose the race and then be convicted so that she and Bill can spend the rest of their lives in Club Fed.

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  15. Trump dispatched his primary opponents so easily because he was appealing to his own side, not attempting to win a general. Prove that they're incompetent, corrupt, lying, sell-outs, etc., and your own side's voters will take an honest look at them and say, "OK, they've all gotta go back."

    The other side's voters do not work that way. What the hell else does the most corrupt war-mongering candidate in history have to do to get them to not vote for her? Go on a spree shooting at a black kindergarten?

    "Well sure, we agree that there should have been tougher gun control laws -- and that's precisely why we have to vote for her. A Democrat in the White House will change the policies so that no Presidential candidate can ever again shoot up a black kindergarten on the campaign trail."

    For the general debates, I wouldn't expect many truly open-minded viewers whose allegiances are up in the air, as there are during the primaries, when all the various competitors are still choices for your team.

    Most have already chosen their side for the general -- perhaps years ago -- and will be responding to the exchanges reflexively as good for our team or bad for our team, not that they'll actually shift their allegiances from one team to the other.

    I don't think even the Indies would side with Biden over Trump in debates or the election, but that was predictable from the 2012 outcome where Obama was weakened compared to '08. No momentum to carry it into a third term in '16.

    At this point, the voters who are not kneejerk partisans have already felt the gut intuition that it's time to change leadership. They're just looking for some salient event to rationalize their gut-level intuition. Maybe a bad debate performance by Hillary or Biden, maybe a "basket of deplorables" gaffe, maybe something else.

    But that doesn't mean that's what actually shapes their decisions -- as though in another election, it would have the same effect. Nobody ever thought Dubya was the intellectual or debating superior, or the most polished and gaffe-free. But if that's who they wanted on a gut level, they rationalized those things away.

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