JTarrou
1d ago
The American left has always sided with the opponent. They sided with the Confederacy, with Germany and Russia and Vietnam and Afghanistan etc. etc. etc. The only war in our history they supported "our" side was when they got faked out by the collapse of the Nazi-Soviet pact. Had Hitler not invaded Russia, the American left would still be on side with the Nazis and Stalin.
That's what it means to be "left wing". There is no other meaning or definition that explains the political phenomena.
No national identity can include the left, because the left definitionally opposes their own nation.
JTarrou
3d ago
Assuming that one's values are permanent and universal is a common religious belief.
As Ft says, this is conflict/mistake theory and while mistakes are common, the mistakes mostly occur because of conflict that incentivizes them.
Any group of three people or more will have conflict. Any group of people will have conflict with other groups of people. That's why we join groups. The liberal really does believe that he needs every immigrant he can get to break the back of white supremacy, to make sure his group wins. His group is just not "American citizens" in the way the conservative privileges that identity.
Every identity conceals a hidden struggle, a compromise, a division. America is red tribe blue tribe, white and black, male and female. It is only by forging a common identity that supersedes those divisions that people can get on the same side. But that identity in turn needs opposition to form it. We are Americans, not Mexicans or Canadians. The conflict, resolved at a lower level, simply moves up the chain.
The reverse is also true. The removal or delegitimization of one's opponent can lead to reignition of internal struggles. As the Soviet Union failed, the US became more internally divided. Without a simple global opponent to threaten the American identity, our political divisions steadily widen, even as policy difference shrinks.
JTarrou
6d ago
I don't see this as the important part, but I mean all the various minority groups that outperform the white average. Jews are a central example, but east asians, indians, nigerians, arabs etc.
Equivocation between whether jews are the oppressed victims of the holocaust or the perpetrators of a current one is a perennial favorite. It's different things. The left doesn't like right-wing nationalistic jews (Israelis), but they do like western communist jews who never went to Israel to try their stupid ideas. Often the second group are protesting the first. Meanwhile the right understands a nationalistic western-oriented regional ally, but isn't that fond of the "jooos" in NYC and Berkeley. It's just politics, and the requisite belief systems thereof.
It's quite the gambit to move to a foreign country for a better life and then extoll the virtues of your former society whilst being loudly racist against the majority of your new one. Bold move Cotton.
"Yes, I moved to China for a six-figure salary, but I would never let one of these chinks marry my son or daughter, they're racists!" - op-ed in a chinese newspaper
Of course, it says something about US culture that our "respectable" media organs are gagging to print this sort of slop.
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