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Noah Smith has been a figure so repellent ideologically to the right, and hostile to it, that I am actually curious about what he said.
So, there are figures that can be friendlier to the right. But as for some left wingers who are rather prejudiced towards right wing associated groups and see their rights as illegitimate, and identify more with groups associated with the left, and support mass migration and tend to see opposition to them as immoral it would be a repeated mistake from the past to put too many hopes on them.
The generally reasonable dissident right figure Auron Macyntire is correct about liberals. That a subset of them when other progressives are unwelcoming, or they disagree on their pet issues like say Israel, they turn to the right but they don't think they have done anything wrong. They want to run the right in accordance to their own values while looking down on right wingers. And of course they start gatekeeping and deplatforming actual right wingers and preferring people like them.
Similarly we get heterodox academies of Jonathan Haidt whining about intolerance of heterodoxy, while their organization and groups are made almost exclusively by liberals. Or forums like motte, which as far as I am aware, all moderators are liberals, but is supposed to be a neutral forum, and the ideology of those who moderate is unrepresentative of the posters.
We also see these figures try to do the same with "centrism" and define themselves as the only moderates and centrists and everyone who disagrees with them as an extremist. Even though in practice their social views, or views on immigration, or on how much they sympathize with various identity groups are far left. Even if some other progressive extremists are further left than them. If you don't define what is centrist by the last couple of years, and by what leftists who run media define as centrist and moderate and what they define as far right. Any longer term outlook realizes that actually the dissident right, part of what they are pushing were more pervasive and dominant in the past, and we have had a radicalization in the recent past. It would be a welcome development for that to be corrected. Moreover, we should also care about how some trends in politics that have been in influence for a couple of decades have evolved today, and their observable effects.
Elon Musk and Mark Andersen although not dissident rightists do seem to have been influenced more so, or share an agreement with several issues promoted by the dissident right that are valid.
In general, I like the more moderate figures of the actual right, and dissident right like Auron Macyntire, while for the general faction, I think they are pushing in the right direction and society is too lopsided in a left wing and antiwhite direction, but I don't agree with the ends that some dissident rightists wish but have a more moderate preference. Meaning if the more extreme dissident rightists were the dominant part of society I would dislike them, however I do find the more moderate figures to be more moderate than the liberals and Ben Shapiro types too. And that the liberals are the dominant faction makes it quite wrongheaded to not prioritise them. As for the neocons, there isn't really that substantial difference with many liberals and the sweet spot of where to be on such issues is not attained by neocons. Not by a long shot.
I do think I have been influenced too by some of the figures of the dissident right and their views, and seeing that they got things correct.
But I was also influenced by the past religious right now, in a way I wasn't in the past. Frankly, it was mainly the liberals as a group, and their key politicians and political organizations and how far they have pushed and how that they behaved that played that role. And when talking about liberals a key part of the issue are how beholden and key part of it are various identitarian extreme lobbies of the progressive stack alliance of intersectional identities.
The right wingers who have been warning and being cautious and were defamed as being uncharitable, and unfair, were in fact correct. Part of that correctness relates to the skepticism towards liberals/progressives who are willing to sometimes criticize progressives. Of which even Obama has done so, in his quote about how the world is messy, but this doesn't change that Obama's influence lies after and before such statements. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/31/774918215/obama-says-democrats-dont-always-need-to-be-politically-woke
As president he helped push things in the woke direction. He certainly is supportive of the even more extreme Biden administration. And quite recently played a key role in a film with antiwhite racist rhetoric. https://www.foxnews.com/media/obama-produces-first-fiction-movie-netflix-gave-extensive-notes-director-cyberattack-plot
Biden's and that general faction's extreme policies, of open borders, of authoritarian persecution of political opposition, on purging non woke, or following the progressive supremacist party line, are in fact alienating people. For that to count as winning, we should have to see a lot more than that and policy changes as a result of opposing faction/coalition exercising power. And of course, we shouldn't actually care too much about people who are part of Biden's faction but make some limited criticisms. It would be detrimental actually, in that it disincentivize caring about an actual opposition. The right has had a lot more rhetoric about winning, when it hasn't been winning, while the left pretending they are the underdogs, where they aren't, hasn't been detrimental to them. So, we should be realistic.
I'm certainly not a liberal of any variety.
Wait, you are a moderator too?
Among the new individuals, I noticed netstack, selfmadehuman and another individual which is liberal. I would have to update then. So at this point what is the ratio of non liberals, to liberals? Are you comfortable being so outnumbered, that the process has been fair and balanced?
Naraburns is another case that is a little interesting as he opposes liberals on some issues but self identifies IIRC as liberal, and supports mass migration for western countries while opposing it for Israel. Is there also anyone who opposes zionism among the moderators and sympathizes more with the Palestinians than Israel?
I wouldn't say you aren't a liberal on ethnicity however. My impression is that you seem to oppose ethnic identifications and communities identifying with their group and interests and pursuing them, but oppose the liberal tribe for supporting doing this for their own preferred groups. So you are more consistent than them on that, but still take an ideologically more left wing perspective. Even if the actual left, especially the modern left has as key part of its dna applying it inconsistently.
Of course, my own perspective that it is legitimate for ethnic groups to identify with their own group (well not always, immigrants should be in limited numbers and identify more with the interests of the natives than if they lived in their own separate homeland), and to pursue their well being and legitimate interests and rights but do so in a manner that is reciprocoal with the legitimate rights of others. Which is affected by others behavior of course. To be fair this perspective also has existed among parts of the historical left, being a pervasive perspective in general. But the left wing faction that opposes this, and especially opposes it in a motte and bailey manner against their ethnic outgroups has been the most influential in pushing things in its direction. Plus my perspective has also existed and exists even more so outside the left.
If I understand you correctly, your claim is that:
Is this accurate, or would you like to correct my interpretation?
Liberals as a tribe has the issue of playing a motte and bailey between opposing ethnic nationalism in general and calling identifying with it as racist, and also actually do support tribalism for their own favorite groups. They also do this for sexes. They see the nationalism for their preferred groups such as blacks, Jews, Palestinian as legitimate, while they inconsistently promote the ideology against nationalism. This inconsistency doesn't change who pushes the motte.
To take a position that is anti-ethnic identity is still in line with a left wing tradition and ideology. Whether promoted by communists, marxists, and others. The left has also promoted this ideology against any other collective identities than those defined by the left, or doesn't prioritise what they care about. The collectivism of individualism ideal, is a left wing ideal, not a centrist ideal and not a right wing ideal.
But even that part of the left had those who made a different evaluation of oppressor ethnic groups and oppressed and that related to how the left evolved.
Even if one pushes consistently an opposition of ethnic, religious, group identity, this is in fact a left wing ideology. Even if the left/liberals as a faction are in fact as a majority, and as their pervasive perspective not consistent.
Supporting ethnic nationalism only for white people as legitimate, I would consider as extreme far right. Not of course equally extreme, or even necessarily extreme for someone to prioritize white rights and be a white advocate.
In general, for any groups I do think too intense activism should be assumed to be typically immoral if your group has been getting substantial victories in favor of it at expense of others.
While to oppose nationalism only for white people should count as the extreme far left. No matter how many people who identify with this want to frame their perspective as moderation. Which unfortunately, even I rhetorically understate sometimes, due to its pervasiveness among current liberalism/leftism. As well as the fact that you can get in trouble if you are too blunt. An extreme faction becoming more influential does not change its characteristics. The USSR as an example was not a country run by moderates when the Bolshevics were the only game in town. We need to actually evaluate whether the perspective is lopsided in one, or another direction.
It is both moderate and right wing to think that white people have legitimate ethnic communities too. But in terms of identification, it tends to attract people who identify more as right wingers in certain countries. But is in fact the moderate position.
If we have to rate things on a slider from oikophobic to overly nationalist, a perspective that tolerates ethnic communities is not a controversial perspective. And also when it is inclusive of Europeans too.
It is those parts of the left I mentioned that have had a strong objection to that while others compromised with them when they went along. And of course, there are also people who oppose what I argue and oppose rights for their right wing ethnic outgroup from an explicitly ethnonationalist perspective who know they are being machiavelian about it, or actually fit more with the right in their own country.
But such populations can still support the left when abroad.
This shows the limitations of the political spectrum when it comes to nationalism, since someone's ethnonationalism for their own country which fits more with the right there, can be more compatible with the left in the context of foreign politics.
Thanks for taking the time to explain.
What, concretely, do you mean when you say white people have legitimate ethnic communities? As in, there are physical communities in the USA that should be able to exclude non-whites? Or even non-physical communities/cultural...events, or what-have-you that are necessarily white rather than race-blind mainstream American?
To lay some cards on the table, what you're arguing seems to be that most conservatives are some flavor of white nationalist. I assume at the mild end of the spectrum you describe, this is less blood and soil rhetoric and more 'it's okay that my tabletop game club is made up entirely of white men' or 'the president should be white as the USA is a majoritarian white country.'
I just don't think it is true that progressives or liberals oppose nationalism specifically for white people. Japan may be a fargroup for progressives in the US and as such doesn't receive much attention, but I've certainly heard people express discomfort at their attitude towards foreigners/non-Japanese and a national identity built on race. Any kind of nationalism built on race makes progressives and liberals deeply uncomfortable.
Furthermore, I don't believe that conservatives writ large support carveouts and national-identity/community building based on race. Perhaps I'm typical minding, perhaps my mental model is wrong and you're right - I'd honestly encourage you to tighten up your argument to something more concise and write a top-level post to see what people think so we can get more data.
If most conservatives do explicitly believe in nation and community building based on race, would you agree with progressives that call them white nationalists? And your argument is simply that being a white nationalist isn't a bad thing, because to you progressives are black/asian/hispanic nationalists?
I am possibly misunderstanding you here, but it sounds like you are saying you would consider “it’s okay that my tabletop game club is made up entirely of white men” to be a mild form of white nationalism. If so, and if that is the standard liberal view, the inferential gap between liberals and conservatives on this subject is frankly too large to overcome. No conservative I know would have the slightest problem with an all-white group of friends hanging out; they wouldn’t consider it racist, wouldn’t consider it an example of white nationalism, and would most likely think of anyone who disagrees as the genuine racist.
As far as I can understand, he would call that the moderate position, no?
I'm assuming that tabletop community would be a 'legitimate ethnic community.' But even that is fraught - if it's recognized as a 'legitimate white ethnic community' and a black person wants to join, what happens? If you just happen to have a board game group that happens to be all white I think progressives would ding you on not being inclusive enough but not call you a white nationalist, if you happen to have a white ethnic board game group that would actively exclude others based on race, then I think you deserve the label of either racist or white nationalist, no?
What if it was an exclusively black or Indian or Chinese, etc, etc. club? Which would be acceptable and why? What about subcategories of white, like Irish or British or French?
To lay my own cards on the table, I am not white, and I think forming exclusive clubs of this sort are in poor taste at best and would rather they not exist. But we do not live in that world.
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