Identitarianism

IT’S JUST PART OF WHAT WE OWE THEM:

Paying reparations for slavery is possible – based on a study of federal compensation to farmers, (Linda J. Bilmes & Cornell William Brooks, 6/19/24, The Conversation)

In 1988, for example, the U.S. government paid reparations to Japanese Americans – and in some cases, their descendants – who were forced into internment camps during World War II.

In another example, starting in the 1990s, Congress passed a series of laws to compensate people in 12 western states and the Marshall Islands who were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation from the government’s nuclear testing program that occurred in the 1940s and 1950s. Since 1990, these programs have compensated some 135,000 victims and paid out US$28 billion to these victims and to some of their heirs.

America has paid compensation to coal miners who have contracted lung diseases, farmers who have endured crop failures and fishermen facing depleted fish stocks.

The federal government has also paid compensation to victims of terrorism, wrongful convictions and natural disasters.

It also has paid partial restitution to thousands of descendants of Native American tribes, whose tribal land earnings were stolen or mismanaged dating back to the 1880s.

Indeed, the federal government has long attempted to compensate individuals – and in certain cases entire communities – through a combination of restitution, financial benefits and rehabilitation.

These programs cost billions of dollars annually and are funded in a variety of ways, including specific excise taxes, the use of government trust funds and subsidized insurance policies.

We have determined that the diversity, scale and complexity of federal programs and beneficiaries show that reparations are administratively feasible. While only a few of these programs address racial injustice, they all demonstrate the government’s capacity to administer large-scale programs of compensation for those directly and indirectly harmed.

PALEOCONS IN FANCY DRESS:

The Rise and Fall of American Integralism (Kevin Vallier, June 13, 2024, The Dispatch)

Liberalism has faced criticism since it emerged in the late 18th century, whether from socialists who thought it downplayed solidarity, fraternity, and equality, or from conservatives who considered it harmful to traditional institutions like the family, the local community, and the Church. But by the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, liberalism had seemingly defeated its opponents. Almost everyone in the West defended liberal institutions. Take the 2012 U.S. presidential election: Mitt Romney was no illiberal right-winger, and Barack Obama was never a socialist. They both were—to different degrees, certainly—liberals.

Things changed in 2016. Suddenly, immigration restrictions and aggressive right-wing approaches to the culture war became influential, if not dominant, in many liberal democracies. Culture trumped economics. In the U.S., questions of identity took over the “national conversation” that health care reform had occupied a few election cycles prior. The political right—now content with a large welfare state and eschewing fiscal discipline—started winning elections.

To comprehend the post-liberal project of the Right one needs to comprehend that the energy behind the Obamacare hysteria was just Identitarian too. After all, the model was the right’s own Heritage plan and Romneycare, while the supposedly small government Tea Party only opposed social welfare for “others”.

THEY’RE AN A-FRAME:

Left-wing authoritarians share key psychological traits with far right, Emory study finds (Carol Clark, Sept. 9, 2021, Emory University)

People with extreme political views that favor authoritarianism — whether they are on the far left or the far right — have surprisingly similar behaviors and psychological characteristics, a new study finds.

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published the research by psychologists at Emory University — the first comprehensive look at left-wing authoritarianism.

No one is surprised.

THE lEFT IS THE rIGHT:

Progressive Ideology’s Anti-Semitic Core (Edward Halper, 5/22/24, Law & Liberty)

Justifying Germany’s treatment of the Jews, Hitler had pointed to America’s treatment of blacks. I don’t think that it was accidental that the civil rights movement in the US took off after the war. Americans had seen the ultimate consequences of extreme racism, and they were revolted. The promise of American democracy needed to be extended to all, and Jews were on the front lines of the 1960s civil rights marches. For various reasons, relations between blacks and Jews soured in subsequent decades, but Jews remained a reliable voice for civil rights, anti-poverty legislation, and progressive politics, and the horror of the Holocaust kept anti-Semitism at bay for more than a half a century after World War II.

It was, therefore, a shock to Jews to find themselves not just excluded by current “progressives” but villainized. After the 2018 Women’s March, three principal organizers met with Louis Farrakhan. They not only refused to condemn his anti-Semitism but forced out a prominent Jewish activist from the leadership and excluded Jewish groups from participation. Today, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib never tires of declaring that anyone who supports Israel cannot be progressive. Those who are progressives support encampments that threaten students supporting Israel, and they tolerate or, indeed, perpetrate violence against Jews at elite universities. Is this anti-Semitism among progressives an unfortunate, but superficial mistake in their war against oppression, or is it more deeply rooted? Could it be as inseparable from the current progressive ideologies as Nazi anti-Semitism was from Nazi ideology?

The ideologies that now delimit progressivism are relatively recent. They are espoused by academics and taught at universities, and they stand behind current efforts at “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” I do not think any of these ideologies really deserves to be called “progressive.” They are inimical to the goal that has traditionally defined progressivism: a society without discrimination that provides ample opportunities for all to fulfill their human potential.

If you’ve met one Identitarian you’ve met them all.

WHITE PRIVILEGE? OR JUST BLUE?:

Inside the Texas Pardons Board’s Unusual Role in Freeing Racist Murderer Daniel Perry (Andrew Logan, May. 24th, 2024, Texas Monthly)

The board’s pardon recommendation came as a shock to many familiar with the Perry case. All seven members of the board, appointed by Abbott, were respected by pardons lawyers in the state. “We entered this process believing that the members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles were people of integrity who would put the law above politics,” Garza told Texas Monthly. “We were wrong.”

Almost from the start, Perry’s case proceeded through the board in an unusual manner. A day after the guilty verdict, in April 2023, Abbott publicly called for Perry’s clemency and announced that he had instructed the board to expedite the review process, even though Texas law states that a full pardon will not be considered for anyone currently in prison except under “exceptional circumstances.” (Unlike full pardons, commutations can be considered without “exceptional circumstances” for those serving prison sentences.) Typically, exceptions apply to cases in which new evidence of innocence is presented. Here, however, what appears to have been exceptional was the pressure from Abbott. Although the governor has the legal authority to request a pardon, Abbott had never done so in his then eight-plus years in office. “The board hasn’t voiced or identified any [exceptional circumstances], so the only thing that comes to mind is the special intrusion of a craven politician in the pardon process,” said Gary Cohen, a parole attorney who has been practicing for more than thirty years and who has consulted with the board on its parole system.

Less than a week after Abbott’s promise, Texas district court judge Cliff Brown, who presided over the trial, released a trove of social media posts and texts written by Perry ahead of his sentencing. These documents revealed racist comments and fantasies of killing Black Lives Matter protesters, as well as messages to apparent minors. “No nudes until you are old enough to be of age,” Perry wrote to a girl who claimed to be sixteen years old. “I am going to bed come up with a reason why I should be your boyfriend before I wake up.”

Many legal experts speculated that the board would drag its feet and provide political cover for Abbott. The governor could claim to his right-wing supporters that he’d tried to pardon Perry, without actually having to do so. Garza, however, wanted assurances. He called Bettie Wells, general counsel for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Normally, when the board reviews cases, input from the involved parties is given through written statements, not in-person meetings. But given the political nature of the pardon, Garza wanted a face-to-face conference. He says Wells told him on the call not to worry about showing up yet. The review of Perry’s pardon was going to take a while, she said, which Garza took as a sign that the board wasn’t making the case a priority, despite Abbott’s public pronouncement that he was “working [on it] as swiftly as Texas law allows.”

Wells and David Gutiérrez, the chairman of the pardons board, declined requests for interviews but responded with a statement. “Pursuant to Governor Abbott’s request, the Board of Pardons and Paroles conducted a thirteen-month investigation, after which, the Board recommended the Governor grant a full pardon,” they wrote. “By statute, the information obtained and maintained concerning the investigation is privileged and confidential.”

When Garza checked back in on the case in late January 2024, he learned on a phone call with Wells that the board had met with Perry’s defense counsel. It had also heard testimony from Detective David Fugitt, the lead investigator on the case, who did not arrest Perry the night of the killing because he believed the Uber driver could have acted in self-defense. Perry’s lawyers had argued in front of the board that Garza had committed witness tampering by forcing Fugitt to remove exculpatory evidence from his presentation to the grand jury, a claim that Brown, the judge, had dismissed during pretrial arguments. Also distressing to Garza was the revelation by Wells that the defense counsel had provided the board with the grand jury transcripts, presumably to dispute the grand jury’s decision to indict Perry, based on the allegation that Garza tampered with one of the witnesses. Garza told Wells he felt the transcripts should be secret and were potentially unlawful for the defendant to distribute.

THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:

The Perils of Right-Wing Economic Populism: A Conversation with Economist Ryan Bourne: The new right is embracing progressive economics to advance its regressive cultural agenda (AARON ROSS POWELL,
MAY 20, 2024, The UnPopulist)

Last month, Aaron Ross Powell sat down with Ryan Bourne, who is the R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics at the Cato Institute, to discuss the new right’s adoption of populist economics. The following Q&A has been adapted from their conversation on Aaron’s ReImagining Liberty podcast.

Aaron Ross Powell: Ryan, you’re an expert in the public understanding of economics. I want to ask you about an important shift that’s taken place since Trump’s takeover of the conservative movement. People on the right used to talk about the importance of free enterprise—certainly that was an emphasis of Reagan-era conservatism. Today, the right has a much more populist perspective on economics. What do they misunderstand about markets?

Ryan Bourne: As economists, we tend to think markets are quite valuable for society. They enable people to convey their subjective preferences about goods and services. Suppliers use those signals to try to meet our wants. In this and other ways, markets are incredibly pluralistic.

The new right, by contrast, believes markets deliver suboptimal outcomes. It thinks we should use the power of the state—through tax regulation and subsidies, tools progressivism has traditionally used to advance a particular social design—in pursuit of the national interest or common good. This makes its view more of a social theory of markets than a purely economic one. The new right’s insistence on a much larger manufacturing sector, a heavy industrial base, families that look a bit more traditional (single-income households, wife as homemaker)—these require configuring markets toward a specific set of social goals.

So instead of seeing markets as an economic mechanism that reflects our pluralism and enables us to satisfy our subjective preferences and desires, they conceive of them as vehicles toward a particular social vision. They set out what they perceive to be the national interest or common good and they’re willing to use the powers of the state to impose it. […]

An interesting feature of the new right is they’ve adopted an economic history of the last half-century that is distinctly progressive in that it believes we have been living under a radical libertarian experiment.

DEPLORABLE HOARDERS:

Trump Voters Don’t Just Expect Higher Inflation—They Get It Too: There has always been a difference between how Republicans and Democrats view the economy. But the gap has gotten bigger. (Justin Lahart, 5/25/24, WSJ)

Inflation estimates provided by Moody’s Analytics, combined with voting data, show that states where Donald Trump garnered the most votes in 2020 have on balance experienced higher inflation.

For example, South Carolina experienced the most inflation of any state since the pandemic hit. Its consumer prices rose at a 4.88% annual rate between December 2019 and last month. South Carolina elected Trump with 56% of the votes cast between him and President Biden in 2020.

In contrast, New Hampshire had the least inflation of any state, with prices rising at a 3.75% rate. It elected Biden with 54% of the Trump/Biden vote.

Just as importantly, Binder and her co-authors found that people in Republican-leaning states were more likely to expect that higher inflation. While feelings might seem superfluous, economists and policymakers widely believe that expectations do matter. If people think more inflation is coming, that can lead to higher inflation in fact.

THERE’S NOTHING REVOLUTIONARY ABOUT iDENTITARIANISM:

Reflections on Revolutions: a review of Age of Revolutions by Fareed Zakaria (Max J. Prowant, 5/21/24, Law & Liberty)

According to Zakaria, we are living in a revolutionary age, both in our domestic politics and in the world at large. Domestically, the traditional left-right divide is changing. For decades, the dividing line between left and right was economic in nature; conservatives wanted tax cuts, deregulation, and a smaller federal government whereas liberals wanted to preserve and expand a host of entitlement programs. Both, however, operated within a broad liberal framework that located the ends of government in the protection of individual rights. That is no longer the case. The divide now concerns the “open” versus “closed” societies where moral and ideational issues are more determinant of a person’s vote than tax cuts and spending. Internationally we are seeing a similar “revolution” against the US-backed liberal order uniting the world through free trade, collective action, and easy immigration. This revolution, led by an array of demagogues and populists, prefers tighter borders and national identity instead of globalism.

Resistance to the moral obligations that are imposed by our having been Created is understandable, but futile. It’s particularly hard to convince young people, who are brought up in our diverse society, that some of their friends are qualitatively lesser.