How the 'alt-right' came to haunt conservatism
OXON HILL, Md. — The Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC) is the nation's largest gathering of
conservatives, but it sometimes seems to attract almost as many
headlines for whom it kicks out.
This year, CPAC is hosting both the president and vice president of the United States during the first two days. But a lot of the coverage has focused on internet provocateur Milo Yiannopolous being disinvited and a prominent white nationalist being expelled.
The media attention attracted by both men is disproportionate. Donald Trump has, in many ways that matter to your average CPAC attendee, been a normal Republican president, social media habits aside. The conference is no more "alt-right" than it is alt-punk or alt-country.
Yet there is also a palpable anxiety among some conservatives that their movement is being repealed and replaced with something more sinister. Yiannopolous lost his speaking slot for other reasons, but he has gleefully danced right up to the lines Richard Spencer long ago crossed — lines mainstream conservatives aged 40 and under especially thought had been inerasable since William F. Buckley Jr.'s purge of anti-Semites and other cranks.
Two factors much larger than Twitter trolls and anonymous 4Chan users are at play here. First, a look around any large conservative gathering reveals it is not very racially diverse. There's nothing wrong with that in theory, but in practice is not conducive to building racial sensitivity.
Even a movement as progressive as that which coalesced around socialist Bernie Sanders faced criticism for not being sufficiently inclusive. His African-American former press secretary reported encountering racism on the campaign trail, though not from fellow staffers. But Sanders' supporters, and some of the areas where he was most popular, were not racially diverse relative to the Democratic primary electorate in 2016.
For Republicans, the challenge is even greater. Partisan politics has grown increasingly polarized since the 1980s and, with the exception of Barack Obama's first election, every presidential race since 2000 has been a hard-fought affair that could have plausibly gone the other way.
These political divisions dovetail with racial ones. George W. Bush won single-digit black support in his first presidential race. The 1996 Republican ticket headed by Bob Dole, who voted for both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Jack Kemp, the party's most effusive proponent of minority outreach in the post-Reagan era, received 12 percent.
In Mississippi in 2004, 85 percent of whites voted for the Republican presidential candidate and 90 percent of blacks voted for the Democrat. That's with Bush, not Trump, as the GOP nominee and John Kerry, not Obama, as the Democratic standard-bearer.
This year, CPAC is hosting both the president and vice president of the United States during the first two days. But a lot of the coverage has focused on internet provocateur Milo Yiannopolous being disinvited and a prominent white nationalist being expelled.
The media attention attracted by both men is disproportionate. Donald Trump has, in many ways that matter to your average CPAC attendee, been a normal Republican president, social media habits aside. The conference is no more "alt-right" than it is alt-punk or alt-country.
Yet there is also a palpable anxiety among some conservatives that their movement is being repealed and replaced with something more sinister. Yiannopolous lost his speaking slot for other reasons, but he has gleefully danced right up to the lines Richard Spencer long ago crossed — lines mainstream conservatives aged 40 and under especially thought had been inerasable since William F. Buckley Jr.'s purge of anti-Semites and other cranks.
Two factors much larger than Twitter trolls and anonymous 4Chan users are at play here. First, a look around any large conservative gathering reveals it is not very racially diverse. There's nothing wrong with that in theory, but in practice is not conducive to building racial sensitivity.
Even a movement as progressive as that which coalesced around socialist Bernie Sanders faced criticism for not being sufficiently inclusive. His African-American former press secretary reported encountering racism on the campaign trail, though not from fellow staffers. But Sanders' supporters, and some of the areas where he was most popular, were not racially diverse relative to the Democratic primary electorate in 2016.
For Republicans, the challenge is even greater. Partisan politics has grown increasingly polarized since the 1980s and, with the exception of Barack Obama's first election, every presidential race since 2000 has been a hard-fought affair that could have plausibly gone the other way.
These political divisions dovetail with racial ones. George W. Bush won single-digit black support in his first presidential race. The 1996 Republican ticket headed by Bob Dole, who voted for both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Jack Kemp, the party's most effusive proponent of minority outreach in the post-Reagan era, received 12 percent.
In Mississippi in 2004, 85 percent of whites voted for the Republican presidential candidate and 90 percent of blacks voted for the Democrat. That's with Bush, not Trump, as the GOP nominee and John Kerry, not Obama, as the Democratic standard-bearer.
No comments:
Post a Comment