E-Pluribus | August 9, 2024
America isn't 'white supremacist'; Kamala media blackout; Tim Walz dead wrong about free speech
A round-up of the latest and best musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Wilfred Reilly: Racism Is No Longer America's Biggest Problem
Despite the incendiary racial rhetoric that so often dominates the headlines, Wilfred Reilly would like everyone to remember something: America isn’t a “white supremacist” society, and hasn’t been one for a very long time. Reilly finds ample support for this conclusion in Jeremy Carl’s recent book The Unprotected Class:
First, “white supremacy” has not been a genuine problem in the United States for some time. Brown v. Board opened the door for desegregation in 1954, and was followed up by a series of laws culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which Carl argues became “almost a second Constitution”). Pro-minority affirmative action has existed at scale at least since 1967. As The Unprotected Class states as early on as page three, this is in fact why we can talk constantly and openly about racism and “white privilege,” in the integrated America of 2024: North Koreans don’t spend a lot of time discussing the phenomenon of “one-family, unelected, Asian male dictatorship.”
Second, this plain fact of declining racism—among all groups—is being widely, almost comprehensively denied by the American intelligentsia. Carl, while not a quantitative methodologist, presents a fair amount of solid data demonstrating this—in one chapter pointing out that less than 60 percent of all Americans, including senior citizens, currently believe that any “improvement in the civil rights of Black Americans” occurred during their lifetimes. Remarkably, that figure is down dramatically relative to the scores in the mid-to-high 80s which were recorded for all races from the 1990s until the mid-2010s. It is hard not to notice that this growing, and logically baseless, sense of racial depression tracks neatly with the rise of an academic paradigm literally called “Afro-pessimism,” and with the claims of radical scholars such as Ibram X. Kendi (née Henry Rogers) that every performance gap recorded between whites and Blacks must be due to racism.
Third and most important, a great deal of actual bias against whites—often in the name of stopping rather imaginary bias in favor of them—exists today. This last point is obviously the true focus of The Unprotected Class, and the book provides a multitude of mostly on-point examples. Some are frankly amusing: at one point, Carl notes something that every casual fan of televised sport has un-scientifically observed—the casts (castes?) of major-brand commercials often seem to have been selected by corporate diversity committee, and competent white men in same-race marriages are a vanishing breed.
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I—perhaps unsurprisingly, as a sardonic Black guy—do not agree with every point Carl makes. The idea that any native-born Americans, citizens of the world’s richest and most powerful country, where formal discrimination against almost everyone has been illegal for 60 years, are “oppressed” is a bit rich. It is to be hoped that besuited white men do not adopt the leaning-forward-with-begging-bowl posture that is already unbearable enough when affected by minority teenagers or aqua-haired campus feminists.
David Harsanyi: The Kamala Media Blackout Would Be Amazing If She Weren’t Running For President
Image by Shotgun Spratling via Wikipedia
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Echoing Glenn Greenwald’s comments from yesterday’s newsletter, David Harsanyi at The Federalist has lost patience with subservient reporters running interference for Kamala Harris:
The Democrats’ new presidential candidate, who’s never won a single primary vote, might have been crowned but hasn’t given a real interview or even an extemporaneous political statement since Democrat bigwigs pushed Biden aside. In a functioning liberal ‘democracy,’ this would be pretty big news.
The last time the vice president of the United States had a press conference was December 2023. The last time sat down with any media was June 24, when she was interviewed by the sycophants on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Before that was the “Momala” Harris interview with Drew Barrymore, which might be the most cringe-worthy display of fawning in recorded history.
“What is the incentive for her [to take more questions]?” a person close to Harris’ campaign told Politico recently. “She’s getting out exactly the message she wants to get out.”
Indeed, it’s quite the paradox. The media continue to baby Kamala and get her message out to the public, so Kamala doesn’t feel the least bit of urgency in clarifying her record.
If they were so inclined, the naval-gazing media could probably get Kamala out of her shell by doing some honest, deep dives into her history and positions. If her lack of transparency were a daily top-of-the-fold story she would be compelled to speak.
Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he’s done scores of interviews and pressers over the past few months, many of them with antagonistic venues — including taking questions at the National Association of Black Journalists convention just weeks after surviving an assassination attempt.
Kamala hasn’t spoken to a hostile outlet in years. She won’t even take questions from her fans.
Robby Soave: Tim Walz Was Dead Wrong About Misinformation and Free Speech
Continuing our theme of blasting overly compliant reporters, Robby Soave at Reason says the press has refused to scrutinize vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, especially his obscene comments about the First Amendment:
To say the mainstream coverage of Walz has been fawning thus far would be quite an understatement; The New York Times described him as "a one-man rejoinder to the idea that the Democrats are the party of the cultural and coastal elite." The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel merrily aided media efforts to portray Walz as a lovable, folksy paternal figure, writing that "dad is on the ballot." CNN proclaimed the Harris-Walz team as "an antidote to Trump's American carnage."
"Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to make America joyful again," wrote CNN's Stephen Collinson.
The task of scrutinizing Walz will clearly fall to other interested parties. (See Reason's Eric Boehm on his overall record, and this piece by me on his COVID-19 policies.)
Conservatives on social media did manage to dig up an old clip of Walz making an alarming and false claim: "There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy."
Walz is wrong, of course: The First Amendment, which vigorously protects Americans' free speech rights, does not distinguish between good information and misinformation. Moreover, so-called hate speech—an arbitrary category, as different people find different sorts of speech to be hateful—is quite obviously protected.
But that clip of Walz is only eight seconds long, and I am wary of taking people out of context. So I looked for the rest of the clip, which is available here … Suffice it to say, the surrounding context does not greatly improve the accuracy of Walz's remark.
Around Twitter (X)
The UK government informed its citizens earlier this week that they should “think before” they post on social media, lest they be punished for spreading harmful wrong think. Unsurprisingly, the Twitter masses found this contemptible:
Some American political commentators believe that Europe takes a more sensible approach to speech regulation. Jacob Mchangama is here to disabuse them of that foolish notion (full thread here):
Finally, evolutionary biologist Colin Wright reassures a troubled follower that, in fact, only women can get pregnant:
