1. Thread on conservative media's white nationalism problem.
2. Predictably, conservatives are defending the Daily Caller, the White House, & other institutions that have hired avowed white nationalists by saying "this is just guilt by association." They will also point out that organizations on the left have links to "known Socialists!!!"
3. Guilt by association is indeed a bad form of argumentation, if it's only 1 or 2 cases. But when dozens of people & institutions are found to have ties with actual white nationalists (whose ideas, let's remember, are implicitly genocidal) then it starts to look like a pattern.
4. All political movements are coalitions. There will inevitably be people on the edges of those coalitions who believe things that folks at the center don't love. This is why all movements police their boundaries, set lines over which they won't cross.
5. It's becoming apparent that "being a white nationalist" is now something that is only marginally disqualifying for the conservative movement and the GOP, and only when such people are smoked out and exposed by the "liberal media."
6. These stories about white nationalists in the conservative media and political world, thus, are not "guilt by association." They are evidence of how the conservative movement is failing to police its right edge comprised of some truly horrifying figures.
7. Now let's talk about the "bothsider" approach to this. Conservatives will say, "oh yeah, well the Democrats have Socialists like AOC in their coalition, why isn't the media holding THEM accountable for associating with those 'dangerous' ideas?"
8. Such arguments are the stale leftovers of the Cold War rhetoric that frames all progressivism as a "slippery slope" to the Communist gulag. Conservatives want us to believe white nationalists in their midst are no big deal, but Socialist Dems expose the "totalitarian left."
9. What does that supposedly "totalitarian left" believe in? Let's say they propose raising the top tax rate to 50% to help pay for universal health care. That was the top tax rate in 1986, near the end of Reagan's presidency. That's when America was great, right? Scary stuff.
10. I won't go on, but my point is this...the left edge of the Democratic coalition is comprised of people who want the rights of marginalized people to be more strongly protected, to have an immigration system that's less cruel, and to provide healthcare for poor people
11. The right edge of the Republican coalition is comprised of folks who think America should belong only to white people, who admire the illiberal, authoritarian states of Europe, and who think the white descendants of colonizers in South Africa are the real victims.
12. THOSE ARE NOT EQUIVALENT THINGS! We can have arguments about what exactly our immigration policy should be, how we might fund expanded healthcare, how we craft federal policies that best protect the rights of all people.
13. But you can't argue with white nationalists, because they do not accept people of color (about 35% of the US population) as legitimate and equal participants in America's political culture. Their politics is the politics of negation, not negotiation.
14. The Cold War taught us to believe that the right edge of American politics is not comprised of dangerous people, just folks who might be overzealous patriots...but that the left edge is comprised of Commies who want to destroy America. The Red Scare has cast a long shadow.
15. The hangover of this Cold War mentality still shapes our politics. Why would anyone think AOC is more dangerous to the nation's ideals than Steve King's white nationalism? One wants working people to get paid more and have health care. The other wants to expel brown people.
16. To be clear, I'm not claiming that the GOP as it currently exists can be simply reduced to a party of white nationalism. But it is a party that seems pretty ok with being white-nationalist adjacent. And, I can't believe this needs to be said, WHITE NATIONALISM IS REALLY BAD.
17. Meanwhile, the Dems are becoming more democratic socialist adjacent...as in, they are coming to embrace the sorts of policies enacted in countries like Germany or Sweden or Norway. We may not agree with those policies, but I think we can agree that Norway is not a gulag.
