, 13 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
This important (but pretty under the radar) story is just one example of the long-standing conservative pipe dreams that the Trump Administration might deliver on. This would be a major reversal of post-Brown v. Board jurisprudence. washingtonpost.com/local/educatio…
Ever since federal civil rights bills were signed into law in the 1960s, the more conservative elements in the GOP have sought to limit, roll back, or just eliminate as many provisions of those bills as possible. Rolling back the "disparate impact" ideal would be huge.
The article explains it well...but basically, it would mean that our legal system would start from the assumption that racism played no role in a particular institutional outcome unless one could prove the explicitly racist intent of the people behind that outcome.
It would define racism purely in terms of intent, not impact. It would greatly limit the legal system's ability to think about racial inequality as systemic, as something woven deeply into our history, society, culture, politics, and economy.
The refusal to see racism as anything more than a matter of individual attitude has been a hallmark of conservative political culture since Goldwater. Here's an article from the National Review (1/17/1975), for example, ridiculing the emerging "jargon" of "institutional racism."
Note also how the author of the piece disingenuously positions themselves as the defenders of African-American students who are being so insulted by administrators who talk about "institutional racism."
So yes, Trump is crushingly ignorant and incompetent, but he's gathered around him some of the most unscrupulous, far right political actors in the nation (think Stephen Miller X 100) and those folks are barreling full steam ahead with their radical agenda.
Whether it be NATO, or Roe v. Wade, or the ranks of the federal judiciary, or the concept of "disparate impact," Trump's legacy might largely lay in the irreversible, institutional destruction he leaves behind after that bull has left the china shop of DC.
I don't think his base (or maybe even Trump himself) really knows or cares all that much about the institutional destruction he's causing...they just want the wall built, so Trump fixates on the wall.
But behind the scenes and amidst all of the Trump-related chaos, the most radical folks in the GOP are systematically smashing and grabbing things they have dreamed about for decades...and that is probably why they continue to support this POTUS that few of them respect.
And of course, here's Tucker, weighing in right on cue. "Policies intended to remediate the long history of racism in America--now that's the *real* racism we should be concerned about."
The irony, of course, is that no one, and I mean no one, benefits more from a non-meritocratic system than dumb conservatives like Tucker. The pool of talented young conservatives is really small...if you can breathe and look decent on TV you get rocketed to the top quickly.
See, e.g., the entire staff of Fox News or the Daily Wire or the Daily Caller or Charlie Kirk or Tomi Lahren or that gun girl or.... No one gets hired for less merit than the army of mediocre conservative "pundits" and talking heads out there, because the pool is so shallow.
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