OK, so this. Dreher stages a notional debate, with a fascist on one side (sounds like) - his "blood and soil" correspondent, Matt in VA; and @swarthmoreburke to bring the mythopoetic whackadoodle from the left. Tim Burke: Trump = serial violator. Crazy! 1/
theamericanconservative.com/dreher/coming-…
theamericanconservative.com/dreher/coming-…
Thus, Dreher's dilemma: what to do when you have a forced choice between two such irreconcilable, opposed 'myths'? Between a deep, emotional temptation to fascism, from the right, and this gut 'rape = bad' aversion from the left? 2/
Dreher (with regret): nothing for reasonable moderates like him to do, in parlous times, save shelter with the myth-mongers least opposed to him and his, personally. Which, he decides, means he's voting 'blood and soil' - since 'rape = bad!' is just ... a bit much, no? 3/
"Here’s the problem, though: how are we on the Right going to form the kind of warriors capable of resistance?" 4/
Not: could 'blood and soil' be bad? No, the pressing concern seems to be that 'blood and soil' may ring true in some ears. But, in rough-and-tumble politics, how can blood-and-soilers defeat those who say Trump is not just bad but disgusting! outrageous! 4/
Dreher will, of course, reply that I grossly misrepresent him. No Trumper he! But he, not I, set the terms of this dilemma himself: fascist slogan vs. Tim Burke pointing out Trump is triggering. That's it. Dreher picked the former. Nobody forced him. 5/
The problem is that Dreher wants to be the irenic, reasonable one, squeezed between thoughtless forces of fanaticism. Meanwhile, in fact, his concerns are all cultural - 'religious liberty'. And he doesn't have anything like a reasonable, moderate ask in the area. 6/
Burke-contra-Trump is reasonable, eminently articulable, from (non-mythic!) liberal premises about equality and respect - even if these are often charged 'mythically' (if you like). What Dreher himself wants is more like a contradiction. 7/ theamericanconservative.com/dreher/society…
He wants "Animal Farm": all equal but some more equal. Now flip it: we should aim for a Utopia in which anti-Christian sentiment is normative, yet Christians are treated with respect and dignity? (Would Dreher fail to be outraged at this exact analog to his own double-think?) 8/
The only stable position here is the liberal, balanced one: both sides have to tolerate. Dreher is no doubt right that the other side may be intolerant at times. But the fact remains: his own ask is not just accidentally but essentially so. 9/
He wants to impose religious values on others, who reasonably dissent from them. He does not think it is permissible in principle for others, who do not share his religion, to impose values on him - even reasonably! He isn't willing to settle for equal, liberal citizenship. /10
But THAT doesn't sound good, stated so baldly. So it gets rebranded 'religious liberty'. And we get these elaborate rhetorical workarounds. He is forced, by the angry intolerance of others, to shelter with intolerant extremists! (Poor, poor, pitiful me! As the man sang.) /11
But, again, he is only being forced to do so because he is, in principle, unwilling to settle for tolerance. Until you reconcile yourself to liberal equality, at least as a 2nd best modus vivendi, you are likely to end up in extremist, anti-egalitarian company. That's you. /12
It's crucial here that, of course, you can have an 'intolerant left'. When people get mad, they say wrong, bad things. Nevertheless, there is an ideal, tolerant left. Intolerance is a falling away from a tolerant ideal. /13
By contrast, there is no ideal, tolerant right, by Dreher's lights. When Dreher sketches utopia, he blueprints Animal Farm. His is a soft totalitarian reverie of enforced inequality, masked as orthodox resistance to any such thing. Is it a wonder the other side gets nervous? /14
This went on too long but I got new followers yesterday. Gotta drive folks away! /15
