In Thomas B. Edsall’s column in the New York Times he asks the question “How Strong Is America’s Multiracial Democracy?”. I’ve now read the column twice and for the life of me I have no idea what the answer is. I have no idea what his answer is.
When black intellectuals are saying things like:
The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.
I can only conclude that it is weakening. I agree with Mr. Edsall that conditions for blacks in the U. S. have improved enormously over the last 50 years but I’m concerned that an increasing number of people, both black and white, don’t recognize that. Said another way, facts have nothing to do with the present mood.
Pop quiz. According to the 2020 U. S. census has the percentage of blacks in the country increased, decreased, or remained the same? Answer: it has decreased very slightly. Unless you’ve read the published reports very closely, I don’t think you’d come to that conclusion.
I’m in a generous mood today, so when I read, Black intellectuals “sayâ€, Black murder rates rise again, out of wedlock births, etc., etc., I think right off that this doesn’t speak for all Americans who are partially descended from African slaves.
I think some of them want to actually make a life for themselves and outside of the dead Enders who want to grow rich illegally or die, as they say, there must be a silent majority who exert the effort, sans whips, to live well among the other races in this country.
Unless they are completely irrelevant I don’t see how it can be benign. Over the last decade or so opinion polls have shown blacks saying that race relations are deteriorating even while their measurable circumstances (as Mr. Edsall documents) were improving.
A multiracial democracy is an impossibility, as we will see in the next 20 to 30 years. It is a genetic trait; we are hard-wired to distrust and oppose “the other.” That is the only reproducible, reliable result of psychology and sociology. Multi-ethnic, multi-cultural societies are held together by brute force. There are no counter examples in history. Our current institutions are running on momentum only, and must run down.
The US did manage to have a representative democracy when it was 85% White, but even then the successive waves of European immigration changed the country. The original WASP elite gave way, and the actual meaning of the founding documents changed by reinterpretation. There is nothing left of “America” after 1965.
PS. If you think there are patriots, Three Percenters, what not, that will resist, you haven’t paid attention this last year or so. Our Masters easily panicked nearly the whole population into submission over covid. That is the model that will be used in the future: raw panic.
“Said another way, facts have nothing to do with the present mood.”
Way back when Kevin Murphy was my microecon prof at UoC he once asked rhetorically “so why do some economists deny that minimum wage laws reduce employment and harm those least able to afford to be harmed?” Without missing a beat he answered his own question: “because they’re not economists, they are advocates.”
Its where we find ourselves today. Wokeness. Diversity. Covid. Global warming. All portrayed as existential issues and nearly self evident truths instead of discussed with any reasonable degree of fact based context. “Caring” and virtue signaling is all that matters, along with the benefits attendant to autoritarianism.
You throw in politicians who recognize a good tool for power, control and self gain when they see it, academia filled with lightweights and malcontents grabbing young minds, media with broad reach acting as propagandists, and large corporations willing to play along in return for favorable government policies and you have quite a mess on your hands.
Advocating discrimination to redress discrimination is arrant nonsense, but these aren’t really black intellectuals we are talking about, they are garden variety advocates. You won’t catch Thomas Sowell spewing such silliness.
I wrote an extensive post on that many years ago. Examples I cited included how the Irish immigrants changed city politics, particularly in urban environments and how the Scandinavian and Eastern European immigrants of the late 19th century produced the original progressive movement.
As should be needless to say I disagree with you on the genetic aspects of the American system. I don’t think there’s anything incompatible with our system as it was envisioned historically and a multi-ethnic/multi-racial society. I do think that American individualism and a multi-racial/multi-ethnic society is incompatible with a Scandinavian-style cradle to grave social safety net. Even the Scandinavians are pulling back on that as those countries become more diverse.
Basically, I think those safety nets work fine as long as 95% of the people belong to the same ethnic group and are culturally Lutheran.
“Even the Scandinavians are pulling back on that as those countries become more diverse.”
A point lost on all the multi-culturist warriors these days.
So a multicultural nation is less a culture of tradition and mores, increasingly becoming one of law only.
Since the George Floyd incident, we’ve seen a noticeable increase of Black motorists fighting the police during traffic stops. Literally kicking, punching , biting, total disrespect for the law. Looks to me as if they feel they’ve been given license to do that by historical grievances.
Most of our officers are young, 17% are women, our police chief looks like a little girl.
Taking an officer by surprise they have a good chance of winning and respect for the law isn’t going to deter quite a number of them.
We must have enforcement if people will not police themselves.
Law and order will be front and center in congressional elections next year.
“So a multicultural nation is less a culture of tradition and mores, increasingly becoming one of law only.”
Worse. We have selective or absent application of the law.
Multi-culturalists tell us diversity is our strength. There is nothing about pure diversity that adds strength. Its the people and their talents that add strength. But the more culturally diverse the more things devolve into squabbling and chaos. The Italians, the Irish etc etc came here to assimilate. Now we are told we should accommodate the immigrants.
People haven’t thought this through. How do you think shipping a bunch of homosexual hating Afghans to San Francisco is going to work out? How do you think a bunch of people who believe in not educating women will play in New Haven?
“homosexual hating Afghans, homosexuals, women, immigrants”.
How do progressives manage to balance or justify that all these groups and more share one thing in common, oppression by heterosexual cisgender white males?
Do they really think common cause exists outside of their own minds?
Stereotypes notwithstanding, I doubt that they plan to send many Afghan refugees to San Francisco. I suspect they’ll send them to Kansas, Texas, Florida, etc.
“so why do some economists deny that minimum wage laws reduce employment and harm those least able to afford to be harmed?†”
Because they looked at some real world examples and it didnt work out like you suggested. (Glad to help, no need to thank me.)
Steve
“How do you think shipping a bunch of homosexual hating Afghans to San Francisco is going to work out? How do you think a bunch of people who believe in not educating women will play in New Haven?”
By and large, I dont think this was really the group that decided to work with the US while we were there. There were Afghans who sent their girls to school when it was available. This is probably the population coming here. But, our church is going to support an Afghan family. If they kill any of our gay parish members glad to let you know.
Steve
If you want to actually meet some of the Afghans I suggest the 4:00 AM shelf stocking crew at Walmart.
I’m convinced there’s a government program giving reimbursement to employers of immigrants but don’t know what it’s called.
We worked alongside a Middle Eastern man there who had everyone convinced he had no English.
One morning I was stocking alongside him, caught his eye, and said, Go Walmart! He broke out laughing. Turns out that he is from Iran, been in country for 10 years and it’s just easier playing dumb.
“Glad to help, no need to thank me.”
Good, as no thanks are in order. Your statement is demonstrably false. Try speaking with small businesspersons, or just stick to subsidized, trade restricting industries, like medicine.
“Stereotypes notwithstanding, I doubt that they plan to send many Afghan refugees to San Francisco.”
Of course its stereotyping. Got people going though.
The dual points stand. Without assimilation we have a problem. And not in my backyard.
There are ways to encourage assimilation and ways to discourage it. Encourage: English language, improving economy, emphasis on the “melting pot” and tolerance. Discourage: large enclaves of new immigrants in areas where traditional ways persist, emphasis on America’s flaws and intolerance, nurturing grievances.
Yup. We better make sure that those interpreters speak English.
“Try speaking with small businesspersons, or just stick to subsidized, trade restricting industries, like medicine.”
Or I could just ask the VC guys who are Masters of the Universe, making themselves wealthy at everyone else’s expense. But, not really that interested when there are large scale studies.
Steve
In 2021 more than a million migrants will have entered the U. S. legally and illegally. Most are not Afghan interpreters.
Details are coming out on the secretive phone call between our President and Afghanistan’s shy ex-prez .
If correct, Logistics and manpower (15,000 men) may have been provided to the Taliban by the Pakis, probably unofficially.
Maybe those were not Taliban in discarded American tactical gear we all saw on film.
“Because they looked at some real world examples and it didnt work out like you suggested. (Glad to help, no need to thank me.)”
Like so much in life, the details matter. Raising the minimum wage by a doller probably isn’t going to have a statistically identifiable effect. Raising it by $20 would be a different story.
If raising the minimum wage had no bad effects, then we could make it $100/hour and all be rich. But no one thinks that is possible. The debate is about more modest increases and the balance of benefits and tradeoffs they would produce. Denying that there would be tradeoffs is not taking the issue seriously.
Andy- I have never seen someone suggest raising it by $20 or $100. When data driven economists write about it they all concede that at some point it will hurt employment. However, using real world increases and looking at the results you find that sometimes it has an employment effect and sometimes it does not with, as I recall, a tilt towards it not having employment effects.
Think of it like the Gaffer curve. At some level the Gaffer curve is true. Using real world examples it is wrong.
Steve
As I said, the real world is messy.
It’s not just true at some level—it’s tautological. It was pointed out long before Art Laffer, back in the time of the ancient Egyptians.