On the topic of race:
‘This kind of ethnic/racial patronage is hardly a new thing in our politics, and it doesn’t make today’s liberals the “real” racists, or prove that President Obama is actually some kind of post-colonial score-settler, as the Michael Moores of right-wing identity politics are wont to claim. But it does means that when it comes to exploiting America’s ethnic divisions to mobilize key constituencies, today’s Democratic Party sins as much as it is sinned against.’
Keep in mind Douthat is writing at the NY Times during an election season which has arguably the furthest Left president in recent memory facing a terrible economy. This same president has promoted members of the old Civil Rights apparatus to some of the highest reaches of government. Patronage is a word that comes to mind. The moral arguments used against slavery in big-State progressivism become weapons, and as is the case in politics, such weapons will be used to protect any advantage, or perceived advantage.
In this blog’s opinion, the NY Times will likely continue on a journey which has rendered it particularly ideologically narrow. I think many people at the Times are right to lament to loss of ‘objectivity’ in journalism, the importance of editors, fact-checking and shoe-leather reporting. Yet, they’ve had a big hand in their own undoing. It’s difficult to trust the Times’ coverage of finance, politics and foreign affairs which shares a newsroom with knee-jerk support for feminist causes, global warming, identity politics and those sad stragglers echoing the rise of New Left, the Occupy movement.
To break up Douthat’s paragraph for emphasis:
‘And it means that the Democrats’ struggle to reach Klein’s “plain old white insurance salesman” and the Republicans’ struggle to reach Hispanics and African-Americans are in some sense mirror images of one another. They’re both a consequence of party leaders taking the path of least resistance on racially-charged issues, and they’re both reminders of the hard truth that the more racially diverse America of the future could easily become, and remain, a more polarized society as well.’
A great nation deserves great racial politics, and great journalists to deliver racial politics.
Related On This Site: God and continental philosophy…regulated markets and progressive liberation theology?: Robert George And Cornel West At Bloggingheads: “The Scandal Of The Cross”…Milton Friedman Via Youtube: ‘Responsibility To The Poor’
William Saletan and Ross Douthat At Slate: ‘Liberalism Is Stuck Halfway Between Heaven And Earth’…Douthat’s The Grand New Party…Ross Douthat At First Principles: ‘The Quest for Community in the Age of Obama: Nisbet’s Prescience’
Still reliving the 60′s?: A Few Thoughts On Robert Bork’s “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”
