Posted on 01/02/2018 5:33:34 AM PST by SJackson
Neoconservative pundit Max Boot made a very important announcement last week: he’s checking his white privilege.
In a column for Foreign Policy, Boot said he reconsidered his past disdain for the concept of white male privilege, thanks in large part to the rise of Donald Trump.
“[I]t has become impossible for me to deny the reality of discrimination, harassment, even violence that people of color and women continue to experience in modern-day America from a power structure that remains for the most part in the hands of straight, white males. People like me, in other words,” Boot writes. “Whether I realize it or not, I have benefitted from my skin color and my gender — and those of a different gender or sexuality or skin color have suffered because of it.”
The foreign policy hawk argues Trump’s “racist” campaign for the White House laid bare these supposed facts and “revealed that racism and xenophobia are more widespread than I had previously realized.”
Boot also believes that misogyny is another whole problem and now finds himself agreeing with radical feminists that we live under an oppressive “patriarchy.”
He ends his column with a claim that he’s a moderate on the issue of white male privilege and insists he doesn’t want to zealously regulate “microaggressions” — he just now believes racism and sexism are far worse problems than political correctness.
Boot’s column was greeted with a great deal of mockery by conservatives. As Tucker Carlson, who famously humiliated Boot on his Fox News show in 2017, put it, “Max Boot will say anything if they just let him invade Iran.”
Carlson’s underlying point and that of many conservatives who laughed at Boot’s sudden acceptance of white privilege is that it’s a cynical appeasement to the neoconservative’s new left-wing allies.
Boot is one of the lucky number of anti-Trump conservatives who have found strange new respect from liberals. Along with The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, annoying former presidential candidate Evan McMullin and a few others, Boot receives praise and MSNBC hits from his former opponents on the Left who love his shrill denunciations of Trump. (RELATED: GOP Leaders Calling Their Voters ‘Racist’ Won’t Win Elections)
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But that strange new respect from the Left for these ardent Never Trumpers has led many of their old conservative friends to hold them in contempt. The vast majority of the conservative movement opposed Trump during the Republican primary and still skeptically viewed the future president when he was the Republican nominee.
However, two different sets of Trump-skeptical conservatives have emerged since he has become president: those who try to remain neutral on the president and those who oppose his every move.
Both sides accuse each other of being disloyal to conservative principles and selling out. Prior to Boot’s embrace of white privilege drawing ridicule from Trumpists and Trump skeptical conservatives alike, the two sides of Never Trump were in a war of words just the week before.
At first glance, it looked like writers slap fighting over whose stance on Trump is the bravest, but the battle revealed much about conservatism’s current state.
It all started with National Review Online editor Charles Cooke writing a devastating critique of Jennifer Rubin. Cooke’s essential argument is that The Washington Post’s token conservative has ditched many of her old stances in adopting vicious opposition to Trump as her guiding principle.
From moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to the Iran deal, Rubin has dramatically changed her opinions to be more consistent in hating Trump, according to Cooke, who was a fervent Trump critic throughout the election. In the opinion of the National Review writer, this blind hatred makes Rubin awfully similar to the Trump supporters who love everything the president does.
That critique drew a bitter response from The Atlantic’s David Frum, a staunch Never Trumper. Frum accused National Review of selling out on its principles by not attacking the president vigorously enough and lionized his own side’s supposed courage in endlessly denouncing the president.
It is very silly for Frum and his cohorts to claim they’re incredibly brave for taking a stand that has earned them much praise among liberals (something desired by all respectable conservatives), numerous TV hits, lucrative speaking gigs and tens of thousands of new fans on social media.
Most of these Never Trumpers work for outlets that don’t cater to conservatives, so there is zero risk to their employment in constantly criticizing the president.
However, Frum did bring up a salient point in his article. He admitted that Trump was forcing the ardent Never Trumpers into positions they wouldn’t have taken in the past, while at the same time also changing those conservatives who are willing to defend the president.
“Conservatism is what conservatives think, say, and do. As conservatives change—as much through the harsh fact of death and birth as by the fluctuations of opinion—so does what it means to be a conservative,” The Atlantic conservative writes.
That’s a sharp contrast in thought from National Review’s Cooke, who insists conservatism can survive the Trump years without any fundamental change. Frum believes conservatism is becoming more Trumpist, while Cooke argues otherwise.
The hardcore Never Trumpers have the edge in this argument. Trump is not a blip whose departure will inaugurate the return of Bush-era conservatism. Trumpism has already left a permanent mark on conservatism.
This explains why folks like Max Boot now embrace the idea of white privilege, a ridiculous concept in the eyes of the conservative base. The strident Never Trumpers know there is no place for them in contemporary conservatism — that’s why they move closer to the Left.
As long as liberals will support America being the world’s policeman, these ex-conservatives will be happy with their new coalition partners.
All they have to do is check their white privilege.
Why should anyone care what Max Boot has to say? He’s an insignificant pissant. Ignore him as he should be ignored.
Was he offered a job as a leftist pundit? More money writing about “climate change” and “Russiagate”?
I think it’s more about being invited to the socially acceptable cocktail parties in the District of Corruption. Deep down, they are limousine liberals.
He is a foreigner to begin with. He is a never trumper national review type neocon who cheerleaded the iraq war. He is a dirtbag as well.
He is a foreigner to begin with. He is a never trumper national review type neocon who cheerleaded the iraq war. He is a dirtbag as well.
Max is more of a pseudo-conservative: a guy who showed up in conservative circles to pretend to be one of us so he might have some influence on foreign policy.
Bingo! They were never true conservatives in the first place.
Yes; the gheydar needs recalibration just after looking at the guy’s face.
These are the shitbags who ran the government and fake “wars” when the idiot Dubya was our figurehead. It’s more obiovus than ever how similar they are to Obama & Co.
Mention of “White Privilege” makes it only fair to tally all the instances of “Black Privilege” in our society that no-one complains about:
—Welfare & Food Stamps have been a Black Privilege for 3-4 generations that few other blacks in other countries receive, especially in Africa. Black Privilege.
—Affirmative action policies (State Sanctioned Discrimination). This has been used by government, corporations, and universities to discriminate on behalf of Blacks and against Caucasians & Asians who have far better qualifications for college admission and job applications. With some states voting to disallow affirmative action, other equivalently racist programs such as so-called “outreach efforts” favor people with black skin color. Again, Black Privilege.
—The US media provides continual “cover” for blacks who do egregious things. Blacks represent 13% of the population, yet they commit 50% of the rapes and 50% of the violent crimes in the US. The media never mentions this harsh reality, and consistently tries to hide any mention of the race of the perpetrator of crimes in the news if the perpetrator was black. But if the perpetrator of the crime was white, the media invariably mentions his/her race. Again, Black Privilege.
—Sports bias. Blacks are vastly “overrepresented” by race in US football & basketball. Using traditional simple-minded analysis by leftwingnuts, this is “proof” that there is racism in sports hiring! In this case, the preference appears to be for blacks. Again, Black Privilege.
—Black History Month: For a race/culture with embarrassingly few notable inventions or contributions to society other than rap music and crime, the politically correct regime in the USA sets aside an entire month to go out of their way to showcase anything they can dredge up or fabricate to prop up the dismal list of historical black contributions to society. The fact that blacks are the only race that gets their own Black History Month, makes it painfully obvious that society has to bend over backward to make blacks appear “equal” to other cultures. Again, Black Privilege.
—Police are guilty before proven innocent by BLM - Black Lives Matter. Compliant media and Democrats, including Barack Obama consistently help prop up this injustice. Statistics show many more blacks kill police than whites kill police. And more blacks are killed by blacks. Again, Black Privilege.
—RAP: Black rappers get a free pass on spreading hateful and misogynistic/sexist songs. Imagine if a white person said those same phrases in a song or in public speech... Whites have no such privilege.
—The N-Word: Blacks have exclusive privileged use of this very useful term. If Whites or Asians use it, they routinely are fired from their jobs and are often the lucky recipients of death/violence threats. Again, Black Privilege.
—Special treatment – Blacks are a privileged class that are treated “extra nicely” by other racial groups because they are so afraid of being labeled racists. Primitive behavior and lack of manners are tolerated far more for blacks than any other racial group. Again, Black Privilege.
They do get one out of the four.
Psycho neocons like Boot are going to be jumping from windows when Trump is re-elected.
‘Show me a white neighborhood where blacks are afraid to venture, much less walk the streets.’
such a neighborhood does not exist, except in frenzied (primarily female)progressive minds...
Fixed.
The narcissistic pathology that I’ve observed:
“I feel guilty, so other Whites must suffer on my behalf.”
(((Max Boot)))
Why wait ?
I just zip right on past this garbage. I ain’t got time for deranged weasels like this embracing their full-on beta douche cuckery.
Yep. Definitely ghey.
There may be a few hands of help offering to shove.
“A man was driving down a busy highway when the traffic came to a stop. A man came walking by with a bucket and some large 5 gallon gas can. The man in the car rolled down his window and asked what was going on. ‘Ex-President Obama says his life is a failure and Trump has overturned his legacy. If he doesn’t get 10 million dollars he’s going to pour gasoline on himself and light it.’ ‘That’s awful. What have you collected so far?’ ‘62 cents, 35 gallons and 7 zippos.’”
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