Posted on 01/11/2018 9:44:40 AM PST by Academiadotorg
It's laudable that academics actually have an interest in a political philosophy which is usually either disdained or ignored in academia. Nevertheless, their failure to comprehend the Trump Administration shows that they are still struggling with it.
This bewilderment was on display recently at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA), which Colleen Flaherty covered for Inside Higher Ed:
~"How do we think about and engage with conservative Trump voters?" Willamette University Professor Seth Cotlar asked. "What does it mean to empathize with people who advocate white nationalism?" The possibility that he is on the wrong track with the second question doesnt seem to occur to him.
~Michelle Nickerson, an associate professor of history at Loyola University in Chicago, said, "In my classroom I haven't adequately shown the extent to which, as a way of seeing the world, this populism bleeds all over the place in American politics, especially in conservative movement politics. Is populism maybe not so freakish in American history? Even if it's only now a demagogue has only managed to ride it to the White House?" Perhaps it is not those outside the AHA who are freakish.
~Joshua A. Lynn, a lecturer in history at Yale University, said, "The definition of conservatism and the designation of who is conservative have always been contested," with seemingly everyone from 1850s white supremacist Democrats to Abraham Lincoln to 'Never Trumpers' claiming the moniker over time," he said. "Adding the debate over Trump's conservatism to the mix does not destabilize American conservatism as an historical category. Because it has never been a stable category." This might be marginally more sophisticated than Lionel Trillings description of conservatism as "irritable mental gestures."
~Benjamin Waterhouse, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said of the president that "He is also not a liberal, or a populist or traditionalist or even an especially good fascist. ...Preciously because he is so intellectually and ideologically vacuous, his various hangers-on and enablers and sycophants can project all manner of identity onto him."
All of the above might do well to contemplate what has actually happened in America since Donald Trump became America's 45th president:
1. Even CNN, not the presidents favorite network, wound up reporting that one million new jobs were created in President Trump's first year in office, though they were loath to give him any credit for them.
2. "The calendar year concluded with 61,950 pages in the Federal Register this morning," the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) concluded on December 29, 2017 in its annual review of federal regulations. "This is the lowest count since 1993s 61,166 pages."
3. There might be a relationship between one and two.
Ronald Reagan too was an anomaly for most of them.
“Stumped” only because he does not fit their preconceived notions of what their sociopolitical enemies should be.
yes he was. Some of them acknowledged his success in a backhanded way: They claimed he was a liberal.
Here is an example of why open honest dialogue and debate can't happen. And it's the liberal/democrats fault, unequivocally. They start with a grotesque false premise. In this case "White Nationalism". THAT is a buzzword for racists. So what she meant was, "What does it mean to empathize with hate-filled racists?" Where does the conversation go after that?
The answer actually is they don't want conversation or to understand or to debate ideas. The question was rhetorical and thrown out there to further the propaganda and demonize their opponent. It mocks, with prejudicial condescension.
It would be like asking, "Is your wife happy now that you have stopped beating her?"
These “professors” are f’n clueless.
Just because it’s White does not make it wrong.
This reminds me of something. Has anyone noticed that TV ads no longer feature “white” families. Every couple or family scene is mixed race.
I think that is proof of leftist genocide which has spread to Hollywood and New York advertisers.
“Genocide is intentional action to destroy a people (usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group) in whole or in part.”
It’s not a question of success, it’s a question of taxonomy, of which professors and suchlike are much too fond.
And describing conservatism is quite a challenge.
Russell Kirk struggled with this his whole life.
And wrote about them. Well worth a read, an education really.
Yeah, if you want an especially good fascist, you have to look to Trump's predecessor. But good luck getting a pinhead academic to admit such.
They can’t grasp that it is someone who is antithetical to all they believe and stand for can do so much good that even they have to admit it’s happening...
And it never dawns on them that their view of conservatism and conservatives is totally wrong.
Of course they wouldn’t understand President Trump’s appeal for conservatives because they are out of touch with the heart of America.
They formed their definition of what a conservative is from leftist media portrayals of conservatives as knuckle-dragging gap-toothed neanderthals who live in caves in fly-over country.
And from the wild rantings, ravings and characterizations of hate filled, unhinged, half crazy democrats.
They live cloistered in large cities, leftist enclaves and academia where they look down with curiosity, disdain and fear on those who live outside their experience.
There was a story years ago about big city elites who said they couldn’t understand how Richard Nixon got elected - because after all, they didn’t know a single person who voted for him.
We have a similar situation today with elites and President Trump.
Poor confused “experts.” Conservatives, being independent, are not easy to pigeon-hole, as opposed to these Leftists, who are uniform in their cookie-cutter opinion of conservatism. These days, the university classroom is the last place you will find freedom of thought.
Dese perfessors ain’t too sharp.
Personally, I see Trump as a restoration figure acting to restore the Constitution and the plethora institutions and virtues of the moral, ethical, religious, and military TRADITIONS of the USA, and to restore economic FREEDOM, unshackle it, and DEFEND our borders and our allies borders.
All of the above has been legislated out of fashion, exchanged for increasing decadence and a promise for our demise and eventual collapse.
These morally and religiously vacuous professors support the path to demise and collapse.
We conservatives prop them up. We send our kids to them. We let them raise our kids with a curriculum that promotes group think so that over time the collective can become useful tools for destroying everything America was founded upon.
we have been rewarding bad behavior for a very long time.
no dey ain’t.
” this populism bleeds all over the place in American politics”
Yeah, god forbid that the population should have it’s concerns addressed seriously and should be in the driver’s seat. I’m much more fearful of a band of self appointed and self perpetuating elites thinking the “populists” should just follow along with the goals of their betters.
How, precisely, Trump became a "fascist" is equally mystifying to anyone who actually knows what a fascist is. And if you don't, you've no business pontificating on the study of history. One begins to suspect that the real trouble they're having is pathetically crappy scholarship. Peel down the onion layers of mystification, phony profundity, and jargon-laden academic gas and it turns you've got nothing inside. It's hard to feel sorry for anyone who is surprised by that.
This sort of data isn't difficult to obtain. This isn't, after all, going to require a canoe trip down the darkest Amazon to actually speak to these weird native Trump voters with bones in our noses. We're their next-door neighbors. If our beliefs and motivations remain an unfathomable mystery it's because these deep thinkers just aren't trying.
Trump is TEA Party, just undeclared.
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