His words were chosen carefully, to both insult and sneer.
To start with, the Republicans, as a “white” party, fought slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and bigotry every step of the way, against the Democrats. Our credentials for color blindness, equality before the law, and basic fairness, are impeccable.
So he is arguing either that people of color don’t hold these values, or more likely, that they are not able to hold or even appreciate these values. The words of a bigot.
But calling Republicans “nationalists” also attacks us from a bizarre angle. For what is the opposite of a patriotic nationalist, but an unpatriotic “internationalist”? Is he really criticizing us because we believe not just in “American exceptionalism”, but that the way we live is, in many ways, substantially better than the way the rest of the world lives.
By what bad logic should we surrender our “best practices” and lower ourselves to the level of foreign nations, the bulk of whom are in the “inferior to failure” range of national performance?
Does he really think the UN would be a better government for us? Perhaps the IMF, or those other collectives of self-described “elite” former failures who once trod the halls of power, yet “just know” that if they could remake the world in their own, pathetic image, it would somehow be better.
To hell with internationalism. I actually respect the Chinese idea about internationalism, which is “If there is nothing in it for us, we don’t care.”
“Our credentials for color blindness, equality before the law and basic fairness are impeccable.
‘ So he is arguing ... people of color don’t hold these views...’
He may be right about that. The pattern of African-American voting, and the different public opinions in the Afro-American vs the Euro-American communities on, for example, the Martin/Zimmermann case, suggest that the communities hold very different views on these principles.
To hell with internationalism. I actually respect the Chinese idea about internationalism, which is “If there is nothing in it for us, we don’t care.”
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Agree with you on that, as well as your entire posting!
bttt