# I'm starting to get the feeling that the conservative right is winning **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 2, 2021, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477 "2021-07-02T05:08:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/383 "2021-07-11T02:22:18Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And the poor kid in Arkansas is likely to be a poor farmer his entire life and never get the chance to see the inside of a college, and no hope of getting any sort of professiinal job at all. You are 100% right. But there are circumstances where that white kid, or the adult that white kid becomes, will have a bit of privilege. Those circumstances might be not being accused of shoplifting in Wal-Mart, or getting let go with a warning by a highway patrol officer. But you’re right – the black kid who graduates from Harvard and then goes on to get a Harvard MBA will have a really good shot at a quality of life the white Arkansas farmer will never get a taste of. And his kids will go to great schools, and the family has a shot at accumulating some intergenerational wealth. All good stuff. The MBA will still get sideways looks when he goes out for a run after dark wearing his hoodie, and (even today in some parts of Brooklyn, where I live) would be best off not running through certain neighborhoods. Which is bad stuff. And the white farmer will be a mass of creaky joints and broken bones and sunburned, weathered skin, and likely be in constant pain from the time he’s fifty until the day he dies. Which sucks. You know what we’re talking about when we look at all these factors? You might not like the word, but the word is “intersectionality.” ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/384 "2021-07-11T03:39:54Z")
I’ll take the word of her colleagues about what _they_ find to be offensive and reflecting deep seated prejudice over that of some random person on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/385 "2021-07-11T04:02:18Z")
I don’t care. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/386 "2021-07-11T04:49:53Z")
This is a discussion board. If you don’t care, why should anyone else take your posts seriously? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/387 "2021-07-11T06:39:22Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > You might not like the word, but the word is “intersectionality.” In theory it might work, but somehow intersectionality always seems to mean telling poor white people they are privileged, and never middle class black academics. My guess is that the concept was formulated as some people having privileges, rather than as some other people suffering disadvantages, in order to play on the guilt of white professionals. But there’s several problems with this. One is the PR problem of getting people who are objectively badly off to accept that they are privileged - and I think they are wise to resist this, given the other problems. Another emerges when thinking about how to fix the situation. If it had been defined as disadvantages, then the solution would be to make things better for those suffering them. But by defining it as privilege, it encourages people to solve the problem by removing the privilege: the ‘make everyone equally poor and miserable’ school of equity. And like with ‘whiteness’, the original meaning still exists, and lends connotations to the new one: privileged people don’t need help themselves; they can afford to give help, and their problems are of lesser importance. And in the calculus of the ‘woke’, it makes it acceptable to criticise them and blame them for their own problems, as they would not for ‘less privileged’ groups like poor black people. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/388 "2021-07-11T07:06:26Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > But there’s several problems with this. One is the PR problem of getting people who are objectively badly off to accept that they are privileged - and I think they are wise to resist this, given the other problems. Another emerges when thinking about how to fix the situation. If it had been defined as disadvantages, then the solution would be to make things better for those suffering them. But by defining it as privilege, it encourages people to solve the problem by removing the privilege: the ‘make everyone equally poor and miserable’ school of equity. We had this conversation before, but you missed the lesson of it. The ‘make everyone equally poor and miserable’ is something the right (and white supremacists) in the US have been experts on making it so, as soon as moves to correct an injustice are implemented. > **[Why Is This Happening? Calculating the cost of division with Heather McGhee](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/calculating-cost-division-heather-mcghee-podcast-transcript-ncna1197756)** > > Chris Hayes speaks with author and political commentator Heather McGhee about how this public health crisis is shining a light on the ramifications of policies and politics rooted in the legacy of racism. > HEATHER MCGHEE: You’re starting to see a clear, racialized divide and conquer. And Mitch McConnell saying that basically blue states can go bankrupt and red states that are more rural just can open up their economies and win. This is the formula, right? It’s shrink the circle of human concern, give the people on your team an outsized sense of security and superiority. And in fact, make them delight a little bit in that. That is heartbreaking to me as someone who cares about humanity, cares about this country, cares about our soul, right? We are absolutely failing. And just last week, I think they’ve already gotten too much attention, but of course it was shocking. There were a handful of protests where you had mostly older white folks defying the protective orders to go out and protest and they were funded by the same right wing billionaires that have funded so much of the Tea Party. > > HEATHER MCGHEE: And those people are going to get sick, right? It was supposed to be a drive by protest and they got out of their cars and they smush their faces against the Capitol building and it’s like they were literally exposing themselves to die for this bargain. And that’s what my book is about, that’s what the Ted Talk was about, is the ways that racism costs everyone in the end. … > HEATHER MCGHEE: This is now a very rare sight because for the most part, even in northern cities, those grand public pools, those resort pools were public. They were funded by taxpayer dollars and they were exclusively for whites only. And in the 1950s when civil rights groups began to advocate and litigate against this practice…of exclusion, and the barrier started to fall down. Towns did what Montgomery, Alabama did, which was effective January 1st, 1959. The town council voted to close the public swimming pool. Not only Chris, did they close the pool, right? They drained the public pool. They filled it in with dirt, paved it over. They also shut down the entire parks department. They had a zoo, they had recreation centers, they had a dozen public parks. They closed it all down for a decade, and when they finally reopened it, they never rebuilt the pool. > HEATHER MCGHEE: That, to me is what has happened to our whole country. We had a very generous social welfare system that included subsidized housing, no down payment mortgages that were backed by the federal government, the Homestead Act, the land grant college system. We had a sort of a middle class that was constructed by government policy that was the envy of the world when it was for whites only, and really for white men only. And when the movement of the 1960s opened the doors to everybody else, the doors were closed on that vision, and so we’ve all been living in a stingier, drained public pool. We’ve been all been living in that drained public pool where our schools are underfunded, our roads and bridges are crumbling. They get a D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The world we know, right? I mean, this is the world we know. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/389 "2021-07-11T09:17:16Z")
You have a different opinion than I do. You’ve presented no cites and made no argument aside from asserting your view. What else is there to discuss? ---
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/390 "2021-07-11T14:25:27Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Are we discussing the term “woke”, or are we discussing the principals of “wokism”? My view is that “woke” is now nothing more than a parody. People who used to refer to themselves as woke wish that parody would go away, but it’s effective so the right continues to use it. It’s in no way a “false characterization”. But yes, it is insulting. Accurate parody often is. It’s also a convenient way for the Right-wing to change the subject, because there are those within their own camp who are very often correctly tagged as racists and antisemites. They need to change the subject from their own racists and recent racist past. So, they try and make the issue about “wokism”, because they’re uncomfortable with their association with actual racists, including the 45th president or people who tried to overturn an election on his behalf. It’s a way to cope with their own racist - and very recent - history. > **[Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2020](https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history)** > > Trump has repeatedly claimed he’s "the least racist person." His history suggests otherwise. > **[These Black Capitol Police Officers Describe Fighting Off "Racist-Ass...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/black-capitol-police-racism-mob)** > > Two Black officers told BuzzFeed News that their chief and other upper management left them totally unprepared and were nowhere to be found on the day. > **[Years of white supremacy threats culminated in Capitol riots](https://apnews.com/article/white-supremacy-threats-capitol-riots-2d4ba4d1a3d55197489d773b3e0b0f32)** > > CHICAGO (AP) — Amid the American flags and Trump 2020 posters at the U.S. Capitol during last week's insurrection were far more sinister symbols: A man walking the halls of Congress carrying a Confederate flag. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/391 "2021-07-11T16:23:12Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > We had this conversation before, but you missed the lesson of it. The ‘make everyone equally poor and miserable’ is something the right (and white supremacists) in the US have been experts on making it so, as soon as moves to correct an injustice are implemented. So what? Two wrongs don’t make a right. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/392 "2021-07-11T16:34:44Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Yes, as I pointed out, people don’t think of systems when they think of white supremacy. But it’s baked into the definition. > > The dictionary offers two possibilities. We’re talking mainly about the latter. > > [White supremacy Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white%20supremacy) Did you mistakenly omit to post the second definition? Or am I missing something? Regardless, synonymising white supremacy and systemic racism is incorrect. I’ll agree that I don’t experience negative encounters that many black people do experience. I’d say that most of those negative encounters are due to institutional racism. I’d also categorise the fact that I don’t have to deal with those negative encounters as white privilege. Likewise, I agree that my middle-class status is due to my middle-class parents. I don’t view that as systemic racism per se, but I agree that if minorities are currently underrepresented in the middle class, they’re also likely in the future to be underrepresented in the middle class. That’s what makes identifying systemic racism tricky. However, I would strongly disagree that I’m a beneficiary of white supremacy unless we’re going back to before I was born. Equating a present beneficiary of white privilege or sociological trends that could be interpreted as systemic racism with current white supremacy as most people understand it is absurd. Also, consider that what we’re discussing at this point has a huge amount of nuance. The paragraphs I’m writing are minimally adequate for detailing the concepts we’re discussing. Reduce this discussion to a soundbite, or a 22 second commercial, and what little nuance is within the discussion is gone. So you’re left with the unnuanced conclusion that white privilege or the complicated issues of institutional racism and systemic racism are equivalent to white supremacy. Try selling that to people on the right who would like to see improvement is racial equality, but don’t believe they’re personally responsible. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/393 "2021-07-11T16:38:31Z")
No way, not when there’s one article (out of billions) on the internet that proves the Great Replacement conspiracy once and for all. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/394 "2021-07-11T16:49:24Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Regardless, synonymising white supremacy and systemic racism is incorrect. It’s even gotten to the point where one writer blamed _black attacks on Asians_ on white supremacy. (see the 4th paragraph of the article) [https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-african-americans-discrimination-coronavirus-pandemic-boulder-eb145dc49f0f42bd75ad0c146d9dba58](https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-african-americans-discrimination-coronavirus-pandemic-boulder-eb145dc49f0f42bd75ad0c146d9dba58) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/395 "2021-07-11T16:52:56Z")
It was like in _Forrest Gump_ when Jenny’s boyfriend beat her then said, “I’m sorry - it’s just that fucking Nixon!” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/396 "2021-07-11T16:54:51Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > So what? Two wrongs don’t make a right. Missing the point still, you don’t have good evidence of the left doing that, only platitudes, I have evidence of the right doing it. It is indeed what the right wing media is doing nowadays, telling their viewers and readers that under their leadership of the conservatives wealth will trickle down, when in reality they are convincing their crowd that the pee they get is rain. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/397 "2021-07-11T17:01:09Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Many people in this movement claim that it is impossible to be racist against white people, and the ‘white fragility’ thing serves to delegitimise your natural reaction to criticism on the subject. It’s not impossible for a black person to have a shitty attitude towards white people – I don’t know of a single progressive left white person who volunteers to be insulted by people of color. We get that black and brown people can be schmucks just like whites can, and on account of bias. When people are saying that Black people can’t be racist, what they’re trying to explain to you - if you’ll consider it long enough to let it sink in - is that white racism and black/brown ‘racism’ have different impact. It is impossible for a black person’s ‘racism’ to have the same impact as a white person’s racism, because white people (in this country and in all Western nations) are in a position to do far greater harm to non-whites, not the other way around. We don’t completely ignore non-white racism but white racism always has to be taken more seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/398 "2021-07-11T17:04:10Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > However, I would strongly disagree that I’m a beneficiary of white supremacy unless we’re going back to before I was born. Well, _of course_ you are the beneficiary of white supremacy going back to before you were born. As am I. That’s what makes it “systemic.” I mean, this isn’t even debatable. Nobody argues against this _except_ outright white supremacists. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/399 "2021-07-11T17:05:53Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It’s even gotten to the point where one writer blamed _black attacks on Asians_ on white supremacy. (see the 4th paragraph of the article) One writer? It’s standard progressive thinking. I don’t think they believe non-white people have any agency of their own. > [@asahi](#): > > When people are saying that Black people can’t be racist, what they’re trying to explain to you - if you’ll consider it long enough to let it sink in - is that white racism and black/brown ‘racism’ have different impact. It is impossible for a black person’s ‘racism’ to have the same impact as a white person’s racism, because white people (in this country and in all Western nations) are in a position to do far greater harm to non-whites, not the other way around. We don’t completely ignore non-white racism but white racism always has to be taken more seriously. Don’t you think I know that already? It’s just wrong. If you mean racism has different impact, then say so, don’t say something entirely different. At the very least saying PoC can’t be racist implies there is no impact, not less impact. See above for the impact racist PoC can have. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/400 "2021-07-11T17:12:03Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > One writer? It’s standard progressive thinking. I don’t think they believe non-white people have any agency of their own. {…} What’s agency got to do with it? Pointing out that non-white people’s racism is rooted in good ol’ American racism shouldn’t even be a question . . . unless, of course, we’re just adopting the, now very popular, notion that non-white people aren’t really _real_ Americans. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/401 "2021-07-11T17:22:02Z")
It seems to me that it is more that an item that has been mentioned many times before, in other settings and in other words: That the status quo also loves to set things up in a way that helps the ones at the bottom to fight among each other for the crumbs. This also leads to the twisted idea from the right wing that the ones who point that out are proposing to take the responsibility away from (in this case) individual blacks that perpetrate violence to get off the hook, **that is poppycock.** As it is usually the case when the right wing uses that framework (kinda like a reverse CRT) they want to leave the impression that there is no personal responsibility, **no one is saying that** , it is only pointed out that the way the system is set it creates more opportunities for friction and conflict among minorities. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477/402 "2021-07-11T17:27:32Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > It’s not impossible for a black person to have a shitty attitude towards white people – I don’t know of a single progressive left white person who volunteers to be insulted by people of color. We get that black and brown people can be schmucks just like whites can, and on account of bias. > > When people are saying that Black people can’t be racist, what they’re trying to explain to you - if you’ll consider it long enough to let it sink in - is that white racism and black/brown ‘racism’ have different impact. It is impossible for a black person’s ‘racism’ to have the same impact as a white person’s racism, because white people (in this country and in all Western nations) are in a position to do far greater harm to non-whites, not the other way around. We don’t completely ignore non-white racism but white racism always has to be taken more seriously. Look, it’s not an accident that you keep having to tell people “when we say X, we don’t actually mean X, we mean this long paragraph of not-X”. The point of redefining and reusing common terms for these concepts is to retain the connotations from the old definitions, and transfer them to the new ones without having to have a debate and persuade people that they actually apply. See ‘anti-racism’ for an especially obvious example. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-starting-to-get-the-feeling-that-the-conservative-right-is-winning/945477.md?page=21)