There are two themes happening in America, and Hillary Clinton needs to get them both right, but the habits of my friends on the left may not let her.
Theme one: the regularization of new Americans. Immigrants are good. I am married to one, from China, and before that to an immigrant from Poland. I have some photos below of a theme that is happening in America, the integration of immigrants and dark skinned people in America. There are photos from the Multicultural Fair in Medford, the Chinese New Year event in Jacksonville.
Is there a political point? Yes. They are making the point that people of different ethnicities are here and are part of America, a point of celebration, and patriotism.
I also include a couple of cast photos from two TV shows, "Parks and Recreation" and "Scandal". They have a character with Indian ethnicity and a black female lead character and in both cases those facts are obvious and givens, but are not the subject of the character's behavior. They are characters, not ethnic symbols. This is social progress.
The left--my friends--are comfortable with inclusion, and celebrations and TV like this sits well with them. With me, too.
But theme two is safety and order, and a history of a white power structure using laws and "gentlemen's agreements" and housing red lines and quotas and discriminatory policing to enforce ethnic oppression. Currently, Donald Trump has exposed something that has been real and true for all of American history, resentment and fear of new Americans, especially when they differ in ethnicity, race, or religion.
So the hazard for Hillary Clinton is that it is the left's deep instinct to presume that fear of the "other" is just another iteration and expression of prejudice and therefore to assume that observations of disorder or lawlessness by a reviled group is simply an expression of prejudice. Therefore, disorder by blacks in Ferguson or Baltimore or by Black Lives Matter activists are presumed as mis-identified, or in fact legitimate, as an expression of resistance to oppression.
And that is the hazard Hillary will face and which I suspect she will fail. She needs to condemn violence and lawlessness by oppressed and discriminated-against groups. She needs to stand for order. America expects this from a chief executive and commander in chief. In the context of order, the rights of the discriminated-against can be expressed.
Republican candidates keep repeating the charge that Obama and Hillary will not condemn "Islamic" terror. They are getting at a point, a point of Democratic interest-group-politics. They have figured out that a broad swath of Americans, uncovered and highlighted by the Trump campaign, resent the special exemption enjoyed by discriminated-against groups from being named by their point of discrimination when they are lawless. They want Obama to say "Islamic" terrorist and "black" looter.
I suspect some of Hillary's allies will complain, and Bernie will gain votes, if Hillary takes the action I think she must. The next time a black, gay, Muslim, or other representative of a friendly constituency group does a lawless protest, she needs to condemn the lawlessness, firmly and publicly and without sounding tentative. She needs to show that she can be firm and fair in enforcing laws against "her team", too. A Black Lives Matter protester who disrupts a meeting is a disrupter, not a patriot. If Hillary does not "get" this point then a Republican who does get it likely will mobilize American voters to victory in 2016.
And what about taking Muslim refugees? I am pretty sure the politics of it are messy, that the left has seen admission of Muslims as a point of integrity and honor and the general public is deeply suspicious. I think that Hillary Clinton needs to recognize that the fear and suspicion is real and that there is some justification for it. My friends on the left are so suspicious of policing as a form of oppression that they don't want to acknowledge that policing also protects the weak and oppressed. Hillary can call for newer, higher standards of vetting and attempt to make the point that there are good and bad among potential immigrants and that we discriminate on the basis of character, not the basis of national origin or religion.
Sarah Palin would be comfortable saying to ban them condemn them all and "let Allah sort it out"", and she did in fact say that (August 2013). Hillary does not need to go that far. But she needs to make clear that just because the Sarah Palins of the world belittle Muslims that this does not mean that all Muslims would be good Americans. The left may want to make that leap, and that may be Hillary's instinct, but it would be a very bad mis-step.
Theme one: the regularization of new Americans. Immigrants are good. I am married to one, from China, and before that to an immigrant from Poland. I have some photos below of a theme that is happening in America, the integration of immigrants and dark skinned people in America. There are photos from the Multicultural Fair in Medford, the Chinese New Year event in Jacksonville.
Is there a political point? Yes. They are making the point that people of different ethnicities are here and are part of America, a point of celebration, and patriotism.
I also include a couple of cast photos from two TV shows, "Parks and Recreation" and "Scandal". They have a character with Indian ethnicity and a black female lead character and in both cases those facts are obvious and givens, but are not the subject of the character's behavior. They are characters, not ethnic symbols. This is social progress.
The left--my friends--are comfortable with inclusion, and celebrations and TV like this sits well with them. With me, too.
But theme two is safety and order, and a history of a white power structure using laws and "gentlemen's agreements" and housing red lines and quotas and discriminatory policing to enforce ethnic oppression. Currently, Donald Trump has exposed something that has been real and true for all of American history, resentment and fear of new Americans, especially when they differ in ethnicity, race, or religion.
So the hazard for Hillary Clinton is that it is the left's deep instinct to presume that fear of the "other" is just another iteration and expression of prejudice and therefore to assume that observations of disorder or lawlessness by a reviled group is simply an expression of prejudice. Therefore, disorder by blacks in Ferguson or Baltimore or by Black Lives Matter activists are presumed as mis-identified, or in fact legitimate, as an expression of resistance to oppression.
And that is the hazard Hillary will face and which I suspect she will fail. She needs to condemn violence and lawlessness by oppressed and discriminated-against groups. She needs to stand for order. America expects this from a chief executive and commander in chief. In the context of order, the rights of the discriminated-against can be expressed.
Republican candidates keep repeating the charge that Obama and Hillary will not condemn "Islamic" terror. They are getting at a point, a point of Democratic interest-group-politics. They have figured out that a broad swath of Americans, uncovered and highlighted by the Trump campaign, resent the special exemption enjoyed by discriminated-against groups from being named by their point of discrimination when they are lawless. They want Obama to say "Islamic" terrorist and "black" looter.
I suspect some of Hillary's allies will complain, and Bernie will gain votes, if Hillary takes the action I think she must. The next time a black, gay, Muslim, or other representative of a friendly constituency group does a lawless protest, she needs to condemn the lawlessness, firmly and publicly and without sounding tentative. She needs to show that she can be firm and fair in enforcing laws against "her team", too. A Black Lives Matter protester who disrupts a meeting is a disrupter, not a patriot. If Hillary does not "get" this point then a Republican who does get it likely will mobilize American voters to victory in 2016.
And what about taking Muslim refugees? I am pretty sure the politics of it are messy, that the left has seen admission of Muslims as a point of integrity and honor and the general public is deeply suspicious. I think that Hillary Clinton needs to recognize that the fear and suspicion is real and that there is some justification for it. My friends on the left are so suspicious of policing as a form of oppression that they don't want to acknowledge that policing also protects the weak and oppressed. Hillary can call for newer, higher standards of vetting and attempt to make the point that there are good and bad among potential immigrants and that we discriminate on the basis of character, not the basis of national origin or religion.
Sarah Palin would be comfortable saying to ban them condemn them all and "let Allah sort it out"", and she did in fact say that (August 2013). Hillary does not need to go that far. But she needs to make clear that just because the Sarah Palins of the world belittle Muslims that this does not mean that all Muslims would be good Americans. The left may want to make that leap, and that may be Hillary's instinct, but it would be a very bad mis-step.
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| Multicultural Fair Logo. |
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| Multicultural Fair Patiortism |
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| What is important here is that he is the President and he's married to someone else |
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| Just another character |
1 comment:
I agree with Clinton that we have a moral imperative to not fuel growing prejudice against Muslim and Hispanic Americans by careless use of the terms "Islamic terrorists" and "illegal immigrants". But I think she is imperiling continued Democratic control of the executive branch when she carelessly equates religious prejudice with opposition to the immigration of refugees from Muslims countries. Labeling the clear majority of Americans who oppose mass Muslim immigration (such as Syrian refugees) as Islamophobes is a losing recipe. Clinton needs to acknowledge that good Americans can abhor prejudice against American Muslims but oppose bringing in the Syrian refugees. Being afraid of embedded Islamic terrorists is not Islamophobia. It is the same with the distinction between respect for Hispanic Americans and opposition to mass illegal immigration from Latin America.
Clinton's linguistic temerity over the terms "illegal immigrants" and "Islamic terrorists" alienates her from the majority of the American electorate. If many Democrats are satisfied to have another McGovern humiliating defeat in the name of war and immigration principles, then they are probably going to get it. McGovern's landslide defeat came in misreading American public opinion on the Vietnam War. Clinton's may come from the preposterous-sounding refusal to name "Islamic" extremists as our enemy in the War on Terror-- that's the "I" is ISIS. The "War on Terror" may well have a certain unreality in name, but not on the streets. A person who cannot name the enemy, and who belittles voters who do, is probably not going to get elected president. I am confidently hopeful that she will jettison these rhetorical quirks after the primaries, if it not too late.
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