The Whiteshift contradictions of multiculturalism

Eric Kaufmann writes in National Review:

Importantly, Duke political scientist Ashley Jardina, in work informing her forthcoming book White Identity Politics, distinguishes between an attachment to white identity and the dislike of racial minorities. This reflects the well-established psychological finding that, in the absence of overt conflict, there’s no correlation between attachment to one’s own group and hostility to outgroups. In the ANES, those who feel warm toward conservatives tend to feel cool toward liberals and vice-versa, but, on average, whites who feel warm toward whites tend to feel warm toward blacks. ...

Again, the own-group attachments of many who seek slower cultural change do not imply hostility toward outgroups. They are conservative, perhaps even clannish, but are not necessarily racist and should not be barred from the democratic arena. Yet many liberals consider white groupishness racist: I find that 91 percent of white Clinton voters with graduate degrees say it’s racist for a white woman to want less immigration to help maintain her group’s share of the population, compared with 6 percent of white Trump voters without a degree. Minority voters, who are less influenced by multiculturalist ideas than are white liberals, lie in between, at 45 percent, while the American average is 36 percent.

That is correct. White and Jewish liberals tend to say that it is racist and white supremacist for whites to want less non-white immigration. But in fact wanting such immigration limits is not necessarily based on any animosity towards any ethnic group.

I know whites whose communities have been taken over by Chinese. These whites often eat Chinese food and admire Chinese culture, and yet they are not happy that their kids don't have any white friends at school.

Liberals now praise Chinese-Americans keeping they Chinese culture, but hate Whites for keeping theirs.

The beginnings of what, in 2004, I termed “asymmetrical multiculturalism” may be precisely dated to July 1916, when Randolph Bourne, a member of the left-wing modernist Young Intellectuals of Greenwich Village and an avatar of the new bohemian youth culture, wrote in The Atlantic that immigrants should retain their ethnicity while Anglo-Saxons should forsake their uptight heritage for cosmopolitanism ...

A central premise of my book, Whiteshift, is that the contradictions of multiculturalism explain the current populist moment. Progressive-inspired elite norms suppressed the expression of white majority identity — or versions of national identity that recognize the majority — in stark contrast to the encouragement provided to minority cultures.

I don't know why he says it began in 2016 if he described it in 2004. Obviously it began long before 2004.

During the Republican primary, Trump was the only one of 17 candidates to make immigration restriction a central feature of his campaign because others were unwilling to challenge pro-immigration norms. This was the key factor helping him win the nomination. Likewise, in the presidential election, my ANES models show that immigration was the pivotal issue for both non-voters and Obama voters who switched to Trump.

That is correct. I thought that other candidates would see that immigration is a winning issue, along with other America First issues, and jump on it to steal Trump's supporters. But none did.

Republicans probably could have retained the Congress if they embraced Trumpism, and funded the Wall. But they never did. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan denounced Trump at every opportunity. Now he is out of office, working as a lobbyist.

Right-wing populism and left-wing identity politics have risen in tandem since 2013. Why?

The connecting thread is the contradictions of multiculturalism, which encourage a “common enemy” form of minority identity while repressing even moderate expressions of majority identity. The former produces antagonistic identity politics on the left, while both contribute to populist blowback on the right.

Since 2013? Left-wing identity politics has been rising since the 1960s. Jews have been promoting it a lot longer than that.

Trump discovered right-wing populism in 2015. I am not sure how much it has risen. Maybe Trump is just taking advantage of the fact that the Left is so obviously unreasonable.

Supposedly right-wing mags like National Review denounce Trump and Trumpism at every opportunity. Right-wingers have been unable or unwilling to do much about immigration or left-wing identity politics.