My correspondent has come to believe that political correctness is transforming American culture in a way that puts his interests at odds with activists who are pursuing social justice and Hispanic immigrants who might benefit from affirmative action. His perception of these changes is causing him to engage in zero-sum thinking. If identity-based tribalism is America’s lot, he intends to vote his group interests, whereas he was previously inclined toward a more individualist ethic.
That shift alarms me.
Neither the pursuit of social justice nor immigration policy nor relations among people of different ethnicities are inherently zero sum in nature. Quite the contrary, if sound policies and social norms are in place. If there is an uptick in white people shifting from a liberal mindset to a tribal mindset, something has gone very wrong.
What?
The correspondent’s words track concerns I’ve aired before.
In
The Federalist, David Marcus
argues that anti-white rhetoric is fueling white nationalism. I’ve previously warned that “encouraging a focus on white identity is a dangerous approach for a country in which white supremacy has been a toxic force,” an admonition that applies to the right and left in different ways. And on the subject of “political correctness,” I’ve
posited that citizens who oppose Trumpism should “take a careful look at everything that falls under the rubric of political correctness; study the real harm done by its excesses; identify the many parts that are worth defending; and persuade more Americans to adopt those norms voluntarily, for substantive reasons, not under duress of social shaming or other coercion.”
Today’s correspondent is just one voter. Future opinion polls will say much more about how typical Trump supporters relate to political correctness and white identity. If it turns out that there are a significant number of people who are reacting to social-justice shaming and rhetorical anti-whiteness by shifting from supporting campaigns like Gary Johnson 2012 to campaigns like Donald Trump 2016, what then?
