Why racial reality occasionally bubbles to the surface of the conservative consciousness, and then is suppressed again

Dave T. writes:

Regarding the Lucianne.com commenter you quoted, the phenomenon of conservatives who are willing to speak of the “browning” of America as having a critically negative impact on our politics, yet who consistently fail to fully develop that thought, is a very important topic.

The way I understand this phenomenon is that the left regularly attacks the right via an elaborate critique of our historic national identity and then tries to galvanize as many people as possible who might be alienated from that identity into a single voting bloc. Hence, the reason why groups that are susceptible to that critique (e.g. blacks, browns, and Asians) will continue to vote for the leftist candidate regardless of anything else. They perceive that the non-leftist alternative represents a vision for the country that excludes them. Once this process is underway, the left seeks to checkmate the right in electoral terms by increasingly mobilizing and/or growing these groups via propaganda and immigration.

Conservatives on the right have responded to this strategy via the rhetorical jiu-jitsu of ceding our historic national identity while still trying to defend and advance our classically liberal heritage. My intuition is that conservatives have rhetorically ceded our historic national identity because they perceive that this not an argument they can win given the left’s near-complete dominance of our media, academic, education, and entertainment systems. Unfortunately, the conservative counter-response can’t succeed in the long-term, as the classically liberal heritage they seek to defend depends on a historic national identity they no longer defend. Therefore, as the left continues to corrode the latter unchecked, the corrosion of the former must inevitably follow.

But here’s the rub, conservatives now recognize—at least subconsciously—that rhetorically ceding our historic national identity was a big mistake that will doom them in the long-term, nevertheless they remain committed to a strategy that depends on rhetorically ceding our historic national identity (but note that they’ve modified their strategy by additionally opposing all major immigration bills). Hence, the reason why we see dark thoughts about the “browning” of America occasionally bubble up to the level of the conservative consciousness only to go nowhere: these thoughts are of no political use to a strategy that cedes our historic national identity in the first place!

LA replies:

If by “historical national identity” you mean our identity as a white, Anglo-based, European-based nation, I basically agree with you.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 07, 2012 07:25 PM | Send