Conservative ‘common culture’ rhetoric is itself ethnic cheerleading

Evidence

Reagan was exactly the kind of president that allowed white America to be secure in its commitment to the value gap. His smile, his down-home charm, exuded exactly the opposite of the vitriol of loud, southern bigots. Reagan’s was genteel racism and, politically, he knew exactly what he was doing: playing on the fears and hatreds of some white people, especially in the South, the West, and the suburbs, for political gain. Throughout his career, Reagan subtly exploited the resentments of white Americans who resisted the black freedom movement of the sixties and seventies. In 1966, in his race for the California governorship, he denounced open housing and civil rights laws. In his 1976 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he invoked the image of the “welfare queen” who bilked the federal government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. What happened in Neshoba County was not a political misstep, but a tactical decision by Reagan and his operatives to exploit racism for political purposes, and it reveals how that decision, along with a host of other choices, gave modern conservatism its dark, racist undertones. This is the soil in which Trumpism grows. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 490 (#complicates, via linked claim)

One implication of dynamic social-impact theory for conformity and prejudice is that different groups in a society will have different patterns of prejudices. It would be a mistake to suggest that, for example, US culture has a strong norm against having prejudices based on race and religion. Some groups in the US have powerful norms suppressing these kinds of prejudices, and others do not (Ezekiel, 1996). Different social groups, living in different places, will have a stable set of prejudices and beliefs (that may conflict with the dominant social view in society), and people in contact with a subgroup will conform to the norms close around them, rather than the general norms that describe American values. Thus, for example, extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan or other white-pride groups, Black separatist groups, and secessionist movements persist in the US, despite their deviation from the culture-at-large. Different subgroups have their own prejudices, and people who are part of the local culture will share the local culture’s values. By limiting their contact with the rest of the culture, the prejudices of extremist groups can persist and even flourish (Myers & Bishop, 1970). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1911 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The JVP initially sympathized with the Tamils’ plight and even argued that its cadres and Tamil rebels were fighting against the same oppressive regime, but the party changed its position and embraced nationalistic rhetoric when doing so suited its purposes. The JVP turned especially nationalistic after the July 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord was signed. The accord was exceedingly unpopular in the mostly Sinhalese south, and the banned JVP Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology 25 vilified the Indian presence and conducted a murderous campaign seeking to topple the government. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 159 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Conservative voices dominate public-spirited rhetoric in America — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 165; Patriotism as love of tradition makes racial-justice protest read as unpatriotic — Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise…, 30; Hybridity theorists and conservative commentators both treat ethnicity as rooted identity. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 914 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Genteel racism made modern conservatism’s racist undertones politically viable #complicates (0.78) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 490
• Local subgroup norms, not national culture, sustain prejudice in the US #complicates (0.76) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1911
• Political groups adopt nationalist rhetoric opportunistically #complicates (0.75) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 159