Murtaza Hussain makes a good point about there being a progressive-activist class in which people intellectually resemble each other irrespective of ethnicity more than they resemble most members of the ethnic groups from which they come.
At one time, it was fashionable for progressives to dismiss those non-whites who were clearly not under any yoke of oppression as “honorary whites”. However, if that distasteful term applies to anyone, it’s non-white progressives.
No funny progressives? Bill Maher and Steve Colbert, for starters. Very funny and distinctively left-of-center, while still more than willing to skewer the left when warranted. A person who doesn't think they're gifted comedians is apt to be the very kind of rigid leftist that Hussain is deploring. (So if he does know about them and doesn't think they're funny, he's in the camp of his own bugaboos. And if he doesn't know about them, he's poorly placed to pontificate about who's funny and who's not.) I do agree that most of Hussain's perceptions have a goodly amount of merit. But he clearly hasn't done his homework where comedy is concerned.
I have never thought of Bill Maher as being on the left. He has always seemed unconstrained by such labels and I think, if you asked him, he would agree with me. He seems more in league with the South Park guys - they will skewer people left or right. Obviously, right now, Maher is one of the more prominent comedians taking on the social justice authoritarian left. Dave Chappelle's politics seem to be on the left to me - though he obviously is a critic of the far left. That's the problem, everything has shifted. I was on the left ten years ago, now I am trying to figure out what the hell I am. I think a lot of comedians on the left are having the same problem. Jon Stewart is no longer funny where he used to be quite funny. Haven't watched Colbert in years... but yes, I think of him as left-of-center but coming from a moral/religious center. But I agree with Hussain - it's hard to come up with many comedians from the far left at all, when we used to have legions of them when the far left embraced quite different values.
I’ve always found that no good pinko David Cross very funny, so this my plug for him. However, point well taken: the culture has shifted, which I think speaks to the interviewee’s larger point.
Thanks for bringing in a commentator who notes the class issues among recent migrants. They tend to be religious, as are many African-Americans. They don't care for far-left liberals, and want their streets safe and the garbage picked up. And some are attracted to a "macho" candidate. But if the Democrats don't ease up on the cultural issues, they will lose out, when there is a good possibility that if Trump runs again, with or without the Republican party, Democrats can win both Houses of Congress AND the Presidency. (With of course putting in a hell of a lot of work!)
Thanks for including this. It’s occurred to me that social scientists, with their slicing and dicing of the population by the now-standard categories of race, gender, class and level of education, often contribute to the polarization they attempt to understand. People start to see not only other people but themselves as representatives of the standard groups, often loading these identifications with implicit or explicit moral judgment. Not only does complexity suffer, but policy. In 2016 many Trump supporters noted, when interviewed, that they didn’t like everything Trump said. Yet the default understanding on the left became, and remains, a simplistic “Trump is a hater, ergo Trump voters are haters; Trump voters are white, ergo white people are haters.” There was evidence that complicated the picture even in 2016—Obama-Trump voters, a significant percentage of Hispanic Trump voters. It’s helpful to see the picture complicated further. Can progressive rhetoric and policy follow suit?
Murtaza Hussain makes a good point about there being a progressive-activist class in which people intellectually resemble each other irrespective of ethnicity more than they resemble most members of the ethnic groups from which they come.
At one time, it was fashionable for progressives to dismiss those non-whites who were clearly not under any yoke of oppression as “honorary whites”. However, if that distasteful term applies to anyone, it’s non-white progressives.
No funny progressives? Bill Maher and Steve Colbert, for starters. Very funny and distinctively left-of-center, while still more than willing to skewer the left when warranted. A person who doesn't think they're gifted comedians is apt to be the very kind of rigid leftist that Hussain is deploring. (So if he does know about them and doesn't think they're funny, he's in the camp of his own bugaboos. And if he doesn't know about them, he's poorly placed to pontificate about who's funny and who's not.) I do agree that most of Hussain's perceptions have a goodly amount of merit. But he clearly hasn't done his homework where comedy is concerned.
I have never thought of Bill Maher as being on the left. He has always seemed unconstrained by such labels and I think, if you asked him, he would agree with me. He seems more in league with the South Park guys - they will skewer people left or right. Obviously, right now, Maher is one of the more prominent comedians taking on the social justice authoritarian left. Dave Chappelle's politics seem to be on the left to me - though he obviously is a critic of the far left. That's the problem, everything has shifted. I was on the left ten years ago, now I am trying to figure out what the hell I am. I think a lot of comedians on the left are having the same problem. Jon Stewart is no longer funny where he used to be quite funny. Haven't watched Colbert in years... but yes, I think of him as left-of-center but coming from a moral/religious center. But I agree with Hussain - it's hard to come up with many comedians from the far left at all, when we used to have legions of them when the far left embraced quite different values.
I’ve always found that no good pinko David Cross very funny, so this my plug for him. However, point well taken: the culture has shifted, which I think speaks to the interviewee’s larger point.
Thanks for bringing in a commentator who notes the class issues among recent migrants. They tend to be religious, as are many African-Americans. They don't care for far-left liberals, and want their streets safe and the garbage picked up. And some are attracted to a "macho" candidate. But if the Democrats don't ease up on the cultural issues, they will lose out, when there is a good possibility that if Trump runs again, with or without the Republican party, Democrats can win both Houses of Congress AND the Presidency. (With of course putting in a hell of a lot of work!)
Thanks for including this. It’s occurred to me that social scientists, with their slicing and dicing of the population by the now-standard categories of race, gender, class and level of education, often contribute to the polarization they attempt to understand. People start to see not only other people but themselves as representatives of the standard groups, often loading these identifications with implicit or explicit moral judgment. Not only does complexity suffer, but policy. In 2016 many Trump supporters noted, when interviewed, that they didn’t like everything Trump said. Yet the default understanding on the left became, and remains, a simplistic “Trump is a hater, ergo Trump voters are haters; Trump voters are white, ergo white people are haters.” There was evidence that complicated the picture even in 2016—Obama-Trump voters, a significant percentage of Hispanic Trump voters. It’s helpful to see the picture complicated further. Can progressive rhetoric and policy follow suit?