By Ian Jobling • 11/3/08
Conservative pundits are justifiably indignant about media bias in the current election. Victor Davis Hanson catalogs the numerous failures to take Obama to task over his questionable associations, his inconsistent positions on the issues, and his unwise redistributionist fiscal proposals. Meanwhile, the media have cast McCain and Palin as racist, authoritarian demagogues, despite the fact that they have shunned controversial positions on race, suppressed valid criticisms of non-whites among their followers, and betrayed the Republican base by supporting a “path to citizenship” for illegal aliens. As Hanson says, Sarah Palin “in the space of two months, has been reduced from a popular successful governor to a backwoods creationist, who will ban books and champion white secessionist causes.”
The bias Hanson complains of is a product of the fundamental misconception of American society that I discussed in The Myth of the Fascist Establishment. We are a society that is not only tolerant of minorities, but recklessly indulgent. America lets millions of immigrants into the country every year and allows them to change the complexion and culture of our nation. Once they are here, we give them affirmative action and put criticism of them, no matter how justified, under a severe taboo. However, mainstream political commentators do not deplore our nation’s indulgences towards non-whites and its disregard for the interests of American natives, but rather its xenophobia and racism. Even as white Americans allow themselves to be dispossessed with nary a grumble, they find themselves pilloried as intolerant, bigoted, and even proto-fascist.
What is the source of this grotesque scapegoating? Why does the media and academic establishment insist on blaming the victim? Many writings on White America clarify the question. The myth of the fascist establishment is clearly a manifestation of leukophobia, or fear and loathing of white people, which casts whites as uniquely racist and authoritarian. Moreover, the myth is rooted in the hostility towards white ethnocentrism and infatuation with diversity that characterizes American elite ideology, particularly that of the so-called “creative class.”
Though social attitudes always have many causes, I think the major reason for the myth of the fascist establishment is simple snobbery. For the elite, friendliness to diversity is the hallmark of tolerance, open-mindedness, courage, and intelligence. Consequently, not only do the elites boast of their own courageous embrace of diversity, but fabricate a fictional fascist white majority as a foil for their own superior tolerance. To this combination of boastfulness and scapegoating, I give the name “diversity snobbery.”
One sees diversity snobbery at work everywhere in the coverage of this election. Certainly, boastfulness is not hard to find among Obama’s supporters. Bob Herbert of the New York Times, for example, smugly asserts that the Obama campaign appeals “to a new generation of voters—younger, smarter, more diverse, more open-minded.”
Meanwhile, the press has made McCain and Palin out to be stoking a “lynch-mob mentality” in their supporters, in the words of left-wing smear artist Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. For example, the press was remarkably eager to believe an unsubstantiated allegation that someone at a Palin rally yelled “Kill him!” when Barack Obama was mentioned. Olbermann dwelt on the incident for a week, ranting at one point:
on this you’re not only a fraud, Senator [McCain], but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence… Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.
Frank Rich of the New York Times accused McCain and Palin of stirring up a “Weimar-like rage” in their supporters, alluding to the period of German history that saw the rise of Nazism. A secret service investigation, however, found no evidence that the phrase had been uttered. Neither Olbermann nor Rich has apologized for the smear.
As has happened so many times before, journalists’ eagerness to believe that violent racism is rampant among whites made them fall for an unsupported accusation. That the elites prove so consistently gullible to this type of claim indicates that some powerful motive is at work here. Snobbery, I think, is a good explanation: by casting the white majority as bigoted rednecks, Olbermann, Rich, and their fans reaffirm their own sense of superior open-mindedness and tolerance.
The press has made many similar gaffes in its coverage of Sarah Palin, which have tended to exaggerate her authoritarianism and ignorance. ABC News reported—the words were subsequently removed from the story—that Sarah Palin had fired a Wasilla librarian for refusing to ban books when she was mayor of the Alaska town in 1996. However, this rumor turned out to be without substance.
Olbermann comes right out and calls Palin “stupid,” but usually the press is a bit more subtle. When Palin asked for clarification of the term “Bush doctrine” in an interview, many commentators accused her of ignorance on foreign policy. However, given that there have been many versions of the Bush Doctrine, the question was a reasonable one.
These exaggerations clearly fit into the logic of diversity snobbery. The fictional narrow-mindedness, ignorance, and authoritarianism of the Republicans throws into relief the elites’ intelligent and broad-minded openness.
Barack Obama himself has artfully appealed to diversity snobbery. In his notorious “Bittergate” comments, the candidate maintained that small-town Americans “cling to” guns, religion, and immigration restrictionism out of bitterness and frustration. Similarly, Obama contrasts the Republican “politics of fear” with his own message of “change” and “hope.” The moral is clear: only bitter, frustrated, fearful losers stuck in the past oppose white dispossession and the eradication of traditional American culture. Successful, savvy people like Obama and his supporters are open to diversity.
Diversity snobbery substitutes insult for argumentation and persuades by appealing to people’s vanity rather than their reason. This elite arrogance is responsible for the distinctive nastiness and shallowness that characterizes today’s political debate. Republicans, after all, are so terrified of being smeared by diversity snobs that they refuse to address the legitimate concerns of white Americans. Consequently, their anger over affirmative action, welfare policies that “spread the wealth” from whites to minorities, and mass immigration continues to fester in silence.