Pierce: 'We' Did Not Miss the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism. You Did.

[mcar]

'We' Did Not Miss the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism. You Did.
The New York Times plays itself—but offers a useful window into how establishment media has enabled all this.

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
DEC 13, 2018

Now that the full scope of this administration*'s political vandalism and base criminality is largely being copped to in broad daylight in various federal courthouses, a good chunk of the elite political press is moving into the Hoocoodanode? stage of political journalism. This is best exemplified by Thursday's New York Times podcast, the headline of which—"The Rise of Rightwing Extremism, and How We Missed It"—got dragged like Hector's corpse all over the electric Twitter machine until someone at the Times sharpened up and changed the last half of it to "...and How Law Enforcement Ignored It," which is a little better, but not much.

To take the simplest argument first, "we," of course, did no such thing, unless "we" is a very limited—and very white—plural pronoun. The violence on the right certainly made itself obvious in Oklahoma City, and at the Atlanta Olympics, and at various gay bars and women's health clinics, and in Barrett Slepian's kitchen, and in the hills of North Carolina, where Eric Rudolph stayed on the lam for five years and in which he had stashed 250 pounds of explosives for future escapades.

It's not "our" fault that the NYT hired Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat, and not Dave Neiwert or JJ McNab, to write for their Opinions section. It's not "our" fault that the NYT and other elite political media outlets hand-waved the fact that allegedly respectable Republican politicians, national ones as well as the local variety, attached themselves to various "respectable" extremist outfits like the Wise Users out west and the Council of Conservative Citizens, the modern manifestations of the Citizens Councils that were the polite face of American apartheid during the Jim Crow era in the South.

It's not "our" fault that the prion disease spread so wildly on AM radio and on television and, ultimately, on social media as well. It's not "our" fault that white supremacy and outright fascism has become fashionable in pockets of our military, and in our militarized local police forces. And it's certainly no surprise to "us" that the election of an African American president sent the well-nurtured crazies into dangerous hysterics.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25574930/new-york-times-rightwing-extremism-white-supremacist/

[demmiblue]

1. There are no eyerolls big enough for that characterization.

The NYT was soundly smacked down on Twitter this morning.

[LisaM]

2. He is such a good writer.

Just nails it, over and over.

[Hekate]

3. Thank you, Chaz Pierce. Thank you from the bottom of my heart....

Especially for mentioning women's clinics and Eric Rudolph.

[BigmanPigman]

4. The NYT and MSM

is biased and goes after ratings and money. They do not do100% objective reporting. They helped the fucking moron win and stay in office.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[Cha]

6. Yes, once again M$$$Media

enables the worst about what's happening in our country. Not only enables but Ensures IT.

Link to tweet

Mahalo, mcar

[malaise]

7. He's right

I remember when the DHS report was silenced.

[hibbing]

8. Similar to the Iraq War hand wringing decade later n/t

[stuffmatters]

9. Pierce once again nails it. Appreciate he traces back to RW OKC bombing & clinic/doctor murderers.

[zentrum]

10. Trump was great for ratings

.....and sales and that's what they cared about most.

God knows what they'll say about covering the environmental catastrophe we all face, which should be a front page story EVERY DAY---when it's suddenly too late to avoid mass starvation, drought etc. Hoodathunk?

[uponit7771]

11. K&R

[DonCoquixote]

12. an excellent article, which I will humbly add to

to quote a great television show "who is this we that you speak of?" not only did we, and by that I mean American liberals, especially American liberals of color warn you about these types, but you very patronizingly chided us when we did. You told us to be quiet, because if we showed ourselves, we would anger these people and lose elections. We had to smile when you showed the sort of people that uttered racial slurs comfort, camaraderie and solidarity that you never offered us, and by us, I especially mean that people of color that were the only reliable voters the Democrats could count on.

You made us be quiet because you wanted the carry favor with these voters. Since Pierce does name some names, let's talk about Ross, who simultaneously praised Hillary for being in the center, and chided her if she showed any warmth towards the left. Let's also not forget the way he would always chide the people who want to talk about racism, as if we were the ones keeping it alive. It was one thing to hear right wing idiots say things that anybody knew were racist, but called Martin Luther King "the silence of our friends" was it really hurt us, because it was made very clear that even though we're the ones would show up to vote, we are the ones that were going to empty your wallets for donations, that we were not going to be listen to, or even wanted all that much by the center.

And I have to confess, is really laughable to see many of these people that would always go ahead and wag their fingers at any brown or black person, who kept on saying "all lives matter". Who kept saying that may be we didn't deserve as many programs as those hard-working white people, now all the sudden, around. Here's a newsflash, that "white working-class" that you keep chasing knows you as a bunch of hypocrites, and they know that Trump will go ahead and give them what they really want: am I talk about jobs? No, am I talking about reduced deficits? No and my talking about peace, hell no!

What I'm talking about is the fact that mediocre people in the majority could count on a certain level of self-esteem boost because they know that black and brown people would always be lower than them on the totem pole, including and especially our first black president. And the people Pierce is justly railing against were not only ignorant of this, they knew it, and they were hoping keep their position of privilege.

[UpInArms]

13. Republicans have been doing their racist dog whistle for a long time

As part of his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan made an appearance at the Neshoba County Fair where he gave a speech on August 3, 1980. Critics claim that Reagan's choice of location for the speech (the fairgrounds were about 7 miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town associated with the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964) was evidence of racial bias.

During his speech, Reagan said:[1]

I still believe the answer to any problem lies with the people. I believe in states' rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level, and I believe we've distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment.

He went on to promise to "restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them."[2] The use of the phrase was seen by some as a tacit appeal to Southern white voters and a continuation of Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, while others argued it merely reflected his libertarian economic beliefs.[3][4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan%27s_Neshoba_County_Fair_%22states%27_rights%22_speech

And the Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking racist organizations for a long time

https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map

... so ... no ... “we” didn’t miss “it”

[Hermit-The-Prog]

14. NYT: not even fit for birdcages now

[Garrett78]

15. The right wing is in denial about what the right wing is and has been for the last half century.

Show me an anti-Trump Republican and I'll show you a person in denial about the monster they helped create.

They continue to worship at the altar of Saint Ronnie without acknowledging the linkage between the rise of Trump and the white backlash to the Civil Rights Movement and Nixon's Southern Strategy in the 1960s, the Powell Memo and creation of the Moral Majority in the 1970s, Reagan's dog whistling (like kicking off his campaign with a speech on "states' rights" less than 10 miles from where 3 civil rights workers were murdered) in the 1980s, and so on.

Trump is a symptom and part of a continuum. As intelligent and articulate as the likes of Steve Schmidt are, these anti-Trump Republicans are in denial. The alternative is coming to terms with what they helped make possible. Denial helps assuage guilt, so they opt for denial.

I worry very much about what the dominant narrative will be after Trump is gone. Republicans (and members of the media) will try very hard to establish a narrative that is downright dangerous and will only allow for Trump 2.0. It's starting already. Democrats better be prepared and better understand the importance of establishing narrative in the public consciousness. Being on the defensive (as we've been against the "liberal media" narrative for the last 30+ years) is a losing position.

The ones who still worship at the altar of Saint Ronnie can't seem to accept their complicity. They simply want to go back to using a dog whistle instead of a bullhorn. Because that'll make everything okay again and assuage their guilt. In reality, of course, it'll simply feed the extremism.

And by "monster," I mean the Republican Party base (as well as all the right wing "independents" with their bothsidesism). Trump is merely a symptom. Once Trump is gone, the monster will remain. As Obama said, the GOP has been "feeding the base all kinds of crazy for years." The monster must be fed, which is why Republicans hoping to get re-elected don't speak out against Trump except in rare cases. Eventually we'll see the rise of Trump 2.0, a more intelligent and politically-savvy and charismatic demagogue. We best be ready.

[harumph]

16. excellent analysis

They'll propose a reformed republican party and we'll get a more clever
version of Trump with the intelligence to hide his crimes rather than project them.
Right wing think tanks are working overtime on this right now - setting up the
next "con" for the rubes.

[Garrett78]

17. Trump is like a trial balloon.

Not in an intentional/conspiratorial way. But the right wing powers that be can make adjustments as needed based on the Trump experiment.

[colsohlibgal]

18. Agreed

None of it, the South losing the Civil War, the Brown vs the Board Of Education decision, the passage of the Civil Rights Bill.....changed the minds and culture in large pockets of the US. These types are full of hatred for the “other”. And Obama winning not once but twice made millions hit the panic button.

But there are more of us than them and we need to keep fighting evil.