“In a recent essay about the racial politics of the Trump movement, Ta-Nehisi Coates concluded with a warning:
It has long been an axiom among certain black writers and thinkers that while whiteness endangers the bodies of black people in the immediate sense, the larger threat is to white people themselves, the shared country, and even the whole world. There is an impulse to blanch at this sort of grandiosity. When W. E. B. Du Bois claims that slavery was “singularly disastrous for modern civilization” or James Baldwin claims that whites “have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white,” the instinct is to cry exaggeration. But there really is no other way to read the presidency of Donald Trump.
Yes, at first glance, the notion that Trumpian white racial nationalism is a threat to the whole world, or the downfall of civilization, etc. seems a bit of an exaggeration. Barring global thermonuclear war, Trump and his successors aren’t going to bring down human civilization – the U.S. is powerful and important, but it isn’t nearly that powerful or important.
But there’s an important truth here. An America defined by white racial nationalism – an American Whitopia – would be an economic and cultural disaster movie. It would be a dysfunctional, crappy civilization, sinking into the fetid morass of its own decay. Some people think that an American Whitopia would be bad for people of color but ultimately good for whites, but this is dead wrong. Although nonwhite Americans would certainly suffer greatly, white American suffering under the dystopia of a Trumpist society would be dire and unending….
If you want to understand how important knowledge-based industries are, just read Enrico Moretti’s book, “The New Geography of Jobs”. Cities and towns with lots of human capital – read, smart folks – are flourishing, while old-line manufacturing towns are decaying and dying. Trump has sold people a fantasy that his own blustering bullshit can reverse that trend, but if you really believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
So here’s the thing: Smart Americans have no desire to live in a Whitopia. First, let’s just look at smart white people. Among white Americans with a postgraduate degree, Clinton beat Trump in 2016 by a 13-point margin, even though Trump won whites overall by a 22 point margin. Overall, education was the strongest predictor of which white people voted for Trump and which went for Clinton. Also note that close to 2/3 of the U.S.’ GDP is produced in counties that voted for Clinton.
Richard Florida has been following smart Americans around for a long time, and he has repeatedly noted how they like to live in diverse places. Turn America into an ethnostate, and the smart white people will bolt for Canada, Australia, Japan, or wherever else isn’t a racist hellhole.”
Noah is off the chain…
“In a recent essay about the racial politics of the Trump movement, Ta-Nehisi Coates concluded with a warning:
It has long been an axiom among certain black writers and thinkers that while whiteness endangers the bodies of black people in the immediate sense, the larger threat is to white people themselves, the shared country, and even the whole world. There is an impulse to blanch at this sort of grandiosity. When W. E. B. Du Bois claims that slavery was “singularly disastrous for modern civilization” or James Baldwin claims that whites “have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white,” the instinct is to cry exaggeration. But there really is no other way to read the presidency of Donald Trump.
Yes, at first glance, the notion that Trumpian white racial nationalism is a threat to the whole world, or the downfall of civilization, etc. seems a bit of an exaggeration. Barring global thermonuclear war, Trump and his successors aren’t going to bring down human civilization – the U.S. is powerful and important, but it isn’t nearly that powerful or important.
But there’s an important truth here. An America defined by white racial nationalism – an American Whitopia – would be an economic and cultural disaster movie. It would be a dysfunctional, crappy civilization, sinking into the fetid morass of its own decay. Some people think that an American Whitopia would be bad for people of color but ultimately good for whites, but this is dead wrong. Although nonwhite Americans would certainly suffer greatly, white American suffering under the dystopia of a Trumpist society would be dire and unending….
If you want to understand how important knowledge-based industries are, just read Enrico Moretti’s book, “The New Geography of Jobs”. Cities and towns with lots of human capital – read, smart folks – are flourishing, while old-line manufacturing towns are decaying and dying. Trump has sold people a fantasy that his own blustering bullshit can reverse that trend, but if you really believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
So here’s the thing: Smart Americans have no desire to live in a Whitopia. First, let’s just look at smart white people. Among white Americans with a postgraduate degree, Clinton beat Trump in 2016 by a 13-point margin, even though Trump won whites overall by a 22 point margin. Overall, education was the strongest predictor of which white people voted for Trump and which went for Clinton. Also note that close to 2/3 of the U.S.’ GDP is produced in counties that voted for Clinton.
Richard Florida has been following smart Americans around for a long time, and he has repeatedly noted how they like to live in diverse places. Turn America into an ethnostate, and the smart white people will bolt for Canada, Australia, Japan, or wherever else isn’t a racist hellhole.”
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/an-american-whitopia-would-be-dystopia.html