Conservatism as an Oppositional Culture (is justifiable only to the extent it is effective)
(It's not effective)
Richard Hanania has an interesting piece at his more prolifically published Substack making the following argument (lower resolution, paraphrasing):
When one side is losing, its most impulsive and least functional members lash out and do/say dumb things, and its members who really should know better don’t merely attempt to sincerely apologize for it, or even make ‘apologia’ about it as the voice of the unheard, or ignore it, but actually support it, even indulge in it themselves. One is reminded of Ann Coulter grumbling that OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh’s error was in not bombing the New York Times instead.
Hanania underlines his point by pointing out this is the same cultural political posture which saw middle and upper-class Black Americans highly assimilated into White America going from being embarrassed by the dysfunction and criminality of their lower class relatives in the ghetto to excuse-making and enabling and supporting them in order to demand more Left-wing redistribution from White America towards themselves via guilt (and intimidation).
All well and good so far.
But then I think he tries to have it both ways. I don’t blame him for this one bit. Who doesn’t like to have their cake and eat it?
In the end, oppositional culture tends to be self-defeating. It’s ironic that conservatives can see this when it comes to understanding the connection between urban disorder and the poisonous ideas being taught throughout the education system. Rather than taking a consistent stand against the cult of victimhood, populism can be understood as conservatives trying to join it.
When the crime wave was at its peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s, black politicians finally started supporting tough on crime policies. It was ultimately to the benefit of their own side, as Bill Clinton became the first Democratic president to serve two full terms since FDR. Republican failure in the 2022 midterms might similarly serve as a wakeup call. Across the board, election denier candidates did worse than other Republican politicians. A desire to beat the Democrats might lead to some self-reflection with regards to what path to take in the future, and ultimately better behavior. Hating the libs got conservatives into this mess, and it might also be what gets them out of it.
Waitaminute, what?
Those two paragraphs are the concluding ones. Now, I don’t think Richard is fooling himself, but I’m not sure he’s telling us everything he really thinks here.
As he’s described, Richard’s ideological journey meant noticing and being put-upon by all the tedious, low-IQ-but-self-important, nannying, overbearing types with which modern Western academia is chock-full.
His—humorous, keen, well-written—critiques of those sorts have earned him great applaud (and subscribers, from Substack to Twitter, well done ol’ chap). But.
Those criticisms of “the left” have earned him quite a few remoras.
I’m sure he finds it amusing to have loads of these types of people following him:
You know, people for whom Trump could do no wrong, ever, no matter how much he screwed up even in failing to do things he promised he would, or doing things he said he wouldn’t, right up until the confusing situation of covid meant they came down against the vaccine as Trump promotes Operation Warp Speed?
Maybe it would just hurt Richard too much to crush their hopes. Maybe.
If one invokes how post-Civil Rights/integration policing failures meant absolutely insane criminality was tolerated (or even tacitly encouraged) in America’s cities, leading to white flight, leading to Clinton and the 1994 Crime Bill, one must also acknowledge facts: first, those black politicians who finally supported tough on crime policies in the 80s and 90s did so because their own mayoralties, city council memberships, and state senator positions were a ‘hollow prize’: they got them just as and often because of massive white outflow to the ‘burbs, changing the demography of the electoral districts (and tax bases).
Secondly, the national apparatus behind Clinton’s policies were just as white as Clinton, and often much more conservative. The main intellectual driver of welfare reform was Lawrence Mead of NYU. Don’t let the brand fool you.
So it’s not actually the case that the oppositional culture of Black America which caused them so much trouble, where the high tolerated the low, for short-term self-interest, then also spurred introspection and reflective remediation.
It’s that Black America had a politically paternal Blue State White America which said “okay, we can’t lose elections forever, let’s take charge of this.”
White America—especially the Red State bit—doesn’t have this arrangement.
Many moons ago, Curtis Yarvin gave a much more apt description of what’s going on. It’s a bit dated, but works. Here are the players and here is the conflict. Essentially (and I will bend Yarvin’s terminology a little bit towards the original Richard is claiming—maybe he truly believes it—that the strategy which worked for America’s Dalits being rescued from misbehavior by America’s Brahmins could mean that America’s Kshatriyas and Shudras can rely on the same.
What has been the effect of Conservatism’s “resistance” to the program of Liberalism? Just looking at the post-War era of recognizably “right wing” American politics vs its “left wing” counterpart, has the gambit ever worked?
I think it’s back to the drawing board with this hypothesis.