Monthly Archives: May 2021

From the start, it was an audacious idea: Take a dozen or so liberals from Maine and a dozen or so conservatives from Mississippi, combine them all into an eight-week Zoom course on politics, core beliefs and everything in between, and see what happens.

My ultimate goal is to challenge folks to think in new ways, Mike Berkowitz told me in an email back in February. Its my modest attempt to work on the us-versus-them orientation that is crippling our citizens, our Congress, and our country.

Berkowitz, a retired Maine public school teacher, is a longtime instructor at the University of Southern Maines Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Commonly known as OLLI, its a place where older folks turn for later-in-life education, intellectual stimulation and, perhaps most important, social interaction with others who see retirement not as a time to slow down, but as an opportunity to keep growing.

But this course, even by Berkowitzs exacting standards, had challenge written all over it. Titled Conservatives and Liberals, Not Conservatives Vs. Liberals, it aimed to take participants where too few of us dare go these days to weekly, two-hour gatherings designed not to confront or convert those on the other side of the Great Political Divide, but simply to better understand them.

The last class was on Wednesday. The course worked. Sort of.

To counterbalance the Maine liberals, Berkowitz looked to the OLLI program at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg he chose that location because hed long noticed that if you Google USM OLLI, you were as likely to get the Mississippi website as the one here in Maine.

But almost immediately, Berkowitz ran onto a glitch: While he had so many liberal Maine applicants that he had to turn some away, enrolling 12 conservative Mississippians through the OLLI organization there wasnt that easy.

Maybe it was because liberals are generally more attracted than conservatives to senior learning programs like OLLI. Or maybe, as Berkowitz put it in an interview last week, some people heard me as saying, Im assuming everybody from Mississippi is conservative, if not a redneck. And so I think a few individuals were turned off by that.

In the end, the perfect balance Berkowitz had envisioned proved unachievable. The Mississippi group, which started at 11 but in the end shrank to seven or eight, included only three or four people who identified as staunchly conservative. By the time the course got underway, the brave conservatives who did sign up found themselves in a distinct minority.

One of them was Saundra Lockwood, a native Mississippian and the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher. She retired after 30 years as a civil servant with the U.S. Air Force, holds a bachelors degree in music education, a masters in business administration and is still working toward her Ph.D. in psychology.

But Lockwood, outspokenly conservative and proud of it, may best be remembered by her classmates as the one who, during a discussion on unwanted pregnancies, declared that the best form of birth control is for a woman to keep her knees together. Its that simple. Just keep your legs closed!

Lockwood said in an interview on Thursday that she felt some of the Mainers were simply regurgitating what they heard on CNN. But truth be told, she said, it was a fellow Mississippian a good ol boy conservative, as she put it who rankled her most.

He came in with an agenda and he was determined that he was going to be the star of the show, she recalled. Much to her relief, the man stopped showing up for the course after only a few sessions.

Overall, Lockwood said, I think it was wonderful. I learned a lot. I didnt feel intimated.

Rob Petrillo of Westbrook retired in 2014 after teaching at Biddeford High School for more than 30 years. He skews left politically and saw the course as an opportunity to look beyond the stereotype of the Deep South conservative and get to know real-life people whose views might not align with his own.

I think I came away basically unchanged in any of my deeply held beliefs or values about politics or social policies, Petrillo said. But I think I understand a little bit more clearly why someone might feel a certain way, such as supporting Donald Trump, despite his personal shortcomings, because he placed three conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dave Gauthier, a Rhode Island native, spent 30 years working in Mississippi and Louisiana shipyards before his retirement a few years back. Hes conservative, a devout Roman Catholic and teaches OLLI courses himself in Hattiesburg not on politics, but on such religious topics as the role of angels in Scripture and ancient biblical scholarship.

In south Mississippi, those are popular courses, theyre well attended, he said. Can you do that at Maine OLLI? I dont know.

Looking back on the first political course hes ever taken through OLLI, Gauthier said he often felt, as a member of the conservative minority, that if I didnt say something, nobody would.

So he spoke up. In fact, in one class, Berkowitz allowed Gauthier to explain in detail again focusing on Trumps Supreme Court appointments how his strongly held views on religious freedom shaped his support for the former president.

Did he win over any Trump opponents? No.

But did everyone listen respectfully to what he had to say? Yes, time after time. It was that opportunity to be heard and to hear others that Gauthier appreciated most about the course.

Somewhere along the line (in this country), weve lost the ability to have conversations, he noted.

Kathleen Carroll of Westbrook, a retired school social worker who identifies as a liberal, felt empathy for the conservatives in the class because there were fewer of them.

But Berkowitzs calm, measured approach questions carefully constructed to avoid conflict rather than stoke it, for example fostered an atmosphere of civility across the demographic spectrum, Carroll said.

It was a good contrast to when you see liberals and conservatives talking in public, like on TV, she said. You often just see name calling and just sticking really hard to your opinion.

What Carroll learned from this course, by contrast, was that when you tread more carefully, when youre polite to someone with different views, something good happens.

You hear more that way, she said.

Its a theme that ran through all my interview with participants: The more we listen before speaking, the more we get to know another person beyond their political label, the more likely we all are to find common ground.

And to a man and woman, the classmates credit Berkowitz for keeping the temperature under control as they tackled such hot-button topics as political partisanship, human needs, abortion, the medias impact on politics and society, and navigating our regional differences.

Berkowitz is now setting his sights on a new-and-improved version of the course, this time drawing from OLLI programs at Louisiana State University and Auburn University in Alabama. He plans to recalibrate the classes to allow more time not just for people to express their views, but also to delve into why they hold them, what factors in their lives most influenced how they now see the world around them.

Berkowitz also will be less nave than he was heading into this course. Finding a dozen rock-ribbed conservatives in Mississippi and a dozen deep-blue liberals in Maine may sound easy, but the reality is that were all more complex than that.

Meaning the war between the stereotypes with one side all blue and the other all red might be somewhat of a mirage?

It is a mirage, Berkowitz replied. But that wont stop me.

Nor should it. In a country seemingly paralyzed by political warfare, long live the peacemakers.

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Two groups one conservative, the other liberal walked into a Zoom class - Press Herald

Photo: J Scott Applewhite/AP/Shutterstock

Liz Cheneys apparently imminent defenestration from House Republican leadership has spawned a genre of liberal commentary that could be summarized as Liz Cheney Was No Angel. Yes, these columns concede, Cheney might be finally doing one good deed, but her career consists of a long string of misdeeds that matter far more. Liberals responded to Trumps derangements by bathing the Bush-Cheney crowd in a flattering nostalgic light, writes Maureen Dowd, So, shockingly, the Republicans who eroded Americas moral authority selling us the Iraq war, torture, a prolonged Afghanistan occupation and Sarah Palin became the new guardians of Americas moral authority. Complete with bloated TV and book contracts. Other examples of the genre can be found here, here, and here.

I certainly wouldnt vote for Cheney as the guardian of Americas moral authority or for any other public office, for that matter. I agree that she has spent her career advocating ideas and policies I find misguided, immoral, and sometimes completely deranged. And yet this round of liberal complaints misses the profound significance of her current stand.

In some sense, the entire Republican Party is complicit in Donald Trumps assault on democracy. The partys turn against democracy has unfolded over decades and has its philosophical roots in the conservative movements belief that majority rule is a danger to property rights. All the Republicans helped nurture a right-wing misinformation bubble that would permit their voters to disregard any sources of news not working within the party and the conservative movement; all of them promoted in some form a deep paranoia about the slippery slope toward socialism created by even the most moderate Democratic Party policies.

But Cheneys break with her party is not just one issue, to be weighed on the ledger alongside all the others. Its a question of singular importance.

The Republican Partys democracy skepticism is crossing a dangerous new threshold, and is now making routine the practice of rejecting any election loss. Trumps autogolpe matters because the party is internalizing his belief that Democratic election victories are not just inherently fraudulent, but can and should be challenged and overturned. The Republicans who broke with Trump are being punished and in some cases removed from their positions, and those who stood behind him rewarded. Republicans were too divided to carry through Trumps attempt to reject the election, but next time, the party will be far more united.

Cheneys decision to challenge the party on democracy is remarkable for several reasons. First, she is putting the issue squarely. Rather than softening her line or couching her stance in the logic of messaging (i.e., Trumps rhetoric will hurt Republicans with swing voters), she is straightforwardly instructing her fellow Republicans that their current path is a menace to the Constitution and the rule of law. Second, she has absolutely nothing to gain and a great deal to lose.

And third, the fact she is such a dogmatic right-winger on economic, social, and foreign policy gives her support for democracy more, not less, weight. The very point of her dissent is that support for democracy ought to be separated from policy outcomes. Republicans should not succumb to the temptation of siding with a would-be authoritarian merely because he promises to advance their policy goals. Hell undermine the Constitution, but give us low capital gains taxes and friendly judges is not a morally defensible trade-off. Democracy is the one question not subject to horse-trading.

When Cheneys liberal critics place her support for democracy alongside her other positions, they implicitly endorse the same calculation made by her conservative opponents: that the rule of law is just another issue.

The only way democracy survives is if both sides respect the outcome of a free and fair election as a precondition to all their other disagreements. Democracy is a system for maintaining domestic peace. You make peace with your enemies, not your friends.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Liz Cheneys Liberal Critics Are Missing the Point - New York Magazine

I agree with Rachel Maddow.

Hows that for an opening? Hear me out.

The TV show host took a break from MSNBCs wall-to-wall Rep. Liz Cheney coverage and shared that she needs to rewire her brain.

I feel like Im going to have to rewire myself so that when I see somebody out in the world whos not wearing a mask, I dont instantly think, You are a threat. Or You are selfish, or You are a COVID denier and you definitely havent been vaccinated, tshe said.

While Maddows judgmental and paranoid internal monologue doesnt shock me, its surprising she would admit to this level of lunacy on television.

That being said, I fully support this rewiring.

But it cant stop with Maddow or with this one particular mask-focused psychosis. This overhaul needs to be extensive.

Liberals across this country need to find a way to rework their brains so they are not solely focused on their hatred for T.F.G.

T.F.G, according to the New York Times Gail Collins, stands for The Former Guy.

The nickname has caught on with Democrats who are too triggered by former President Donald Trumps existence to actually say his name aloud like Voldemort, from Harry Potter.

This type of all-consuming hatred doesnt just dictate the lives of Twitter trolls and your nagging neighbor with the Hate has no home here lawn sign on her front yard.

Sadly, Trump Derangement Syndrome has become the basis for President Bidens entire disastrous agenda.

Recently, the Biden-Harris administration announced it was revoking a Trump-era order that enacted stricter penalties for defacing monuments.

As conservative author Ryan Girdusky noted in response, But why? How big is the constituency for defacing statues?

The crowd that applauds these boneheaded decisions arent actually thinking about the content of the orders. They are only thinking about the man who enacted them.

Remember the motto What Would Jesus Do?

Todays progressives ask, What Would Trump Do? and then they do the opposite no matter how clearly a bad idea that is.

A perfect example of this mindset is the crisis at the southern border. According to Customs and Border Protections, immigration agents caught a record number of people trying to illegally enter the United States 179,000 people to be exact.

The White House Semantics Secretary, Jen Psaki, told her loyal fans in the press corps that her boss inherited a broken immigration system from the Trump administration.

In reality, Biden reversed all of the Trump-era policies, including the Remain in Mexico policy, that had kept illegal immigration from spinning out of control.

But why keep the previous presidents effective policies when you can reverse them and appease your radical and irrational base?

Now that the Democrats are five months post-Orange Man, they are slowly dropping the charade that any of their insane actions are reason-based.

Liberal activist David Hogg who started a spite pillow company to stick it to MyPillow owner and Trump supporter Mike Lindell tweeted: I feel the need to continue wearing my mask outside even though Im fully vaccinated because the inconvenience of having to wear a mask is more than worth it to have people not think Im a conservative.

Hoggs honesty is refreshing. However, I have a suggestion for the young entrepreneur who has since resigned from his budding pillow enterprise. The Harvard University student should create badges for Democrats that read I hate Trump with all my heart.

He can sell them to his like-minded liberals so that they can virtue signal and also breathe fresh air like the rest of us Make America Great Again nuts.

Welch poet/priest George Herbert from the 1600s once famously said, the best revenge is living well.

But todays Democrats have a new outlook: The best revenge is covering up my face with a mask for the rest of eternity so that everyone knows I am not a Trump supporter.

I wonder how Trump is dealing with the agony of knowing that all of these Karens are wearing their masks as a sign of vengeful protest against him.

Someone should ask the former president when he isnt busy being a billionaire or enjoying a round of golf at one of his properties in Florida.

Im sure it keeps him up at night.

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Curley: Liberals must rewire their brains away from knee-jerk Trump hate - Boston Herald

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES

White identity is a potent force in American politics with wide-ranging consequences that are increasingly difficult to ignore. Former President Trump came to power, after all, by using subtle and not so subtle language to appeal to millions of white Americans worried that their power and influence in American society are on the decline.

His strategy of white identity politics has continued to work. Not only did Trump campaign on this message in 2016 and win, but after he lost the 2020 election, some of his supporters were so taken by his message that they stormed the U.S. Capitol in defense of white power and white supremacy. While white identity politics have a long, sordid history in the U.S. that predates Trump, we can see how his strategy has taken root in states across the country. Today, Republican lawmakers across the country are working to implement antidemocratic and illiberal policies that threaten to undermine a multiracial democracy all while protecting the power and status of white people.

Understanding the grievances and fear fueling white identity politics on the political right is paramount to our politics. But whiteness isnt something that only animates the politics of white conservatives. Whiteness is central to white liberals political identity, too, especially as white Americans must navigate a social and political world in which whiteness is often and explicitly tied to racial injustice an uncomfortable association for both white conservatives and white liberals.

For years, we have sought to understand how whiteness and perceived threats to it (in social science lingo, social identity threats) affect white Americans perceptions of their standing in society. Specifically, we have been interested in capturing white Americans sense of how their racial identity is viewed by others, especially in light of increased discussions where white Americans are seen as both the perpetrators of racial inequality and the beneficiaries of white privilege.

To do this, we asked white Americans in our research to list the characteristics, traits or behaviors that they think other people associate with white people. Participants came up with a variety of responses, including positive stereotypes like hard working and negative ones like arrogant. They then rated those characteristics, describing most of them as either extremely positive or extremely negative. But whether white Americans believed others thought of whiteness positively or negatively varied a lot by ideology white liberals were more likely than white conservatives to list negative stereotypes.

There were also important themes in the kinds of stereotypes listed. The most consistent included stereotypes that linked whiteness to racism and bigotry like biased and the KKK, and stereotypes that linked whiteness to privilege, like wealthy and entitled. Not all of the traits respondents listed mapped neatly as racist or privileged, but almost two-thirds of participants listed at least one trait that could be categorized as such. In sum, white people, both liberals and conservatives, think of their racial identity as having both positive and negative connotations. The difference then is in how they think other people perceive whiteness, and how they, in turn, handle situations in which their racial identity is called into question, especially when it is uncomfortable, e.g. suggesting whiteness may confer privilege or harbor racism.

A wealth of research on this topic has shown that the discomfort of being associated with either racism or privilege can lead white people to adopt a variety of defensive beliefs and attitudes. In fact, studies found that concerns about being seen as racist lead many white people to avoid situations where they may say or do anything that could be construed as racist, including having conversations with Black people. Psychologists Samuel Gaertner and John Dovidio call this aversive racism, or a form of racial discrimination rooted in avoidance. They find this practice more common among white liberals, who tend to be more motivated to protect their self-image as egalitarian.

And when white Americans feel that their whiteness is negatively associated with privilege, research demonstrates that how they react is particularly complex. As psychologist Eric Knowles and colleagues write, there are at least three possible ways that white Americans react to associations between whiteness and privilege: 1) They can deny inequality exists; 2) they can distance themselves from their whiteness; or 3) they can work to dismantle the systems that sustain white privilege in the first place (although this strategy, the authors note, is likely the least preferred strategy for most white Americans).

In one of many studies illustrating how people may deny being the beneficiaries of privilege, scholars L. Taylor Phillips and Brian Lowery find that after being reminded of their racial advantages, white Americans are more likely to try and distance themselves from any racial privilege they may have benefitted from and instead describe their life story in terms of personal and economic disadvantage. Phillips and Lowery find that these narratives help white people protect their self-image and avoid discomfort without having to deny inequalities in ways that may betray their values or relinquish privileges they may prefer to obliviously enjoy.

Understanding how white Americans react to perceptions of their whiteness can help us make sense of behavior across the ideological spectrum. For instance, one reason why white people on the political right may be so opposed to The New York Timess 1619 Project, which emphasizes the role that slavery played in structuring many aspects of American society, is because the project inherently implicates whiteness. This, in turn, reminds white Americans of negative associations that are attached to white identity, namely the relationship between whiteness and racism. And because white conservatives may be more likely to believe that critiques of whiteness are baseless, relative to their white liberal counterparts, they may show greater feelings of anger and backlash to associations they see as unfair.

On the other hand, white liberals often feel motivated to act in racially egalitarian ways to distance themselves from these same negative stereotypes of whiteness. The thinking may go something along the lines of, Those white people are bad, but I want to see myself as a good person. However, committing to antiracist action is not a straightforward solution, as it is not always effective at staving off the negative emotions that come with acknowledging a legacy of racism. Moreover, this strategy can fall short in actually addressing racial inequality, as it does not alway prioritize the practical needs of people of color over the emotional and psychological needs of white antiracists.

So, whats the bottom line? White identity is an important part of our politics, particularly in shaping both white conservatives and white liberals beliefs. And as conversations around white identity center more on the privilege and inequality that whiteness can engender, its likely well see more concerns among white Americans that their identity may be threatened and socially devalued. But a key insight from decades of social science research is that people have a variety of strategies they can use to cope with threats to their identity, and some of those strategies serve to maintain the status quo while others challenge them. Which path white Americans take then may not simply boil down to whether they are conservative or liberal, but may depend on how they think others perceive their whiteness in a particular moment.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation; the views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

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How The Politics Of White Liberals And White Conservatives Are Shaped By Whiteness - FiveThirtyEight

Shona Ortiz

Our society has an obsession with labels. Because of this, I believe that there are certain labels that are misused, or that carry certain meanings, associations and implications that cause more harm than good. As of late, especially on social media, I have found irksome the overuse of the following terms: liberal, a word so broad that it now has a wide range of less-than-positive associations; girl boss, a term that became popular despite its negative implications and activist, which is commonly misused.

First, the word liberal. It is, I suppose, used properly, as most of the people who identify with the term are Democrats, and it counters the Republican-affiliated word, conservative. Still, saying that Im a liberal seriously gives me the icks; I hate to be associated with their tone-deafness in regards to issues related to people of color. Take the issue of undocumented immigrants, for example. Too many times, the only reason why liberals want them to come to this country is because they think, well, who else is gonna clean our houses and do the work that we dont wanna do! This type of thinking is gravely problematic; labeling these people as just a workforce instead of people coming to this country in search of new opportunities is grossly dehumanizing.

I also find the fawning over (non-liberal) politicians for doing the bare minimum to be quite odd. For example, when President Biden recently raised the refugee cap to 65,000 people, he was met with an eerie complacencyliberals didnt question why he went against his initial promise of a refugee cap of 125,000 or more, and why Biden, when he first entered office, actually agreed with former President Trumps 15,000-person refugee cap. Similarly, when Democrats for some reason decided to wear Ghanaian Kente cloth when kneeling in memory of George Floyd, white liberals applauded their commitment to diversity instead of addressing the big picture: systemic racism and why police in this country are legally defended instead of defunded. These are the bad habits that I associate with the term liberal: performative activism that diverts attention from big problems and focuses on politicians instead of people. My qualms with the label aside, instead of obsessing over politicians or doing #quirkyliberalthings, there needs to be a focus amongst liberals on holding politicians accountable for their actions, both past and present, and recognizing that being selectively open-minded ultimately goes against what liberalism truly is.

Next, onto girl boss, my least favorite of these labels. By Sophia Amorusos definition, a girl boss assumes high-ranking, male-dominated company positions in the hopes of creating equality. While the terms intent was seemingly innocuous in that it implied that women deserve to be in roles of power, its impact has been harmful. For starters, I am surprised that we even began adopting the term in the first place: why would you identify with a label that blatantly infantilizes women? Already, women in male-dominated spaces are not often seen as competent counterparts, but rather as girls who should know better than to rise against a man. This infantilization of women is more widespread than we realize, as people are met with scalding criticism when addressing the actions of, for example, female politicians. Ill take a recent example: Kamala Harris. While it is a milestone that she is our countrys first female vice president, her being a girl boss does not, and should not, excuse her past of incarcerating Black and brown bodies. If we want true equality, both women and men should be held accountable for their actions: infantilization gets us nowhere.

Thankfully, more people have been criticizing the label, as many believe that it actually encourages women to assimilate into these sexist spaces but ignores corporate workplace issues that are rooted in capitalism, white supremacy and the patriarchy. And of course, when race-related issues in the workforce are brought up, they are shut down and ignored, as girl boss and white feminism are snakes of the same vine. I think that is why we are seeing the phrase, Girl boss, gentrify, gaslight, trending on social media. As funny as the phrase is, it is scarily accurate. Women, mostly those who are white, identify as girl bosses, climb up corporate ladders and, in doing so, drive up rent prices and push out Black residents. Then they gaslight women of color in an attempt to silence them and even make them doubt their own lived experiences in the workplace. For some reason, girl boss feminism has created the idea that youre no longer a feminist if you call out other women for exclusionary actions. This notion couldnt be more untrueno one, regardless of gender, should be complicit in systemic racism.

Above all, what people who stand by the word girl boss dont realize is that the key to womens rights is agency. Agency is something that we have not had over our own lives and bodies: women HAD to stay at home and HAD to take care of the children. But now, thanks to the valor of many, agency can be used in several ways: to go to school and work, or to stay at home and take care of kids, or both. So, girl bosses shaming women who choose to become stay-at-home moms, for instance, is nonsensical, as they are forgetting that women having choice over their lives is ultimately the objective. And the obsession with trying to fit into male-dominated workplaces leaves out the women who either cannot or simply just dont want to become CEOs, thus pushing a singular, conventional idea of success. In reality, success looks different for everyone and can be reached by taking many different avenues. Just as success isnt one-dimensional, feminism isnt either, and thus girl boss feminism should be traded for intersectional feminism, as it better represents the range of female experiences and how they are affected by race, sexuality, class, etc.

Lastly, we have the word activist. While the term does imply that it refers to anyone who advocates in favor of or against an issue, social media has run with this meaning. What do I mean by this? Well, why do people who repost someone elses post about an issue or event get to call themselves activists and slap it on their Instagram bios? I believe that we cannot call a serial re-poster an activist if people like Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Angela Davis, Malcolm X and MLK, just to name a few, are also activists. While I appreciate my generations drive to stand up against what we believe is unjust, I do not condone the loss of respect that the word activist has faced in recent years, at least online. Many people seem to be forgetting the gravity of the term: that people like the ones I mentioned made impacts on local, national and global scales. And, they did not live easy lives because of it; they received death threats and were physically injured, and some faced time in jail and died early deaths. While I dont want to gatekeep the term or argue that you have to be an internationally-regarded social leader who has faced time in prison or was injured due to their beliefs, I want to drive home the idea that it is no easy thing to be an activist, as it is physically and mentally taxing. In the same way that not everyone can be a parent, and not everyone can be a teacher, not everyone can be an activist, and that is okay. Above all, regardless of whether or not youre an activist, the term itself should be honored, and mutual respect and support for not only activists of the past but also genuine activists of the present should exist.

While I focused on just three terms, I am sure that there are many words that people identify themselves with that may have complicated meanings, associations and nuances. While using labels is socially ingrained in us, we shouldnt blindly follow the leader: we should research the origins and ideals of a term and the moral and ethical values of those who ascribe to it. Actually, better yet, I believe that we should move toward forging our beliefs away from labels to avoid being swept up in a hive mind that is actually unconsciously reversing the progress of the social movements that are of importance to us.

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Liberal. Activist. Girl boss. The complicated nuances of popular labels that often go unpacked The Bowdoin Orient - The Bowdoin Orient

Those in the know can tell you that American politics skew to the right, a binary of two pro-capital parties that maintain a stark cultural contrast. Within that framework, one might believe there to be a tremendous amount of daylight between left and right.

Im here to tell you that in our political discourse, the dead-center is precisely that: dead. We students have a choice to either abandon or uphold the same inequity we study and critique in class.

A moment does not constitute a movement. After George Floyd was murdered, I posted a black square on my Instagram feed because I did not know what else to do. Some took responsibility for their complicity to anti-Blackness and some moved to condemn white supremacy and excommunicate the nonbelievers.

Politics, however, is not a soap opera only existing to reaffirm our humanity. It exists as a group problem-solving tool to address large-scale issues and requires persistence, cooperation, and focus.

Robin DiAngelo, former UW professor and author of the book White Fragility: Why Its So Hard for White People to Talk About Race, would have you believe that racism is a social phenomenon that can be eradicated through corporate anti-racism training seminars.

This for-profit model of combating racism best encapsulates the liberal dilemma: How can coastal elites maintain their footholds while appearing to act in societys best interests? By ignoring US imperialism and the global political economy of race and class.

Today we quarrel with cancel culture. This issue has been monetized as well. Liberals practice a religion they pay taxes, recycle their plastics, and vote for Democrats on Election Day. Then, from the heights of Twitter, they decide who is naughty or nice and who goes to heaven or hell.

There is no more room for disagreement just short-term payoffs and righteous indignation through and through. This form of performative liberalism fails to critique itself and cedes power to its supposed challenger the conservative movement.

Sorting people into the good bucket and the bad bucket will no sooner lead to big structural change than a reality TV show would. Neither will the technocratic modes of policy wonkery, entrusting the destiny of the public to the wiser, specialized elites.

A popular movement that evolves past performative politics will require the direct participation of ordinary people. If they are continually excluded from the decision-making process, the poor and working class will receive minimal representation.

Advances in productivity and technology offer not only smart phones, but also complacency. We spend our time scrolling, each of us living in our own personalized fantasy world. But we can and must evolve past the self-fulfilling cycles of liberal woke-scolding and condescension.

Prior to his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote one final book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, that emphasizes this sentiment.

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic, King said. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.

Reach contributing writer Thomas DuBeau at opinion@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @thomas_dubeau

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Evolving past performative politics on a liberal campus - Dailyuw

Peter Leitharts recent contribution to the failure-of-liberalism genre opens with an arresting claim: Liberalism is centrally an alternate, anti-catholic ecclesiology. This assertion strikes me as correct, although too cryptic. We need to be more precise: Liberalism functions as an ism insofar as its proponents insist upon its magisterial authority, asserting that liberal principlesand only liberal principlesoffer a full, perfect, and sufficient basis for the ordering of common life.

Leithart directs us to A Letter Concerning Toleration, where we find John Locke at his most extreme. The key conceptual move comes in his definition of our civic interests. They concern life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.

The only spiritual value on Lockes list is liberty. The others bear upon bodily life and are matters of utility. Winnowing down the higher goods we seek to share with others (the anti-catholic ecclesiology, as Leithart puts it) to ever-greater libertyand only ever-greater libertymakes consent supreme. The reason is evident. If we deem liberty the only matter of spiritual concern in public affairs, then we will demand that every man be free to consent or not consent to any authority invested with societys power of coercion, limited only by the principle that his consent (or lack of consent) does not impede anyone elses liberty or compromise his utility.

Over time, this demand for free consent erodes political respect for natural authority. In our time, feminism, gay rights, and transgenderism insist that the male-female difference deserves no authority over our laws and social mores.

The same demand erodes the authority of history. Norms of citizenship and duties of communal membership flow from our recognition of the authority of particularity. We are children of our time and place, and in an analogous sense we owe filial duties to our cultural and historical inheritance, duties our consent ennobles but does not create.

And, as Leithart notes, the requirement of consent is antithetical to a Christian understanding of life under the lordship of Christ. Yes, we can only participate in his kingdom as his disciples insofar as we freely affirm him as our lord and savior. But the legitimacy of Christs authority flows from his divinity. It in no way rests on our consent.

Leithart says that Patrick Deneen and I are satisfied to blunt the revolutionary character of liberalism. In the tradition of Burke, Tocqueville, and others, we call for a renewed respect for non-liberal modes of lifefamily, community, nation, and church. I cannot speak for Deneen. But as far as my own efforts are concerned, Leithart is correct.

It requires only modest awareness of the human condition to see that we share powerful civic interests: the integrity of marriage, family patrimony, historical memory, and communal pride, to say nothing of truth and justice. I call these commitments strong gods, because they rouse men to sacrifice health, wealth, and even life. And I urge us to minister to their return that they might pinion liberalisms imperial ambitions and leaven our liberal age with loves and loyalties that give direction and purpose to our freedom.

Leithart regards my political theology as too accommodating to liberalism. By his reckoning, my approach fails to challenge the liberal ecclesiology and its claim to magisterial authority. He suggests that I instrumentalize the church, turning her into yet another mediating institution. But it is perfectly possible to both honor marriage vows as sacred and point out that staying married leads to better health and material happiness. Just so, affirming the civic benefits of the church does not undermine affirmations of her supernatural foundation.

In his First Apology, Justin Martyr addresses the pagan charge of atheism, which in the ancient context amounted to the claim that Christians did not respect the gods of the city, and were therefore disloyal and treasonous. He notes that Christian teaching inclines men to virtue, not quarrelsomeness. Christians are ready to sacrifice their material goods rather than fling themselves into greedy and grasping endeavors. They are prompt in the payment of taxes and respect the law. We are in fact of all men your best helpers and allies in securing good order.

Because Leithart and many others share with me a staunch opposition to liberalisms arrogance, I want to end with a warning: Let us not be so foolish as to become Lockes negative. Liberty will (and should) remain an enduring civic interest. We need a society that is at least liberal, but not merely liberal.

Most of my critics press in directions opposite to Leitharts charge that I do not challenge liberalism head-on. They imply (or say outright) that my call for strong gods leads to illiberalism. To answer this charge, I draw upon Tocqueville. He recognized that our liberal age tends toward dissolution, which paradoxically breeds conditions of modern tyranny, not plenary freedom. We need the ballast of non-liberal loyaltiesstrong gods. And if I may rephrase Justin Martyr, those who minister to their return are in fact of all men the best helpers and allies of those who seek to preserve the modern culture of freedom.

R. R. Reno is editor of First Things.

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Leavening Liberalism | RR Reno - First Things

Its hard to keep track of the atrocities that play out on social media on a daily basis, but the events of Thursday, May 13, were particularly egregious.

At around 10.30-11 am, a livestream began on a YouTube channel called Liberal Doge, which has 87,000 subscribers. The owner of the channel posted photographs of Pakistani women, saved without permission from their social media accounts. The channels audience then rated the women, auctioned them off to each other, and posted sexually charged comments on their looks and clothes.

The women in the pictures had dressed up on the occasion of Eid. All the commentary directed towards them was misogynistic and Islamophobic in equal measure. This included comments like Aaj apni tharak aankho se ladkiyan tadenge alongside links to the channels Patreon, Paypal, Discord, Twitter and Telegram accounts.

When other Twitter users realised what was happening and posted about it, the livestream was made private.

Liberal Doge then posted on their Twitter handle:

By that evening, thanks to the outpouring of anger against the livestream, Liberal Doges Twitter handle was removed, while the video was taken down on YouTube.

Unsurprisingly, the handle also received plenty of support, with people tweeting the hashtag #IAmWithLiberalDoge.

But who is Liberal Doge?

In real life, hes Ritesh Jha, a 23-year-old resident of DLF Phase 2 in Gurugram.

Jha runs several social media accounts under the names Liberal Doge as well as Secular Doge, whose YouTube channel has 96,000 subscribers. The central character in his YouTube videos is a caricature called Maulana, represented by a dog wearing a skullcap. His videos have a common theme: vilification of Muslims, dog-whistling, and hate speech.

We confirmed that Jha is both Liberal Doge and Secular Doge using open source intelligence data reports, verified through Jhas contact number. This also gave us his email address which was linked to his Gravator profile. Jha had also handed out his UPI id seculardoge@UPI during his Liberal Doge livestream, which helped us cross-check his name.

Jhas antics extend beyond Twitter and YouTube. His Telegram channel has multiple posts slandering Muslims. One post, for instance, celebrates the viral video from March of a Muslim boy being beaten for drinking water at a temple in Ghaziabad. Another post, with a video of a girl being sexually harassed, carried the text that her Muslim father raped her.

On Telegram, Jha also runs a group called Secular Doge IT Cell, which predominantly spreads pornographic content. Currently, though, the group is busy planning their support for Jha.

They have entertained us a lot, a post from a supporter read. Its our payback time. Help them as much as you can. Tag the big rightwing handles and urge for the support. At least do this for them. Share it everywhere. Members were urged to use the hashtag #IAmWithLiberalDoge while tweeting in support.

Some of the tweets they came up with for this campaign included:

Then theres Jhas Discord group, which is named Secular Doge ft. Liberal. Again, Islamophobia is rampant a poster for Eid with a man demolishing a mosque in the background, multiple threads mocking Muslims using abusive language.

This is just a sample of Jhas content. His deep-rooted loathing for Muslims shines through across social platforms.

But Jha has been called out for his content before. Last May, a cyber complaint was filed against him for spreading hate and abuse on social media. No action was taken, however.

The person who filed the complaint told Newslaundry, on the condition of anonymity, that he had come across Jhas posts on Facebook. The person had objected on Facebook about the abuse directed towards Muslims, and soon after received a message from Jha on the platform.

He asked me why, as a Hindu, I support Muslims, instead I should hate them, the complainant said. I didn't get into a verbal spat with him. So, he started talking nicely and said his job is to brainwash secular people. After sometime, he told me that if I know any Muslim girls, hell arrange a room for me at my workplace. He said, You can get the Muslim girls, we can rape them together and will make MMS. He said I should promote Hindu dharma.

The complainant took screenshots of the conversation and filed a complaint with the cyber cell division of the Ghaziabad police. He also spoke to an officer at the Indirapuram police station, but there was no progress in the case since.

The complainant also emailed Swati Maliwal, the chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women, with details and screenshots of what Jha had said, but received no response.

Newslaundry tried contacting Jha several times for this story but could not reach him.

Read more:

Ritesh Jha aka Liberal Doge: The man behind the livestream spewing hate against Pakistani women - Newslaundry

In the popular imagination, Islams Sufi strand is viewed as being apolitical. Characterised by its virtuousness and asceticism, Sufism has been hailed for its pacifism and otherworldliness. But this impression has been punctured by two nascent political movements in the subcontinent, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and the Indian Secular Front in West Bengal.

This notion of Sufism in the popular imagination isnt an accident. As Katherine Pratt Ewing noted in a volume titled Modern Sufis and the State, the strategy of pitting mysticism of Sufism against the austere severity of Salafism has been promoted by policymakers in the US and in many countries with large Muslim populations.

This was done in an effort to discourage the spread of Islamists who may be prone to violence, she notes.

In an essay in the same volume, Alex Philippon points out that since the beginning of War on Terror, Sufism, the Sufi shrines and Sufi saints in Pakistan have gradually become the symbols of the fight against creeping Talibanization, which is deemed to threaten the very fabric of the nation. The number of initiatives, often financed by the government, aimed at promoting Sufism have indeed proliferated.

But the viability of this strategy has been undermined by the upsurge of sectarian Sufi politics in South Asia.

In Pakistan, Sindh has been the crucible of Political Sufism. The idea of Political Sufism of Sindh has been, in many ways, at loggerheads with the idea of Islamic Pakistan. A Sufi Sindh and an Islamic Pakistan cannot co-exist, [just] as you cant put two swords in a scabbard, the prominent Sindhi politician named Ghulam Murtaza Syed had bluntly declared. If Pakistan continues, Sindh will die. If, therefore, Sindh is to live, Pakistan must die.

In 1972, Syed proposed the formation of an independent nation for the Sindhis called Sindhudesh. Sindhi nationalists designed their own version of Islam, which allowed them to argue for a separate Sindhi national identity based on what they claimed to be Sindhs unique experience with Sufism, writes Dutch scholar Oskar Verkaaik. Thus, Political Sufism posed a threat to the nation-building in Pakistan.

Philippon notes that since 9/11 created in a context in which Sufism has been idealised, the Barelvi group has been equated with tolerant and secular Islam. Barelvis, as the Oxford Dictionary of Islam explains, are often called Sunni Sufis because they emphasise personal devotion to Allah and the prophet Muhammad, adherence to Sharia, and Sufi practices such as veneration of saints.

The Barelvi tendency had been promoted by the Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition government from 2008.

However, the Pakistan Sunni Tehreek, a Barelvi organisation, has been known for its strong support of Pakistans controversial blasphemy laws and for its hard-line support of the death penalty for those accused of committing blasphemy.

It was vocal in its support of Mumtaz Qadri, the bodyguard who murdered Punjab governor Salman Taseer in 2011 after Taseer called for reform of blasphemy laws.

In recent years, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, founded by Khadim Hussain Rizvi in 2015, has become the most virulent aspect of Political Sufism. The Pakistan government on April 14 decided to ban the radical Islamist party under the Terrorism Act after its supporters clashed with the law enforcement agencies, leaving seven persons dead and over 300 policemen injured.

Two days before, on April 12, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan had launched a country-wide protest following the arrest of its chief Saad Hussain Rizvi. He had been detained ahead of the April 20 deadline the Islamists had given to the Imran Khan government demanding the expulsion of the French Ambassador for the publication in the French satrical magazine Charlie Hebdo of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.

The TLP became the fifth-largest vote-getter in the 2018 general election (and the third for the province of Punjab), Philippon noted. The recent acquittal of Asia Bibi, the Christian women accused of blasphemy in 2009 and imprisoned since, led in November 2018 to the TLP bringing the country to a standstill through massive nationwide demonstrations. The party called for mutiny within the army, threatened to kill the judges, and pushed for Bibi to be hanged.

Around the same time as the election, The EurAsian Times reported that that Khadim Hussain Rizvi of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik had said that if he managed to get hold of an atomic bomb, he would wipe Holland off the world map in response to Dutch politician Geert Wilders announcement that he was planning to hold a contest to draw caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

The phenomenon of Political Sufism is also present in India, as is evident from the formation in January of the Indian Secular Front floated by a Pirzada of the influential shrine at Furfura Sharif in West Bengal. In the Indian context, Abbas Siddique has been compelled to camouflage his partys identity as a secular moderate outfit. But his secular-liberal credentials are dubious.

As Snigdhendu Bhattacharya has written in the Outlook, ...Due to his speeches from religious events, Siddiqui,has earned the reputation of being a conservative and even a fundamentalist. Bhattacharya notes that Siddique has previously referred to Nusrat Jahan, the actor-turned-Trinamool MP, as one who earns showing her body and said that she should be tied up to a tree and beaten.

After the Delhi riots, he expressed the wish that Allah should send a deadly virus to India. After a schoolteacher was beheaded in France, Siddiqui said that those insulting the Prophet were illegitimate born and called for giving them proper treatment, Bhattacharya writes.

Of course, as Ewing has noted, the situations of Muslims in Pakistan and India are very different, and their political possibilities are in many respects incommensurable.

In India, Muslims are a vulnerable minority in a Hindu majoritarian environment. In Pakistan, debates on Sufi/Muslim politics have been intertwined with struggles to negotiate the type of Islamic state and society that Pakistan aspires to be.

Despite this, Sufi shrines like Furfura Sharif in Hooghly district in West Bengal where Abbas Siddique is Pirzanad, play remarkable roles in shaping political Sufism in both countries. These shrines are fiefdoms of specific families as chains of succession are perpetuated through hereditary descendants who retain the spiritual authority in the pir-murid system.

Political Sufism does not differ with Political Salafism in a notable aspect: both advocate a revolutionary strategy of Islamising society through exercise of state power. They are the birds of the same feather; but perched on different trees. As such, they pose a threat alike to democracy, secularism and liberal politics in South Asia.

Faisal CK is an independent researcher who specialises in constitutional law and political philosophy.

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The rise of Political Sufism poses a threat to liberal politics in both India and Pakistan - Scroll.in