Monthly Archives: February 2022

PARIS Until a couple of years ago, the great replacement a racist conspiracy theory that white Christian populations are being intentionally replaced by nonwhite immigrants was so toxic in France that even Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the countrys far right, pointedly refused to use it.

But in a presidential race that has widened the boundaries of political acceptability in France, Valrie Pcresse, the candidate of the mainstream center-right party in the coming election, used the phrase over the weekend in a speech punctuated with coded attacks against immigrants and Muslims.

The use of the slogan in what had been billed as the most important speech so far by Ms. Pcresse, a top rival of President Emmanuel Macron has fueled intense criticism from both her opponents as well as allies within her party. It also underscored Frances further shift to the right, especially among middle-class voters, and the overwhelming influence of right-wing ideas and candidates in this campaign, political experts said.

The great replacement, a conspiracy theory adopted by many white supremacists worldwide, has inspired mass killings in the United States and New Zealand.

ric Zemmour, a far-right author, television punditand now presidential candidate, was the leading figure to popularize the concept in France in the past decade describing it as a civilizational threat against the country and the rest of Europe.

In a 75-minute speech before 7,000 supporters in Paris intended to introduce Ms. Pcresse, 54, the current leader of the Paris region and a former national minister of the budget and then higher education, to voters nationwide Ms. Pcresse adopted Mr. Zemmours themes, saying the election would determine whether France is a a united nation or a divided nation.

She said that France was not doomed to the great replacement and called on her supporters to rise up. In the same speech, she drew a distinction between French of the heart and French of papers an expression used by the extreme right to point to naturalized citizens. Vowing not to let France be subjugated, she said of the symbol of France, Marianne is not a veiled woman referring to the Muslim veil.

By using the great replacement, she gave it legitimacy and put the ideas of the extreme right at the heart of the debate of the presidential race, said Philippe Corcuff, an expert on the far right who teaches at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon. When she talks of French of papers, shes saying that distinctions will be made between French people according to ethnic criteria. Her stigmatization of the Muslim veil is in the same logic of the extreme right.

The use of a term once limited to the extreme right by Ms. Pcresse who is the candidate of the Republicans, the party of former Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac marked a Rubicon, said Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist presidential candidate and current mayor of Paris.

But it also made uneasy people inside her own party, who still want to draw clear lines between it and the extreme right. Xavier Bertrand, a party heavyweight, said, The great replacement, thats not us, according to French news media.

Polls show Ms. Pcresse, Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Zemmour neck and neck for second place behind Mr. Macron in the first round of voting, scheduled for April 10. One of them would face off against Mr. Macron, who has also shifted to the right, especially in the past two years of his presidency, in the second round on April 24.

The sudden rise of Mr. Zemmour as a candidate has injected the great replacement and other explosive issues into the race, forcing other candidates on the right to fine-tune their positions at the risk of losing support to him.

Ms. Le Pen had expressly rejected the slogan, criticizing it as a conspiracy theory. While she has kept her distance from the term, her partys president, Jordan Bardella, has started referring to it in recent months.

Facing criticism, Ms. Pcresse backpedaled a little, saying her use of the expression had been misconstrued.

But Nicolas Lebourg, a political scientist specializing in the right and far right, said that her use of the term simply reflected a political calculation: the center rights traditional middle-class supporters have also shifted rightward in recent years.

The campaignbegins. French citizenswill goto the polls in April to begin electing a president. Here is a look at the candidates:

A center-right candidate. Valrie Pcresse, the current leader of the Paris region, recently won the nomination of the Republicansby adopting a vocabulary with racial and colonial undertones. She now faces the difficult task of enlarging her support base.

The far-right veteran. Marine Le Pen, who has long used fiery rhetoric to fight her way to power in France, is seeking to sanitize her image.She finished third in 2012 and was defeated by Mr. Macron in the 2017 runoff.

Since 2010, theres been a significant hardening by upper-middle-class voters against immigration and Islam, but we hadnt seen its political effects yet, Mr. Lebourg said. So what were experiencing now is a tipping over of part of the middle-class and upper middle-class.

These voters are worried about issues like wokisme the supposed contamination of France by woke American ideas on social justice that they see as overwrought political correctness.

Its middle-class voters who care about wokisme, while Le Pens working-class supporters are completely uninterested in that, Mr. Lebourg said.

The great replacement was conjured up by a French writer named Renaud Camus in 2010. In an interview in 2019, Mr. Camus bemoaned the fact that leading politicians had rejected the slogan. The slogan and his embrace of the far right had turned him into a pariah in Frances literary and media circles, forcing him to publish his own books.

But in recent months, Mr. Camus has been invited back on television talk shows.

In an email exchange on Tuesday, he said, I can only be delighted by the use of the expression, great replacement, during this presidential campaign.

Other campaign issues, like the pandemic and consumer purchasing power, were minor next to the reality described by the slogan, he said.

The rest is of no importance by comparison, he said.

Read more:

In France, a Racist Conspiracy Theory Edges Into the Mainstream - The New York Times

The school board race in Waukesha is a microcosm of school board races around Wisconsin and the nation. In Waukesha, many voters took their frustration out on existing school board members in the 2021 school board elections, choosing a more conservative board.

On Tuesday, the Waukesha school board primary showed just how much momentum conservatives have going into the new year. Waukesha conservatives came out ahead of more progressive candidates in the Feb. 15 primary but only by a narrow margin. Nationally, right-wing organizations, including the Republican party, are targeting grassroots races all the way down to school board and city council elections, pouring in money and resources. In Waukesha, they have had some success, but it wont be clear how much until the April 5 general election.

Last year, the deciding issues in Waukesha and many other school board elections was whether schools should remain virtual or in hybrid, or whether students should go back in person and even be allowed to remove face masks. Now citizens are voting against boards that they feel paid too little attention to learning loss and emotional stress in their children. Voters want to know what their school boards are going to do to correct the situation even as schools begin to go back to normal.

A new controversy developed in Waukesha which had little to do with the pandemic highlighted divisions. Diversity, minority rights and especially LGBTQ issues came to the forefront led by a progressive grassroots organization Alliance for Education in Waukesha. In August, the school administration ordered signs posted for Black Lives Matter and counter-signs supporting police with the symbol of a thin blue line removed from hallways and classrooms. The ban also included safe zone signs for LGBTQ students. The administration also disbanded diversity training for staff members. By simply removing the signage, the administration hoped it could make the conflicts go away.

The three incumbent board members up for reelection questioned the administrations actions. School board member Greg Deets asked for an accounting and contended those actions were ill-advised and counterproductive.

Deets and other board members supporting his position consider themselves common sense moderates. However, they inherited the progressive label because they were supported by self-identified progressive organizations.

A political action committee (PAC) supporting the incumbents in the February 15 primary was Waukesha United 4 Kids.They began an introductory posting with the words, Dear progressive friends of Waukesha public schools and featured, as part of their logo, a multicolored rainbow in solidarity with the LGBTQ community.

Conservatives countered with an attack on critical race theory making it part of the mix in the minds of voters in the 2022 primary election. But in general, voters wanted to know what school board members were going to do to get their children back on track. Conservatives made that their featured issue.

The conservative candidates called themselves the common sense candidates claiming critical race theory and other diversity issues are distractions from academic success.

The move away from fundamental educational principles to emotionally charged diversity, inclusion, and equitable training and teaching is decreasing student achievement states conservative candidate Karrie Koziowski on her campaign website.Waukesha conservatives are operating from a national playbook linking decreased academic performance to the preoccupation of liberal school boards with political correctness. And that scenario has gained support even in ultraliberal communities like San Francisco where several school board members were recalled because voters believed these elected officials were spending too much time on political correctness and too little on academic performance.

Speakers at Waukesha school board meetings and in conservative candidate literature highlighted the percentage of students who were below math and reading proficiency and an increasing number of high school students failing one or more classes this past year.

In fact, the Waukesha school system is rated one of the top academic school districts in the state and the latest district report card rates the district as Exceeds Expectations. The more moderate progressive candidates stated that the pandemic had a negative impact on education that cut across all school districts despite the heroic dedication of school officials and staff. But for parents with struggling children, having a school district highly rated by the state is small consolation.

Progressives say what is distracting from academic success are the actions of the administration: taking down signs supporting minority and LGBTQ students and even suspending a teacher who refused to comply.

While conservatives spoke before the school board on the loss of academic achievement, they were far outnumbered by those who spoke against sign removal for minority and LGBTQ students. For these supporters, the issues go far beyond political correctness. Even conservative members of the Waukesha school board concede that there has been an increase in bullying, placing student health, safety and academic achievement at risk. The removal of signs supporting the targeted students has been seen by other students as a green light to marginalize and belittle them.

Conservatives won primary victories, but the more progressive candidates were only a few percentage points behind. Carl Lock of Waukesha United 4 Kids and Laura Pisoneault of Alliance for Education in Waukesha both stated in emails that they were satisfied with the close finish of the more progressive candidates.

They believe that conservative voters are far more likely to vote in primaries than moderates and progressives who often show up only for the general elections. Lock believes that conservatives won in 2021 because of low voter turnout. Moderates and progressives will not make that same mistake again, he says.

Lock also contends that the conservative narrow victory could be related to Republican operatives pouring money and expertise into the races. He saw a whole lot of flyers supporting conservative candidates, but not much coming from the other side.

Conservatives narrowed their preferred candidates to just three, equal to the number of seats opened in this election: Karrie Koziowski, Mark Borowski, and Marquell Mooerer. A fourth candidate, Jaymz Touchstone, who was also perceived as being more conservative but was not supported by Republicans. The three top candidates ran a coordinated campaign.

The progressives were far less organized and operated with fewer resources. Progressives did not even support all of the same candidates. Waukesha United 4 Kids PAC supported all incumbents: Greg Deets, William Baumgart, and Amanda Median Roddy. But the Democratic party could not endorse Roddy, a moderate Republican. Instead, they supported newcomer Sarah Harrison. Nor does it appear that either Waukesha United or Democrats put money and expertise into the primary.

Pisoneault laments that the Republicans have made school board races part of their political agenda. Progressives who have viewed such races nonpartisan may be pushed to take a more partisan political stance.

Roddy got squeezed out because her status as a moderate Republican meant she had trouble gaining support from either side. Making the cut was Harrison who was seen as the most liberal candidate and made that known in the one public forum.

The January 28 forum was hosted by the Waukesha Forum Planning Committee and was moderated by Alan Borsuk, longtime Milwaukee journalist who wrote all the questions himself. But the three conservatives refused to participate, claiming that the forum was put together by progressives, despite Borsuks efforts to remain neutral. Only non-endorsed conservative Touchstone agreed to participate.

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The Republican endorsed candidates probably solidified their support with the conservative base but may have done little to gain support from the more moderate voters in the April 5 general election.

All four progressives ran independent campaigns. Had they agreed to trim the slate to just three candidates, the results show that Deets would probably come in second or third fighting it out with Borowoski. That would still leave conservative Koziowski, who was the most outspoken conservative, in first place.

After the April election, even if progressives prevail and win all three contested seats, they would still be in the minority. Only an overwhelming victory might change some minds of some board members. The more likely scenario is a slim win or a loss of one or even all three contested seats.

So far, progressives have dutifully attended school board meetings for nearly six months making their case that the ban on signs for Black Lives Matter and safe zones for LGBTQ students be lifted. The board has listened, even commended them for having the courage to speak up, but the board has done nothing.

The Alliance has shown no inclination to take aggressive civil disobedient actions beyond teachers refusing to take down signs from the classrooms on their own which resulted in one teacher being suspended.

A complaint has been filed with the Department of Education, Civil Rights Division. That will likely take months with no certain outcome.

School board member Greg Deets has warned that teachers may flee the district and prospective new teachers might shun Waukesha creating a major teacher shortage.

While progressives have no chance of winning a majority on the school board even if they hold on to all three seats, they could lose more seats in April.

The Waukesha school board February 15 primary election results:

Karrie A. Koziowski 17% 5,408

Mark Borowski 16% 5,102

Marquell Moorer 16% 4,912

Greg Deets (inc) 13% 4,204

William A. Baumgart (inc) 12% 3,852

Sarah Harrison 12% 3,612

Defeated in primary:

Amanda Medina Roddy (inc) 11% 3,470

Jaymz Touchstone 2% 701

Read the rest here:

What the Waukesha school board primary tells us - Wisconsin Examiner

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Renowned Polish fantasy author Andrzej Pilipiuk was removed from a list of guests invited to participate in the Avangarda Association fantasy convention for the crime of holding conservative values, it has emerged.

He was initially invited by the association itself to speak at the virtual event, but the management canceled his invite and de-platformed the writer because members and the management of the Avangarda Association did not appreciate the presence of writers with right-wing views, a reason confirmed by the organizations board members.

The organization released a statement about the exclusion of right-wing authors, claiming that the writers had been invited by mistake for which improper communication among the convention organizers team was responsible.

Pilipiuk responded to the situation on social media, slamming the organization for its decision.

The terror of political correctness has made it so that more and more fields of science, art and pop culture in the West are becoming gears in the neo-Marxist social engineering machine, he declared.

Rafa Ziemkiewicz, author:

This is a lurking invasion of Bolsheviks who are constantly reemerging. This is like a plague. This is the same plague, but the germs are coming in new variants.

The author warned that academics and creators who did not comply by holding so-called socially acceptable opinions were being punished using methods reminiscent of totalitarian regimes.

Author and publicist Rafa Ziemkiewicz also commented on the affair on his video blog. He compared it to the recent situation with J.K. Rowling, who was absent from the 20th anniversary of her Harry Potter film series due to her feminist opinions and her refusal to kowtow to the LGBT community.

This is a lurking invasion of Bolsheviks who are constantly reemerging. This is like a plague. This is the same plague, but the germs are coming in new variants, Ziemkiewicz said, adding that this phenomenon had to be stopped as soon as possible because it would only be more difficult as time passed.

Andrzej Pilipiuk is considered to be one of the most popular and prominent writers of Polish fantasy. His most famous works include the book series about the adventures of Jakub Wdrowicz. He was awarded one of Polands most prestigious awards for fantasy authors for his work in 2022.

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Polish author canceled from fantasy convention organizers for having 'right-wing views' - Remix News

In the Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli asks whether the nobles these days we speak of the elites or the people are better guardians of freedom. Acknowledging that there is something to say on every side, the cunning student of cunning sees threats to freedom emanating from both camps. Critics of the nationalist turn within American conservatism and the national conservatives themselves would do well to keep in mind Machiavellis supple assessment.

Whereas the nobles, the Florentine observes, are marked by a great desire to dominate, the people only desire not to be dominated. The nobles can satisfy their lofty political ambitions by excelling as protectors of freedom, but they are prone to curtailing the peoples liberty to extend their own privileges. Since the people generally lack the desire to rule and the means to impose their will, they have an advantage as freedoms defenders. Yet acquisition of power is liable to foment the peoples restlessness, stir up their greed, and spark a hunger to supervise and control. Both the nobles and the people can safeguard, and both can curtail, freedom it depends on the circumstances.

American Purpose a young magazine, media project, and intellectual community that seeks to defend and promote liberal democracy in the United States recently published a short series of essays on the threats to freedom posed by national conservatism. Consistent with its centrism and its admirable commitment to hosting a range of voices, the magazine commissioned writings from serious students of American politics who recognize that a healthy liberal democracy draws strength from both left and right. Contributors, however, failed to give the national conservatives sufficient credit for illuminating the place of nationhood, tradition and cultural particularity in a healthy civic life. They occasionally imputed the excesses of national conservatism to conservatism generally. And they downplayed the extent of the progressive elites illiberal overreach that has provoked a good measure of national conservatisms illiberal overreach.

In Whose Good, Anyway? William Galston charges the natcons with contravening Americas fundamental principles and misunderstanding the character of American society. A Brookings Institution senior fellow and Wall Street Journal columnist, Galston especially faults leading national conservatives for calling on government to counter the rising tide of woke progressivism by promoting Christianity and by throwing the states weight behind a common good grounded in a distinctive and uniform conception of human flourishing.

The unalienable rights that the U.S. Constitution aims to secure do have a root in biblical faith, but the Declaration of Independence holds them also to be self-evident that is, truths of reason available to men and women of all faiths and persuasions. The American constitutional order, moreover, is a response, Galson writes, to the emergence of deep religious divisions that wracked Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since Americas founding, when the principal religious conflicts in the country were those between rival Protestant sects, differences of opinion about faith have widened and associations have multiplied. Over the centuries, the U.S. Constitutions wisdom of focusing on the securing of individual rights while leaving questions about faith and flourishing to individuals and their communities has become even more salient.

In Anton, Deneen, and Hazony, Gabriel Schoenfeld also calls out national conservatisms illiberalism. A contributing editor at American Purpose and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, he rebukes new-right arguments that seem to go beyond opposing illegal immigration to opposing immigration. Like Galston, Schoenfeld rejects the proposition that political cohesion in the United States must be built around state support for Christian faith, which would erode the traditional American dedication to religious liberty that protects all faiths while establishing none. And he exposes the sobering convergence of opinion between new-right polemicists who denounce liberalocratic despotism in America and the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, the anti-democratic guru of the New Left who, in the 1960s, decried the United States as a form of totalitarian democracy.

Corbin Barthold elaborates on the strange affinities between the natcons frequently feverish tone and rigid stance and certain hard-left tendencies stretching back to the French Revolution. From his position as internet policy counsel at TechFreedom, Barthold contends in The Jacobinism of the New Right that the American Right has become a reactionary force. It is led by figures who, according to Barthold, crave radical action and condemn dissent while practicing a rhetoric of Jacobinism, in which society is rotten, foes are everywhere, and the situation is dire; in which the need for drastic action is urgent, the cause of the righteous is certain, and the hesitancy of doubters is evil. In their disgust with America as it is and their demand for sweeping change, the new right breaks sharply with one of their heroes, argues Barthold. Central to Edmund Burkes sensibility, Barthold reminds, was the British statesmans admonition that it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society.

While all the contributors condemn woke progressivism, Barthold comes closest to appreciating the scope of the lefts role in dividing the nation. In thrall to identity politics, tolerant of the riots that suit them, and addicted to passing transformative, albeit unpopular, legislation, the original anti-Burkeans appear utterly uninterested in adopting the political caution that the Right has discarded, he writes. Woke corporations, ideologically non-diverse universities, and the mainstream media are trucking in the soil from which the Rights paranoia grows. But if Bartholds description of progressive extremism across politics, business, education, and the media is correct, then the right far from suffering paranoia confronts nation-wide public dysfunction provoked by, but invisible to, crucial segments of the left.

Schoenfeld also highlights perils from a progressivism on the left that rejects pluralism and free speech. He minimizes them, though, suggesting that the perils are more about right-wing opportunism than left-wing political malfeasance: In the electoral arena the progressive agenda is a gift to Republican office seekers looking for a foil, just as in the intellectual arena it is grist for right-wing thinkers all too eager to conflate the excrescences of progressivism with the essence of liberal democracy itself.

Galston gives more reason for hope than his colleagues. He acknowledges that there are progressives who want to turn the world upside down, but maintains that they are not the majority of Democrats. Contrary to the bleak picture presented by the natcons, Galston asserts that there is a reasonable center-left with which the center-right could do business in matters ranging from correctives to the deficiencies of the market to countering indoctrination in the schools, devising a sane immigration policy, and recognizing the nation-state as the best vehicle for securing individual rights and citizens well-being.

But Galston obscures the bad news about progressivisms sway, asserting, for example, that evidence that CRT is widely taught in our public schools is hard to find. If he means the complex doctrine created in elite law schools called critical race theory, then he is correct: K-12 schools generally do not assign the writings of Professors Kimberl Crenshaw, Richard Delgado and Derrick Bell.

Yet evidence abounds that political correctness is stronger than ever today. Curricula and conduct reveal that schools around the country teach children to discriminate based on race. And workshops for educators and administrators show that under the guise of diversity, equity, and inclusion, schools indoctrinate students in CRTs defining ideas: The United States is divided into an oppressor and oppressed class; by virtue of their race, white people are guilty and black people are victims; in understanding politics, facts and logic must be subordinated to victims lived experience; and free speech and the examination of a diversity of perspectives must give way to protecting feelings and enforcing social-justice orthodoxy.

This is not to justify right-wing illiberalism but to recognize that it stems in many cases from a defensive overreaction to left-wing illiberalism. To safeguard freedom, we must grasp the threats from both camps and their interconnections.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.

See more here:

Natcons, Progressive Elites, and Illiberal Overreach - RealClearPolitics