Circling the Wagons
by digby
TIME Magazine says:
“The strategy of designating an alien “other” for political ends is hardly new in human history, and over the centuries it has been employed with equal expediency by the left and the right.”
I’m a little bit confused here. It’s not that “the left”, particularly if you define it as Soviet or Maoist, has not been historically guilty of some very bad things. But it’s not really fair to say that it’s been equal to the right in that particular way, unless you consider wealthy capitalists an oppressed class (which clearly many wealthy capitalists do.) But the truth is that riling up the rubes against a designated other is a fundamental right wing political strategy. In fact, it’s definitional.
But be that as it may, the question the article asks about the changing right wing targets is interesting. It wonders why they seem to be changing targets so often — gays, Immigrants, Muslims and what that says about our changing culture. The reporter posits that it might be the fast paced nature of the media or the difficulty of maintaining open prejudice in a pluralistic society. And I suppose that there are some truths in those things.
But the reason the right is rapidly shifting from one loathed “other” to the next is because they are driven by the knowledge that white, Conservative, Christian privilege is diminishing and their sense is that it’s coming from all directions. It really doesn’t matter who the alien is, whether an “Un-Christian” gay couple or a “foreign” Muslim or an “invading” illegal — they are all perceived to be threats to the rightful white majority’s worldview and way of life. If you happen to be a person who thinks that race, religion, ethnicity and nationality confer special privileges, they are. And that belief is the province of conservatism not liberalism (which has a whole different set of problems.)
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