When the Majority Feels Demonized

Whites won’t be the absolute majority for too long in America. I thought this was the fear that drove so much of the Trump’ish change in their politics. But of course, reality is far more messy than that.

 

One set of very vocal Americans began to trumpet the impending change in demographics as a good thing – as the end of white oppression (in America). Everything white was demonized. White majority was equated with white supremacy.

 

Politicians did what they do in such situations. Starting with Hillary’s 2016 campaign, the Democratic party decided they should woo the groups who would collectively become the new majority, i.e., the non-whites. Which meant that more and more whites saw no option but the Republican party.

 

As Michael Barone put it, the way some cheered the impending reduction in the percentage of white people soon became a “message that sometimes sounds like ‘hurry up and die’”. Inevitably there was a backlash, writes Andrew Sullivan:

“By “boomerang,” I mean racializing politics so aggressively that you actually help create and legitimize a racially white party — because of negative partisanship.”

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind:

“If you demonize an entire race, you may at some point get the compliment returned. The more you raise racial consciousness among non-whites, the more you risk the same among whites.”

 

Massive illegal immigration certainly fanned the flames. And on this, both American parties had something to gain – the Republicans liked the cheap labour, the Democrats liked the prospect of future voters.

 

An over-the-top left liberalism has created the white reaction, feels Sullivan:

“(It is) liberalism that fuels and empowers, legitimizes and provokes white nationalism. It sees race first; it sees groups rather than individuals; it denies the possibility of color-blind citizenship; and it sees white people as a “problem”.

 

Sadly, says Sullivan, the two sides have now created a circle, where each side fuels the other.

“They foster ever-increasing levels of racial identity in each other; they demonize whole populations because of skin color; they both believe liberal democracy is rigged against them; and the logic of their mutual, absolutist racial politics is civil conflict, not democratic deliberation… They need each other.”

 

I can see several parallels in all this to what’s been happening in India, if one replaces “race” with “religion”, and “white” with “Hindu”.