Posted on October 8, 2016

Do You Know an Argument that Works?

Chris Roberts, American Renaissance, October 8, 2016

America is deeply polarized. As Bill Bishop showed in his excellent book, The Big Sort, many Americans don’t live among or even know anyone who does not share their political outlook. In his review of the book, Thomas Jackson wrote:

San Francisco County is a good example of partisan migration. In 1976, Republican Gerald Ford got 44 percent of the vote; in 2004, George W. Bush got only 15. Republicans did not all die or convert; they cleared out. Mr. Bishop offers an amusing example of the result. “How can the polls say the election is neck and neck?” he quotes a liberal. “I don’t know a single person who is going to vote for Bush.”

The internet has accelerated this trend. Half a century ago, a much more “politically integrated” population read the same newspapers and watched the same television channels. Now, most of us read publications that hold fairly explicit positions with which we agree. Leftwing journalist Matt Taibbi is one of the few to notice the problems this causes. After the DNC leak, he tweeted:

More recently, when other leftists were blaming the media for enabling Mr. Trump’s electoral successes by going “soft” on him, Mr. Taibbi explained how far this was from the truth.

He’s right, and this is a problem. Since the vast majority of whites live with people who share their views and read papers and websites that promote the same views, how do we change anyone’s mind? In an effort to understand this problem better, I signed up for the email lists of several popular leftist websites.

One is Jezebel. Ostensibly feminist, it is a curious mix of egalitarian posturing, pop culture commentary, and celebrity gossip. As I write this, their top five stories are: who Taylor Swift is texting, a feminist critique of the TV show Portlandia, the elimination of the statute of limitations for rape in California, and two articles about black men killed by police. The progressive magazine The Nation emails me a roundup of six pieces of news or commentary every day, and most days include two about what a bad man Donald Trump is.

The readers of these publications live on a different planet from us. It would probably be easier to convince a space alien that our views are correct than to convince regular Jezebel readers. What could possibly bring them to a site like AmRen?

The biggest thing that draws new readers to us are facts about race and crime, such as “The Color of Crime” and “New DOJ Statistics on Race and Violent Crime.” That’s good, but it means people have to Google questions about race and crime in the first place. I suspect most Jezebel readers are not at all curious about race and crime, and are happy believing that white police officers shoot blacks for fun. What needs to come first is some kind of disruption: something to make them question the truth of their daily reading. Once a question is raised, a curious parson can go to Google and find us, but the question has to come first.

It’s easy to make excuses for doing nothing: 1) Liberals are stupid, so there’s no point arguing with them 2) They will all see the light as things get worse. The first point is ridiculous. Plenty of liberals are brilliant, even though they are hopelessly wrong. The second point may be true, but convincing liberals sooner will bring immense benefits to whites everywhere. Let’s not rely on blacks and Hispanics to do our work for us. If we managed to convince 90 percent of whites to come over to our side, an openly racialist president could still be elected as late as the 2030s.

What arguments could make that happen? Do you have an argument or a line of reasoning that works with liberals? What arguments that should work don’t? We’d love to hear from as many of you as possible, so even if you don’t comment regularly, please make an exception this time.

Thank you!