I have been saying since 2017 that Patriotism is just sitting there as a political label waiting to be appropriated by the centre-left
The hard left hate our history, the modern right hates the modern world and hate their country as it actually is
The centre left can just pick to the discarded banner of the patriotic party, all they need to do is bend down and pick it up, then take all the political benefit that comes from being seen as the patriotic party
Funny how quickly folks forget that practically all of VP Harris's campaign events in 2024 had the crowd waving our flag and chanting, "USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!"
I think she tried but just didnt really have the time to make it a part of how we thought of her. I think Biden was too tentative about it in the aftermath of George Floyd.
Obama accessed this story through religion - specifically the rhetoric and cadences of the Southern Baptist church. He was a remarkable orator, good looking, charming, smart, talented, very difficult to pin down as being typical of a race or class and at all times he wore an impeccably ironed suit of the most sober blue, all of which camouflaged a largely black Christian denomination as simply a Christian denomination. Obama was, in every sense, a gift from God. But the way is very narrow and the gate even narrower. Mamdani has similar qualities: oratory, looks, charm, the common touch, the ability to present as what he is rather than how his opponents would like him to be seen. But there's a very long way to go.
Normie voters love their country and respond well to patriotism, just look at the benefit Reagan got politically by wrapping himself in the flag
For the first time since then, Patriotism is just sitting there for Liberals to pick up as their own but for some reason the Democrats just refuse to do it
There are plenty of Democratic candidates who clearly love American and are clearly patriotic. John Ossaff, J.R. Pritzker, Pete Buttiegieg, Wes Moore, Dan Osborne (Independent), all come immediately to mind. They all love American for what she is and what she can be. The MAGAs love America for what she was (at least in their minds).
Exactly lots of Left leaning people and Dems are patriotic. Including dare I say a lot of people in the comments here. We just aren't all hokey and performative about it.
Patriotism might be sitting there for liberals to pick up as their own -- if there's a country left sfter Trump is finished squandering our weaponry and trashing our reputation everywhere from Canada to the other side of the world.
I don't know if that's going to work in 2026. In 2008 Obama didn't have a loud anti American left to deal with. Just saying vaguely patriotic things while being in a coalition with lefties who are all over social media saying things like the US deserved 9/11 isn't going to come off the same. Retaking patriotism at this point may require open intra party warfare.
There's certainly differences but one thing I remember about Obama is he didnt deny that there was racism. In the White House, him and Michelle talked about living in a house built by slaves. And yet they both were unabashedly proud to be American.
It may be that only a black person can pull this off. It may be that it is hard to pull it off authentically ib 2026 without engendering pushback from your base. But I think there is a lot to be proud of while acknowledging our flaws. And having lived through Obama pulling that off, I would love to see someone try again, and I think they could succeed
“A wise woman builds her house, but the foolish woman pulls it down with her own hands.”
We’ve been held captive by people at the extremes of our political spectrum who, by one means or another, are pulling down the house of our country. Both groups accuse their opposite of doing this, and they are both correct.
If we cannot find it in our hearts to embrace a genuine love of our country, we will surely lose it.
That’s a good point but I’m now obsessed by the idea that in the Bronze Age there was an epidemic of women pulling their own houses down thinking it was a good idea, forcing the Bible writers to come up with a proverb to get them to understand this is bad and to stop doing it 😂😂
Going to go out on a limb here and say the vast majority of democratic meetings do not start with land acknowledgments. But it doesn't matter, as we see with your question: it doesn't matter what they actually do, even their own supporters are going to assume the right-wing caricature is reality.
Would that it were so. I worked at a university during peak woke and every recruiting event opened with one of these nonsensical pronouncements. Under no circumstances would anyone at the institution have considered repatriating the soil on which it stood to any aboriginal claimants. So, what is that supposed to prove to your audience?
I love you Noah but this is such a cringe and ridiculous statement. I've been to local Dem meetings and part of Run for Something calls. Not every meeting is starting with a "land acknowledgement" statement.
Well since Obama, we've had three elections, all close. Harris did try to tell her story as a very American one, she lost but I dont think embracing patriotism was why she lost, and it was a close loss. I dont think Biden or Clinton really tried to wrestle the mantle of patriotism away from Trump the way Harris tried and Obama comfortably and easily enveloped himself in.
But yes, I think someone should explicitly try to wrap their story as one that is uniquely American and portray Trump and his followers as un-American. Instead of saying "democracy," they should say "freedom." January 6th, football games, and the statue of liberty should prominently feature as things that Trump and his ilk dont like.
And when it gets dismissed as background noise, something literally every politician has to perform as the minimum to even be allowed to run, what then?
This is like trying to make beige the exciting color.
Well, somehow Obama did it authentically and convincingly and it wasnt very long ago. Perhaps youre right and no liberal will be able to do it again. And yet, there seems to be an opportunity with MAGA turning their back on freedom and football. I think it is worth a liberal embracing those very american things. A veteran like Mark Kelly could probably do so authentically. So could Cory Booker.
But if Im wrong and we are all doomed to the flag being wrapped around those who hate it, than hats off to you,you were right.
Actually, the Pantone Color of the Year for 2025 was a drab brown - and this year, it’s … white (ahem!). Mix ‘em together, and you’d have a very nice beige.
You can probably get away with this mindset while the pendulum is swinging away from Trump. Just do what he does: say that you’ve done nothing wrong, that every problem is the result of a rigged and unfair process, that your critics are unreasonable, that you’re the best at everything, that actually many people are saying that you’re *the most* patriotic. You can try that. It might even work, for a time, but it will continue to smash up the country to have people who think like you and Donald Trump in power.
Absolutely agree. Their whole personality is being racist and getting off on it. They don't care that Texas state law requires at least 90% of the undergraduate student body at the University of Texas at Austin to be Texas residents or that foreign students make up less than 10% of the overall student population. They are simply racist, white supremacists who want their views to become mainstream and have a willing and engaged audience on Twitter where the algorithm encourages this divisive hate.
This is so bizarre to me. My wife is Indian my entire extended family is. I was watching this game and when saw those students I turned to my wife and said “Total Texas cultural victory right there.” She was a bit confused because she doesn’t care about football but it kinda filled my heart with pride. Before one of the US World Cup matches there was a shot of a Sikh guy in a full American Flag suit with an American Flag cape on and I just thought “how fucking badass are we!?” I will never comprehend people like French (or Hasan Piker to be fair) who seem to just hate everything that makes America fun and interesting. Anyway, football is awesome, Indians are awesome and you know what you are awesome too Noah!
Mainly, I just feel continued frustration and alarm that the social media era gives such loud amplification to the views of fringe groups. Groups that, in past eras, would have been generally ignored if not snickered at for being so irrelevant, get such breathless attention.
It's not that I want to deny tiny minorities freedom of expression, but it strikes me as absurd that they get at least as much attention -- in truth, a lot more -- than more ordinary viewpoints. Yes, it's the algorithms, but it is also the need for stressed "respectable" media outlets to report on things that grab eyeballs. And then, for writers like to Noah, to cover them because hey, with all the amplification they have been receiving, they really do need to be answered.
Essentially, this situation is a violation of the liberal principle that all are equal. No, I am not taking about regardless of ethnicity, I am talking about regardless of opinion. If the vast majority has views in a boring middle part of the spectrum, but the majority of the attention is given to small minorities at the fringes, people with "boring" reasonable opinions are being given the short end of the stick.
Unless you are being seduced by the illiberal proposition that we do not possess rights as individuals, but as groups. And, in my view, that is the core issue of our times. That is the liberal view that is essentially under attack.
And that most obviously extends beyond political fringe groups getting attention far beyond their numbers. Rather, it is the shared core values of the far Left and the far Right. The Left believes that marginalized groups (the ones THEY have so identified) are owed privileges and rights beyond those of the rest of the citizenry. This Right described here believes that ethnicity determines citizens' rights.
It's my sense that this particular group of right wingers will only succeed in the long run if they arrange for some sort of coup. But the overthrow of the liberal principle that all are equal -- that idea, in general, strikes me as under very serious threat.
This media environment is so f---ed, because there is no market for a basic factual story like "Most Americans support LEGAL immigration but oppose uncontrolled irregular migration."
Yes, try making that catchy! You'd end up resorting to YouTuber bait-and-switch tactics. 'This changes everything'. 'You won't believe what he looks like now'.
I have honestly thought about making a "boring news" channel that is kind of a sarcastic mocking of the current "stay tuned for more!" ridiculousness :)
Yes, traditional media compete with new media by amplifying new media content. But that's where the competitive threat comes from. I'm not sure what the solution to that is.
I have, and I think that that is a bit different. Coughlin was probably the most popular radio broadcaster of his time, drawing nearly 30 million listeners at his peak. And that was out of not much more than 80 million adults (a significant number of whom did not have radios yet).
Coughlin's views strike us as despicable, but mass media attention to him was not a case of the views of a tiny sliver getting more attention than given to the opinions of large segments of the population.
The new thing under the sun, which concerns me, is not that media allows terrible speech. That has always been the case. It's the magnification of the slivers, really the thesis that slivers that say double from 2% to 4%, ought to be center stage over huge blocks of the population. It's destabilizing and deeply illiberal.
The fact remains that Coughlin was able to manipulate the media of his day, as the groypers and their ilk currently manipulate theirs. (See also, "Limbaugh, Rush.")
Say what you will about Coughlin's so-called "popularity" -- ultimately, in a basically liberal polity, he couldn't hold a candle to FDR.
Noah is mostly on solid ground but his determination to locate and confine French’s sentiments to what he refers to as the New Right betrays a blind spot in his perception. First, the sentiment isn’t new and there isn’t even all that much that’s new about the new far right. Go back 100 years and you find the same kind of sentiment and rhetoric, just pointed at Jews, Italians, and other groups. And there are a lot of people who,while they wouldn’t identify themselves as the new right, and probably wouldn’t sign on to much of what French says, they’re nonetheless not inclined to think that French’s views disqualify him from holding office. So defeating this won’t be as easy as Smith thinks.
Is Representative Nico Rios - he of 'eat shit you fucking loser' fame - attacking people who attacked Bo French? I assumed from the language he used that he was. But I was confused when I saw his name. If French gets his way and deports 100 million people from the US on grounds of non-whiteness, I imagine that someone with the name 'Nico Rios' would make that cut. So perhaps he's the one who's confused, not me. Of course, come the great winnowing, people called 'Bo French' would also be well-advised to keep their heads down, I'd have thought.
Secondly, what on earth could someone who sends tweets like that be a Representative of? Have you no sense of decency, America, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
Mind you, where the US goes the UK invariably follows, so maybe we should be looking to our own laurels.
> It’s this pathological inability to understand alliances and coalition-building that will ultimately doom the New Right.
Now I understand where Trump's losing approach to foreign affairs comes from. And why the New Right loves Trump.
Indeed, I wonder whether "inability to understand alliances and coalition-building" is the fundamental cause of this sort of political movement, with racism being just the application of this to one aspect of society. The implication is that the New Right will necessarily also indulge in avoidable class wars and other sorts of social combat.
Noah, I had no idea you grew up in College Station. I did my master’s at A&M before spending several years in the US and eventually moving back to India.
I have to admit, watching this particular strain of politics metastasize makes me happy I moved back when I did. It’s so sad to see the amount of unfettered, unabashed, dehumanizing vitriol against Indians and people of Indian origin in online spaces. I hope America gets back to some semblance of normalcy.
I just don't think economic arguments about entrepreneurs or the job creation immigrants bring or the inverse, service shortages of services, resonate with this group. Maybe it smacks of the lie we were all told about globalization, that cities decimated by factory closures will somehow be okay because we can "retrain" the workers. Globalization and immigration are great for business and rising income levels but globalization was an economic disaster for many communities, and immigration is perceived as a cultural disaster for many of the same people. Is it racist? Probably, and sort of by definition; if you don't want change you're not going to want large groups of outsiders settling in your town. Then again, I doubt many of these people view Indians as genetically inferior or have an inferior culture. To me that's racism; being anti change isn't. These are the same people who are protesting all the rich people taking over Bozeman, or protesting against data centers. And that has nothing to do with race.
Excellent piece - but any ideology (left or right) or religion or narrative in general, that puts “group identity” as its fundamental unit of analysis, has the same issue of “them vs us” or zero-sum world view.
My family is all from Iowa originally but I married an Indo-Canadian in Chicago. We're looking to leave and move back to Toronto as soon as we find jobs, which makes me sad but don't want my half-Punjabi daughter growing up around this hatred.
What a shame that you even felt like you had to write a column on one of the dumbest subjects of all time.
Two)
Bo knows nothing. America is poised to become a majority minority nation in the blink of an eye. The to Make America White Again is long over. The Census Bureau says by 2045 America will be a majority minority nation.
Three)
America is on a trajectory to have a much lower standard of living. It is almost baked in. Without immigration, the American population will shrink; what will shrink the fastest is the younger workforce.
Programs that depend on transfer payments from employees to seniors are going insolvent by the end of the next President’s term. Add in a shrinking employee base, and even less money will flow into SS and Medicare.
Americans don’t believe this idiot’s take. He is obviously mathematically infirm. Social Media is a cancer, and my advice to you is not to read this crap.
I have been saying since 2017 that Patriotism is just sitting there as a political label waiting to be appropriated by the centre-left
The hard left hate our history, the modern right hates the modern world and hate their country as it actually is
The centre left can just pick to the discarded banner of the patriotic party, all they need to do is bend down and pick it up, then take all the political benefit that comes from being seen as the patriotic party
Its crazy because you just have to talk like Obama to have an uplifting and liberal patriotic story to tell, but it just hasnt happened authentically
Biden was authentically patriotic. He was old, and sometimes misspoke, but his love of America was authentic.
Funny how quickly folks forget that practically all of VP Harris's campaign events in 2024 had the crowd waving our flag and chanting, "USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!"
I think she tried but just didnt really have the time to make it a part of how we thought of her. I think Biden was too tentative about it in the aftermath of George Floyd.
Obama accessed this story through religion - specifically the rhetoric and cadences of the Southern Baptist church. He was a remarkable orator, good looking, charming, smart, talented, very difficult to pin down as being typical of a race or class and at all times he wore an impeccably ironed suit of the most sober blue, all of which camouflaged a largely black Christian denomination as simply a Christian denomination. Obama was, in every sense, a gift from God. But the way is very narrow and the gate even narrower. Mamdani has similar qualities: oratory, looks, charm, the common touch, the ability to present as what he is rather than how his opponents would like him to be seen. But there's a very long way to go.
Normie voters love their country and respond well to patriotism, just look at the benefit Reagan got politically by wrapping himself in the flag
For the first time since then, Patriotism is just sitting there for Liberals to pick up as their own but for some reason the Democrats just refuse to do it
There are plenty of Democratic candidates who clearly love American and are clearly patriotic. John Ossaff, J.R. Pritzker, Pete Buttiegieg, Wes Moore, Dan Osborne (Independent), all come immediately to mind. They all love American for what she is and what she can be. The MAGAs love America for what she was (at least in their minds).
Exactly lots of Left leaning people and Dems are patriotic. Including dare I say a lot of people in the comments here. We just aren't all hokey and performative about it.
Patriotism might be sitting there for liberals to pick up as their own -- if there's a country left sfter Trump is finished squandering our weaponry and trashing our reputation everywhere from Canada to the other side of the world.
I don't know if that's going to work in 2026. In 2008 Obama didn't have a loud anti American left to deal with. Just saying vaguely patriotic things while being in a coalition with lefties who are all over social media saying things like the US deserved 9/11 isn't going to come off the same. Retaking patriotism at this point may require open intra party warfare.
There's certainly differences but one thing I remember about Obama is he didnt deny that there was racism. In the White House, him and Michelle talked about living in a house built by slaves. And yet they both were unabashedly proud to be American.
It may be that only a black person can pull this off. It may be that it is hard to pull it off authentically ib 2026 without engendering pushback from your base. But I think there is a lot to be proud of while acknowledging our flaws. And having lived through Obama pulling that off, I would love to see someone try again, and I think they could succeed
I’m reminded of a biblical proverb here:
“A wise woman builds her house, but the foolish woman pulls it down with her own hands.”
We’ve been held captive by people at the extremes of our political spectrum who, by one means or another, are pulling down the house of our country. Both groups accuse their opposite of doing this, and they are both correct.
If we cannot find it in our hearts to embrace a genuine love of our country, we will surely lose it.
That’s a good point but I’m now obsessed by the idea that in the Bronze Age there was an epidemic of women pulling their own houses down thinking it was a good idea, forcing the Bible writers to come up with a proverb to get them to understand this is bad and to stop doing it 😂😂
That epidemic has never stopped 🤪
They've tried. Over and over. It hasn't worked yet. Why do you think next time is the charm?
Have they really tried, though? Democrats could start by not opening every meeting with an "acknowledgement" that America is "stolen land"
Going to go out on a limb here and say the vast majority of democratic meetings do not start with land acknowledgments. But it doesn't matter, as we see with your question: it doesn't matter what they actually do, even their own supporters are going to assume the right-wing caricature is reality.
LOL, here's a poll showing only 14% of Democrats are "extremely proud" to be an American, down from 65% in 2003:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/711938/american-pride-falls-year-record-low.aspx
(For comparison, Republicans stayed at 60-70% during the Obama and Biden presidencies)
Another recent poll found that fewer than half of Democrats are proud to be U.S. citizens at all:
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/5951332-republican-pride-democrat-decline/
The post-Obama rot is real, and denying it as a "right-wing caricature" won't make it go away.
It is literally the first page of their platform: https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2024-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf
That is not a right wing caricature unless you think the Democrats are a right wing organization caricaturing themselves.
But anyway, if 5% of your meetings start with a Nazi salute, might people start to think you are Nazis? The majority doesn't really matter.
Would that it were so. I worked at a university during peak woke and every recruiting event opened with one of these nonsensical pronouncements. Under no circumstances would anyone at the institution have considered repatriating the soil on which it stood to any aboriginal claimants. So, what is that supposed to prove to your audience?
I love you Noah but this is such a cringe and ridiculous statement. I've been to local Dem meetings and part of Run for Something calls. Not every meeting is starting with a "land acknowledgement" statement.
Well since Obama, we've had three elections, all close. Harris did try to tell her story as a very American one, she lost but I dont think embracing patriotism was why she lost, and it was a close loss. I dont think Biden or Clinton really tried to wrestle the mantle of patriotism away from Trump the way Harris tried and Obama comfortably and easily enveloped himself in.
But yes, I think someone should explicitly try to wrap their story as one that is uniquely American and portray Trump and his followers as un-American. Instead of saying "democracy," they should say "freedom." January 6th, football games, and the statue of liberty should prominently feature as things that Trump and his ilk dont like.
And when it gets dismissed as background noise, something literally every politician has to perform as the minimum to even be allowed to run, what then?
This is like trying to make beige the exciting color.
Well, somehow Obama did it authentically and convincingly and it wasnt very long ago. Perhaps youre right and no liberal will be able to do it again. And yet, there seems to be an opportunity with MAGA turning their back on freedom and football. I think it is worth a liberal embracing those very american things. A veteran like Mark Kelly could probably do so authentically. So could Cory Booker.
But if Im wrong and we are all doomed to the flag being wrapped around those who hate it, than hats off to you,you were right.
Actually, the Pantone Color of the Year for 2025 was a drab brown - and this year, it’s … white (ahem!). Mix ‘em together, and you’d have a very nice beige.
You can probably get away with this mindset while the pendulum is swinging away from Trump. Just do what he does: say that you’ve done nothing wrong, that every problem is the result of a rigged and unfair process, that your critics are unreasonable, that you’re the best at everything, that actually many people are saying that you’re *the most* patriotic. You can try that. It might even work, for a time, but it will continue to smash up the country to have people who think like you and Donald Trump in power.
Anyone who has a problem with people watching a football game has a problem with America
Nice piece Noah.
The people who complain about Indians watching football are just losers. They’re lives tend to be shit and they get mad when others are happy.
Absolutely agree. Their whole personality is being racist and getting off on it. They don't care that Texas state law requires at least 90% of the undergraduate student body at the University of Texas at Austin to be Texas residents or that foreign students make up less than 10% of the overall student population. They are simply racist, white supremacists who want their views to become mainstream and have a willing and engaged audience on Twitter where the algorithm encourages this divisive hate.
Thank you Noah. I think this is one of your best pieces ever.
Thank you!!
This is so bizarre to me. My wife is Indian my entire extended family is. I was watching this game and when saw those students I turned to my wife and said “Total Texas cultural victory right there.” She was a bit confused because she doesn’t care about football but it kinda filled my heart with pride. Before one of the US World Cup matches there was a shot of a Sikh guy in a full American Flag suit with an American Flag cape on and I just thought “how fucking badass are we!?” I will never comprehend people like French (or Hasan Piker to be fair) who seem to just hate everything that makes America fun and interesting. Anyway, football is awesome, Indians are awesome and you know what you are awesome too Noah!
Mainly, I just feel continued frustration and alarm that the social media era gives such loud amplification to the views of fringe groups. Groups that, in past eras, would have been generally ignored if not snickered at for being so irrelevant, get such breathless attention.
It's not that I want to deny tiny minorities freedom of expression, but it strikes me as absurd that they get at least as much attention -- in truth, a lot more -- than more ordinary viewpoints. Yes, it's the algorithms, but it is also the need for stressed "respectable" media outlets to report on things that grab eyeballs. And then, for writers like to Noah, to cover them because hey, with all the amplification they have been receiving, they really do need to be answered.
Essentially, this situation is a violation of the liberal principle that all are equal. No, I am not taking about regardless of ethnicity, I am talking about regardless of opinion. If the vast majority has views in a boring middle part of the spectrum, but the majority of the attention is given to small minorities at the fringes, people with "boring" reasonable opinions are being given the short end of the stick.
Unless you are being seduced by the illiberal proposition that we do not possess rights as individuals, but as groups. And, in my view, that is the core issue of our times. That is the liberal view that is essentially under attack.
And that most obviously extends beyond political fringe groups getting attention far beyond their numbers. Rather, it is the shared core values of the far Left and the far Right. The Left believes that marginalized groups (the ones THEY have so identified) are owed privileges and rights beyond those of the rest of the citizenry. This Right described here believes that ethnicity determines citizens' rights.
It's my sense that this particular group of right wingers will only succeed in the long run if they arrange for some sort of coup. But the overthrow of the liberal principle that all are equal -- that idea, in general, strikes me as under very serious threat.
Amen!
This media environment is so f---ed, because there is no market for a basic factual story like "Most Americans support LEGAL immigration but oppose uncontrolled irregular migration."
Yes, try making that catchy! You'd end up resorting to YouTuber bait-and-switch tactics. 'This changes everything'. 'You won't believe what he looks like now'.
I have honestly thought about making a "boring news" channel that is kind of a sarcastic mocking of the current "stay tuned for more!" ridiculousness :)
I'll subscribe!
BBC America? NPR?
Yes, traditional media compete with new media by amplifying new media content. But that's where the competitive threat comes from. I'm not sure what the solution to that is.
" Groups that, in past eras, would have been generally ignored if not snickered at for being so irrelevant"? Ever hesrd of Father Coughlin?
I have, and I think that that is a bit different. Coughlin was probably the most popular radio broadcaster of his time, drawing nearly 30 million listeners at his peak. And that was out of not much more than 80 million adults (a significant number of whom did not have radios yet).
Coughlin's views strike us as despicable, but mass media attention to him was not a case of the views of a tiny sliver getting more attention than given to the opinions of large segments of the population.
The new thing under the sun, which concerns me, is not that media allows terrible speech. That has always been the case. It's the magnification of the slivers, really the thesis that slivers that say double from 2% to 4%, ought to be center stage over huge blocks of the population. It's destabilizing and deeply illiberal.
The fact remains that Coughlin was able to manipulate the media of his day, as the groypers and their ilk currently manipulate theirs. (See also, "Limbaugh, Rush.")
Say what you will about Coughlin's so-called "popularity" -- ultimately, in a basically liberal polity, he couldn't hold a candle to FDR.
Noah is mostly on solid ground but his determination to locate and confine French’s sentiments to what he refers to as the New Right betrays a blind spot in his perception. First, the sentiment isn’t new and there isn’t even all that much that’s new about the new far right. Go back 100 years and you find the same kind of sentiment and rhetoric, just pointed at Jews, Italians, and other groups. And there are a lot of people who,while they wouldn’t identify themselves as the new right, and probably wouldn’t sign on to much of what French says, they’re nonetheless not inclined to think that French’s views disqualify him from holding office. So defeating this won’t be as easy as Smith thinks.
I'm going to do a follow-up post about the history of anti-immigrant sentiment in America!
My strategy: take over America by having myself and my friends sit together in one small portion of a college football stadium.
Is Representative Nico Rios - he of 'eat shit you fucking loser' fame - attacking people who attacked Bo French? I assumed from the language he used that he was. But I was confused when I saw his name. If French gets his way and deports 100 million people from the US on grounds of non-whiteness, I imagine that someone with the name 'Nico Rios' would make that cut. So perhaps he's the one who's confused, not me. Of course, come the great winnowing, people called 'Bo French' would also be well-advised to keep their heads down, I'd have thought.
Secondly, what on earth could someone who sends tweets like that be a Representative of? Have you no sense of decency, America, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
Mind you, where the US goes the UK invariably follows, so maybe we should be looking to our own laurels.
If only John Cornyn had found his voice sooner. Sad.
> It’s this pathological inability to understand alliances and coalition-building that will ultimately doom the New Right.
Now I understand where Trump's losing approach to foreign affairs comes from. And why the New Right loves Trump.
Indeed, I wonder whether "inability to understand alliances and coalition-building" is the fundamental cause of this sort of political movement, with racism being just the application of this to one aspect of society. The implication is that the New Right will necessarily also indulge in avoidable class wars and other sorts of social combat.
Noah, I had no idea you grew up in College Station. I did my master’s at A&M before spending several years in the US and eventually moving back to India.
I have to admit, watching this particular strain of politics metastasize makes me happy I moved back when I did. It’s so sad to see the amount of unfettered, unabashed, dehumanizing vitriol against Indians and people of Indian origin in online spaces. I hope America gets back to some semblance of normalcy.
But yeah, I would say Gig ’em :P
I just don't think economic arguments about entrepreneurs or the job creation immigrants bring or the inverse, service shortages of services, resonate with this group. Maybe it smacks of the lie we were all told about globalization, that cities decimated by factory closures will somehow be okay because we can "retrain" the workers. Globalization and immigration are great for business and rising income levels but globalization was an economic disaster for many communities, and immigration is perceived as a cultural disaster for many of the same people. Is it racist? Probably, and sort of by definition; if you don't want change you're not going to want large groups of outsiders settling in your town. Then again, I doubt many of these people view Indians as genetically inferior or have an inferior culture. To me that's racism; being anti change isn't. These are the same people who are protesting all the rich people taking over Bozeman, or protesting against data centers. And that has nothing to do with race.
Excellent piece - but any ideology (left or right) or religion or narrative in general, that puts “group identity” as its fundamental unit of analysis, has the same issue of “them vs us” or zero-sum world view.
Tell that to the folks at Commentary. As my mother would say, "From your mouth to God's ear!"
My family is all from Iowa originally but I married an Indo-Canadian in Chicago. We're looking to leave and move back to Toronto as soon as we find jobs, which makes me sad but don't want my half-Punjabi daughter growing up around this hatred.
Noah, I’ll make three comments.
One)
What a shame that you even felt like you had to write a column on one of the dumbest subjects of all time.
Two)
Bo knows nothing. America is poised to become a majority minority nation in the blink of an eye. The to Make America White Again is long over. The Census Bureau says by 2045 America will be a majority minority nation.
Three)
America is on a trajectory to have a much lower standard of living. It is almost baked in. Without immigration, the American population will shrink; what will shrink the fastest is the younger workforce.
Programs that depend on transfer payments from employees to seniors are going insolvent by the end of the next President’s term. Add in a shrinking employee base, and even less money will flow into SS and Medicare.
Americans don’t believe this idiot’s take. He is obviously mathematically infirm. Social Media is a cancer, and my advice to you is not to read this crap.