1. Everything is Racism
My view of conservatives is that they're extremely loyal people. When moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt measures the moral foundations of political parties, he finds that conservatives care more about loyalty, sanctity, and authority. Liberals care more about care and fairness. So the question is, what are conservatives loyal to? Their race?
I think national loyalty and party loyalty are well established. "American First" is the explicit slogan of the right. And conservative hypocrisy feeds liberal comedy shows like The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight.
When a Republican wants infrastructure spending it's alright, when a liberal does it its socialism.
When a Republican president signs a bunch of executive orders in the first 100 days it's fine, when a liberal does it it's tyranny
When a Republican blows up the debt it's whatevs, when a liberal does it it's one more step toward the demise of the United States of America.
But wait, the last Democrat was black, so we can tell the same story about the white president and the black president. When our white president wanted X it was fine, but when our black president wanted X it was terrible. So that's the narrative that a lot of liberals have gone with. But they're not sufficiently disengangling national loyalty and party loyalty with race loyalty.
And that's where these accusations of white nationalism frustrate me. Why throw white in there, pure nationalism explains pretty all that needs to be explained. Why do you have to call people racist too? Especially since racism is such a vile accusation. People are fine with being biased toward their country or their party, They're often explicit about it, but if they're biased toward their race that's a special kind of evil. I don't think grownups should go around calling each other those kinds of names without some kind of burden of proof.
2. Separating Race from Nation and Party
But isn't black underrepresentation among the red tribe evidence of racism? Not really. Blacks are strongly underrepresented in
Runners (3%). Bikers (6%). Furries (2%). Wall Street senior management (2%). Occupy Wall Street protesters (unknown but low, one source says 1.6% but likely an underestimate). BDSM (unknown but low) Tea Party members (1%). American Buddhists (~2%). Bird watchers (4%). Environmentalists (various but universally low). Wikipedia contributors (unknown but low). Atheists (2%). Vegetarian activists (maybe 1-5%). Yoga enthusiasts (unknown but low). College baseball players (5%). Swimmers (2%). Fanfiction readers (2%). Unitarian Universalists (1%).
-List taken from SlateStarCodex (read it)
And then occupations like dentists, surgeons, business owners, and car salesmen are underrepresented among Democrats. Does that mean it must be discrimination?
Personality seems to be the main factor triggering all these correlations. So I don't think it's enough to say, "black people don't vote Republican so you must be racist. Har har har."
I think there is a group that properly disentangles race from these other forms of loyalty. And it's pictured here:
Conservatives seem to like this group of people. They're southern, conservative, God-fearing, Christians. But they're black, where did all the racism go?
Racism's back, oh wait a sec,
Conservative racism went away again. Oh, wait, I feel another one coming
There's the racism again.
What's going on? Well, when you make other races more American, Christian, and conservative, the right seems to embrace ethnic diversity.
They don't like China, but they love Hawaii.
They don't like Mexico, but they love Puerto Rico (when you inform them that Puerto Rico is an American territory).
They don't like Barack Obama, but they love black church people.
When you actually control for these other differences, conservatives don't seem to care all that much about race. If I were a liberal who has been keeping racism at the tip of my tongue whenever I talk politics, I would feel ashamed. I mean, who calls other people such a vicious name with such a low burden of proof?
