In trying to decide how to respond to this thoughtful, yet seriously flawed article by David Neiwert, I had my pick of several different threads where the author, in an effort to ferret out what he considers to be “racism” and “hate” on right wing blogs, actually reveals some profound truths about the left and their total cluelessness regarding what constitutes legitimate debate in a free society about race and public policy.

Neiwert’s thesis – that right wing “movement” bloggers are “transmitting” the very same themes and ideas that fascists and racists espouse only dressed up in mainstream intellectual couture – is an old one, as ancient as similar lines of attack followed by the left against William Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and the bête noire of liberals Ronald Reagan. The assault is based on false assumptions, setting up straw men, towering intellectual conceits, and a moral absolutism with respect to one’s own privileged frame of reference regarding issues of race, class, and politics.

It should be noted that Mr. Neiwert has done more than most to expose the dark underbelly of the extreme right, writing extensively on the Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist movements in the Northwest. His book, Death on the Fourth of July was well received and praised for its penetrating look at hate groups and hate crimes.

That said, Mr. Neiwert should be ashamed of himself. By trying to connect right wing bloggers and the positions they advocate on the issues, however tangentially, to the haters, the Hitler lovers, the cross burners, and the racial purists, he demonstrates an arrogance commonplace on the left where it has become de rigueur to simply mouth the words “racist” and “fascist” in order to cut off debate on the issues and destroy any moral authority to which their opponents might aspire.

Mr. Neiwert sets up his hit piece by recalling his visits to a Neo-Nazi compound before it was shut down by Southern Poverty Law Center, a truly unsung organization, having done more to eliminate race and ethnic hate groups through the creative use of lawsuits than even the government. After this promising beginning, Neiwert descends rapidly into madness:

The compound represented an era when white supremacists were relegated to the fringes of American society. And while their tireless efforts to promote racial hatred were now muted, their simultaneous efforts to gain mainstream acceptance — particularly by disguising themselves and muting their core beliefs — had obviously begun to take root.

What was most disturbing was, even in 2000, the way the mainstream conservative agenda was beginning to resemble the politics of longtime racists like David Duke and Richard Butler, the Aryan Nations leader: bashing welfare recipients, attacking affirmative action, complaining about “reverse discrimination,” calling for the elimination of immigrants. Since then, this trend has only accelerated, to the point that old-fashioned haters like Duke and the National Alliance are finding their ranks thinned by followers who just become Republicans.

How many straw men can one writer set up in a paragraph or two?

First of all, it might be helpful to give Mr. Neiwert a little history lesson. “Bashing welfare recipients” (welfare reform) “attacking” affirmative action and complaining about (quotes please) “reverse discrimination” – as if such a thing didn’t exist – calling for the “elimination” (?) of immigrants (immigration reform) are in fact, conservative issues. The only problem with Mr. Neiwert’s notions of insidious issue creep by racists and fascists into the mainstream of conservatism is that he is blaming the responsible right for the fact that the racists adopted these issues, mixed them into an unrecognizable porridge of nauseating half truths and bowdlerized slogans, and spewed the result onto the internet and elsewhere trying to appear reasonable.

In short, while trying to connect Neo-Nazis to conservatives, Mr. Neiwert makes a classic, some would say stupid mistake; he puts the cart before the horse. It was not conservatives who adopted these issues from the extremists; it was the other way around.

I would suggest to Mr. Neiwert that his next article deal with the adoption by the Communist Party USA of many liberal issues such as racial justice, anti-war agitation, universal health care, and reigning in corporate power. Or better yet, he might want to take on Osama Bin Laden and that worthy’s peculiar habit of regurgitating liberal talking points about America, the war, and western civilization every time he makes a videotape.

It should make for some interesting reading. Especially the part where I’m sure Mr. Neiwert will point out that communists don’t “hate” anyone nor, for that matter, does Osama desire anything more than America leave his poor, benighted beheading jihadis alone. Yet Communists have proved themselves over the years to be inveterate haters of everything that we Americans – even patriotic liberals like Mr. Neiwert – love about this country; freedom and liberty for the individual. Any bets on what would happen if the CPUSA actually managed to seize power here? There hasn’t been a communist revolution yet that didn’t prominently feature gulags and “re-education camps” in their takeover brochures. Osama, of course, has his own axes to grind – literally.

Not content with straining every effort to connect conservative bloggers to hate groups, Neiwert then sets up the most extraordinary canard I’ve ever seen on a lefty website: that, in fact, this “transmission” of hate issues into the conservative mainstream has already happened and that righty bloggers have in fact become closet racists only awaiting the right moment for their bigotry to show itself in all its glory:

The main mechanism for converting mainstream conservatives into right-wing extremists and white nationalists is a process I call transmission: extremist ideas and principles are repackaged for mainstream consumption, stripped of overt racism and hatefulness and presented as ordinary politics. As these ideas advance, they create an open environment for the gradual adoption of the core of bigotry that animates them.

This strategy was first enunciated by Patrick Buchanan back in 1989, in a nationally syndicated column that expressed a level of kinship with David Duke, who at that point was building momentum in a bid to win the Louisiana governorship. Buchanan thought the GOP overreacted to Duke and his Nazi “costume” by denouncing him; he urged:

Take a hard look at Duke’s portfolio of winning issues and expropriate those not in conflict with GOP principles, [such as] reverse discrimination against white folks.

It was a simple formula: Look at the issues that attract white supremacist votes, strip out the racism (or anything inimical to good public relations for the GOP) and present them to the public as fresh, “cutting edge” ideas. In the process, you’ll attract a lot of middle-class white voters who harbor unspoken racial resentments.

Put aside the personal affront to the integrity and intent of conservatives. This is just plain ignorance. Conservatives didn’t need David Duke or any other extremist to come out against reverse discrimination. The Bakhe case was decided in 1979 – 10 years before Pat Buchanan wrote his political analysis regarding the efficacy of Duke’s “issues.” Again Mr. Neiwert is ascribing views held by extremists as being adopted by conservatives instead of the other way around. By trying to make conservatives responsible for how extremists attach themselves to their issues while at the same time smearing the entire conservative movement, Neiwert reveals himself to be little more than a petty partisan hack, an ideologue who can’t tell the difference (or deliberately obfuscates it) between legitimate arguments about public policy and the coarse, bastardization of conservative issues by the haters.

It is monstrous calumny to accuse conservatives thusly. Especially dressing his screed up, as Mr. Neiwert does in this piece, as some kind of psychological analysis of the motivations and deeply held beliefs of conservative bloggers. At bottom, the way conservatives are attacked in this piece says more about the arrogant, smug, self-righteous, self congratulatory left than it does about the people it seeks to deliberately defame.

What are we really discussing here? Nothing less than the ability to debate public policy issues without one side having recourse to use blood libel terms like “racist” in order to delegitimatize the thoughts, words, and deeds of one’s opponent. This is the reason “race” as a matter of public policy cannot be discussed rationally. The left starts with the premise that any deviation from its base assumptions on race is non-negotiable – an advantage they see as set in stone as the Ten Commandments. Hence, one cannot discuss reforming affirmative action because to do so is, by definition, racist.

Neither is it possible to discuss immigration reform as evidenced by Mr. Neiwert’s loony contention that conservatives have adopted the extremists viewpoint of “eliminating immigrants” – one would assume both legal and illegal – which is a laughable corruption of the conservative’s belief that the laws of the land currently on the books should be enforced and that in a just society, one group should not be treated differently by the law than another. Ergo, what should be a necessary and vital debate on the nature of law and society not to mention the very real and vital issues of securing our borders, allowing for orderly immigration to the United States, and dealing with the problem of illegal immigrants already here, instead degenerates into more name calling and a ghastly oversimplification and distortion of the conservative position – par for the course when the left feels it is losing an argument with the American people.

Neiwert then takes on conservative bloggers in a specific and, from my point of view, dubious way by positing that 1) Glenn Reynolds is a “right wing blogger”, 2) that commenters at right wing websites don’t speak for the proprietor of that blog (unless they really do), and 3) that David Neiwert is a mind reader of such stupendous gifts that he should be classified as a secret weapon by the Pentagon, so incisive and penetrating his analysis of people’s thoughts and motivations.

After taking blogger Michelle Malkin and Reynolds to the woodshed for their ideas on Mexican irredentism – a notion currently being mainstreamed itself by leaders of the current round of immigration protests – Neiwert reveals that attacking the reconquista issue is in and of itself, racist:

Malkin, in truth, was simply following in the footsteps of the most prominent right-wing blogger, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, who for several months in 2004 was likewise promoting the “reconquista” notion while arguing, groundlessly, that the student organization MEChA was a pack of “fascist hatemongers” comparable to the Klan.

But in Malkin’s case, the thread from far-right extremism to mainstream consumption is especially pronounced, since she herself has a considerable history of dalliances and associations with extremists and far-right organizations, most notably VDare, the SPLC-designated hate group that publishes not just Malkin’s work but that of Steve Sailer and Jared Taylor.

Malkin, of course, has never explained her association with VDare, just as Reynolds never recanted his groundless smearing of MEChA. Similarly, they never confront the effects of their reliance on old appeals from the far right, because that would undermine the whole enterprise.

Malkin is perfectly capable of defending herself although I will point out that her articles in VDare appear courtesy of Creative Syndicate which gives her about as much “connection” to VDare as any writer would have to a site that publishes their articles through an agreement with a third party. I suppose Mr. Neiwert could have missed that very salient point in his haste to smear Mrs. Malkin. As an aside, it might be interesting to see what websites some of Mr. Neiwert’s articles have turned up on. He may not like the results of such a search.

But calling Reynolds a “right wing blogger” is a surprise – especially, I’m sure, to Glenn who has made it clear on almost a daily basis that he is not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. His dissatisfaction with conservatism is well known by most of us on the right which means either Niewert can’t read or he simply chooses to ignore the facts.

That said, calling MEChA “fascist hatemongers” may be a touch hyperbolic but I’ll let the reader decide. Neiwert links to an article that points out MEChA’s founding document never mentions “reconquista” which is true. But the “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan” mentioned in the linked article does contain some interesting ideas regarding “reclaiming the land” of their forefathers and a despicably racist statement for its motto:

The Plan Espiritual appears to translate the foregoing principles into a militant plan of action. The Plan offers an ahistorical counterrevolutionary version of Manifest Destiny for Chicanos:

In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal “gringo” invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano, Mexican, Latino, Indigenous inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our forefathers reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our sangre [blood] is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.

It explicitly states that Aztlan does not belong “to the foreign Europeans” and declares MEChA’s refusal to “recognize capricious frontiers on the Bronze continent.” And then, following these remarks, the Plan goes further still, uttering those infamous words:

. . . . [W]e declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlan. Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.

The translation of that last little ditty is “On behalf of the Race, everything. Outside the Race, nothing.”

But hey! Don’t call them hatemongers!

Here’s where Neiwert employs his mind reading powers to their fullest extent:

Rather, they trot them out for consumption and play coy about any of the deeper implications of what they’re saying. Then, they leave it up to their readers to complete the connection.

Thus, the editors at sites like Little Green Footballs, Free Republic, or RedState provide few substantive instances of outright racism — but plenty of examples of repackaged extremism. Their commenters, however, are another story altogether; as we’ve seen, their audiences are all too glad to revel in the underlying bigotry.

The end result is a poisonous environment in which not merely the ideas, but the endemic attitudes and worldview, of the racist right receive not just fresh clothes but a whole new generation of adherents. This is why, for instance, so much naked eliminationism aimed not just at illegal immigrants and Muslims but, generically, “treasonous” American liberals has become inextricably interwoven with right-wing rhetoric in recent years.

First of all, may I propose a truce? We on the right will stop holding liberals responsible for what unhinged lefty commenters say on their sites if liberals stop the same practice regarding idiots who comment on right wing blogs. The notion that our commenters (I’m stifling a laugh here) “complete the connection” to our racist views is absurd. I had to reread that part to make sure that a grown up had actually written something so dramatically out of kilter with reality. For once again, Mr. Neiwert takes the legitimate policy positions taken by responsible conservatives and tries to destroy them by linking the ideas behind them with the mindless gibberings of the haters. Doesn’t he get tired of pulling both the horse and the cart?

When political writers like Neiwert try to play amateur psychologist by pretending to examine the innermost feelings of people for which they feel nothing but contempt and hate, the result is predictable; a slanderous, disjointed, and in the end, disquieting example of what passes for rational thought on the left. Neiwert’s piece is symptomatic of the level that civil discourse in this country has descended. And it speaks volumes to why this sad state of affairs will not be turned around anytime soon.

UPDATE

I experienced a full blown mandible gravity event when I read this bit of idiocy from David Anderson of ISOU:

The Firedoglake post makes some great points about racism in the conservative blogsphere. I find it interesting that one of the most vile racist [sic] is Michelle Malkin, who in a White Supremist [sic] Society would be at best a concubine for some Brownshirt. Perhaps Michelle has not payed [sic] much attention to her own image in the mirror lately, but HELLO, Michelle… You are a BROWN PERSON. If your Utopia ever came to pass, you might… as a reward for being a collaborator, get to work as a maid in Anne Coulter’s house, but having kissed Anne’s rear end so much, LaShawn barber [sic] would probably beat you to that job.

Thus speaketh the mainstream left.