Update: What does the Democratic Party have against Americans? 

Pamela Geller live-tweets President Trump’s address. 

The failure of the media, explained. 

How dare you divide us, I ask in a foreign language. 

Watch President Trump’s entire speech before Congress, courtesy of the Right Side Broadcasting Network. Jim Antle explains why Donald Trump’s widely reported volte-face on immigration didn’t occur.

Correction: As the commenter below points out, Jason Richwine is a regular contributor to National Review Online. We regret the error. 

One of the benefits of the Trump campaign, regardless of one’s thoughts on the merits of a Trump presidency, is its exposure of the conservative establishment. The irony of an undisciplined and at times extremely uncouth candidate, whose grasp of policy is tenuous, to say the least, obliterating the intellectual veneer of a movement with hundreds of millions of dollars in endowments and countless scholars at its disposal is one which will be endlessly analyzed in the years to come. Professor George Hawley’s book, Right-Wing Critics Of American Conservatism, does not seek to analyze or deconstruct the Trump phenomenon, but it does hold some clues as to why Donald Trump has succeeded in dismantling a political infrastructure which has dominated the Republican Party for over half a century.

This book is a marvelous discovery for a number of reasons, not least because it provides a coherent, internally consistent definition of conservatism, as well as its ideological antipode, contemporary liberalism. After examining and rejecting several philosophical distinctions between the right and the left-including Thomas Sowell’s assertion that this divide reflects a difference in beliefs about the innate malleability of human nature-Hawley arrives at an intelligible cleavage between these two very broad political groupings. He asserts that the left/modern liberalism is an ideology which extols equality as the primary virtue above all others when considering how our society should be structured, whereas the right/conservatives view equality as a subsidiary or ancillary value within our society.

Although the goals of the left have shifted over the course of time, with campaigns to redistribute wealth and level economic inequalities being replaced by affinity groups emphasizing racial, sexual, and spiritual  identities-to the consternation of some traditional leftists-it has retained its emphasis on radical egalitarianism. Just as the right, with a  few exceptions, has always placed some other value above regimented equality. Professor Hawley is not the first scholar to make the observation that the modern conservative movement is largely a synthetic, artificial creation. The fact that it is a union of three widely disparate strands of right wing thought, i.e. foreign policy hawks, libertarians, and religious/traditionalist conservatives, is common knowledge.

However, he has broken new ground by exploring just how this tenuous marriage has made mainstream conservatism an ideology of such narrow public appeal, in a book which gives a respectful hearing to its most important right wing critics. In addition to examining the grievances voiced by paleoconservatives, Objectivists, anarcho-capitalists, among others who were drummed out of-or never invited in to-respectable conservatism, he also points up the hypocrisy of conservative icons such as William F. Buckley Jr., as well as his less impressive heirs, and asks some pointed questions. For example, why did a vociferous defender of Senator Joe McCarthy believe that the anti-Communism of the John Birch Society was beyond the pale? Also, why are the seemingly benign sociological observations of Jason Richwine worse than the anti-civil rights editorials from the early days of National Review?

While these stances could be chalked up to a natural Burkean evolution, a much more reasonable explanation is that the leaders of the conservative movement, or racket, as some would describe it, simply want to insulate themselves from any legitimate challenge from the right. While opponents of conservatives have always adhered to a policy of no enemies on the left, movement conservatism has taken precisely the opposite tack, making alliances of convenience with its ostensible enemies whenever popular right wing movements threaten its place within the political firmament. By imposing rigid constraints upon the range of  ideas which can be expressed, the conservative movement has simultaneously marginalized grassroots conservatism while emboldening and strengthening its theoretical enemies. Which explains why writers who enthusiastically support the dismemberment of unborn children up to the moment of birth remain well-respected members of the socially progressive commentariat, while conservative scholars who publish academically rigorous papers demonstrating the burden unskilled immigrants impose upon American taxpayers are ritualistically denounced and shunned by the likes of Rich Lowry and his peers.

These periodic purges of right wingers have real-world consequences, which Professor Hawley methodically illustrates in a book which those promoting a chimerical Ben Sasse candidacy, or the deus ex machina scenario envisioned by Bill Kristol, would benefit from reading. He demonstrates how unappealing mainstream conservatism has become to the  majority of the American electorate, despite the fact that conservatives still exert an outsized influence over American politics. There are a number of reasons for this, including the enormous and unrelenting demographic change imposed through mass immigration-a policy we’ve explored at length on this website-the increasing secularization of the American public, the lingering stigma of Bush administration failures both domestically and abroad, and finally, the almost complete cession of popular culture to the left. The investment that the conservative movement has made in politics over the past half-century has been complete, despite Andrew Breitbart’s trenchant observation that politics is downstream from culture.

It’s entirely possible that all of these developments collectively, or one of them in isolation, would have ultimately limited the appeal of mainstream conservatism to the American public. However, the epistemic closure within the conservative movement-and demonization of any intellectual on the right, whether it be Ayn Rand or Pat Buchanan, who defies its dogma-has created a situation where no one outside of the hermetically sealed world of Bucklyean conservatism is willing to seriously entertain its increasingly irrelevant arguments. The ossified nature of contemporary American conservatism, which, supply side economics aside, has changed remarkably little since the ascendancy of Goldwater Republicanism and the new right, is one of the main takeaways from this book.

Even as the cultural left has notched victory after victory-forcing mainstream conservatism to adopt  almost all of its central premises-the boundaries of acceptable discourse within the the respectable right have become more and more narrow. Thus, we have essays which could have been penned by Joan Walsh appearing in a magazine which describes itself as the most influential magazine and website for conservative news and opinion. The fact that there now exists an unbridgeable divide between conservative elites and their purported audience has been acknowledged by no less a conservative mandarin than Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal.

Whatever merit fusionism once held during the Cold War, its time has clearly passed. The splintering of the right-and consequent loss of power by its putative leaders-has opened up a long-suppressed discussion of what conservatism in its organic form means. Professor Hawley’s work is an invaluable starting point for that conversation.

Perhaps the greatest part of living in the current year is the access our civilization has to a virtually limitless supply of information. Although many refuse to take advantage of it, the fact is that we are living during an era which is unprecedented for acquiring and transmitting knowledge at light speed, which I-as someone who narrowly missed out on being a millennial-can appreciate. From the Khan Academy, to more structured online universities, to Web tutorials on how to construct 3D models, there is no domain of expertise concealed from anyone with a reliable Internet connection and a morsel of curiosity. However, the most revolutionary Web portal when it comes to collating and archiving the collective knowledge of humanity in an encyclopedic way is, without question, the website known as Wikipedia.

Founded by former options trader Jimmy Wales and philosopher David Sanger at the turn of the century, Wikipedia is still-despite my deep misgivings, which I’ll explore at length in this essay-an extraordinarily useful resource. Unfortunately, it is also a website which, like the others I’ve tackled in the past week, is administered by a group of individuals with intensely hidebound ideologies. Ideologies which frequently supersede any dispassionate search for truth when determining what articles are fit for inclusion-or exclusion, as the case may be. While an enormous amount of energy has been spent decrying the alleged misogyny of Jim Wales’s brainchild, as well as its overwhelmingly white base of contributors-and it is a very white, extremely male, and probably slightly autistic website-very little attention has been paid to the reflexive hostility many Wikipedians display towards any perspective which doesn’t dovetail with their rather cloistered worldview. Particularly, with regard to hotly contested cultural, economic, or political questions.

Although some critics of the gender/racial dynamics at play within Wikipedia have also pointed out the intellectually hermetic nature of its operation, and alluded to the problems this poses for honest, open debate about controversial historical and political subjects, that critique is often absent from most liberal analyses of this website. Conservatives, on the other hand, haven’t hesitated at pointing out that Wikipedia’s vaunted Neutral Point Of View does not exist, a view validated by independent scholarly studies. As a former active Wikipedian, I can attest to the fact that NPOV is pretty much bunkum, especially when it comes to highly controversial political subjects. It’s kind of like the average journalist’s notion of impartiality, which is really just an ex post facto rationalization of his or her own pre-existing socially progressive views. So that, in the same way that reporters don’t see anything racist in attacking Silicon Valley tech firms for having too many white, i.e. Asian, employees, Wikipedia admins don’t believe there’s a conflict of interest in a leftist political activist manipulating how you view a conservative rival.

Neutrality, just like impartiality, is not some sort of nonpartisan ideal to which you aspire in order to treat the subjects you’re covering fairly. It’s a reference point which is shaped by your own class and political prejudices. So treating the most notorious criminal case involving an abortionist as an afterthought, unworthy of inclusion in a comprehensive encyclopedia, isn’t a sign of an occluded worldview. Slandering opponents of feminism isn’t tendentious; it’s simply the default ideology, which frames the narrative that others must conform to in order to participate in this collective intellectual endeavor. Left wing interpretations of history, politics, economics, and culture are the norm, and deviations from that norm must be cordoned off from the  7th most popular website on the planet.

This is how our adversaries delimit acceptable debate, not only on Wikipedia but on various other enormously influential, powerful parts of the World Wide Web-as I’ve tried to illustrate throughout this series of essays on the sociological impact of new media. In my final post, I’ll explore some constructive options for altering the status quo.

One of the prerequisites for any immigration debate taking place in North America or Europe is that no advocate for reasonable immigration policies be given an equal opportunity to voice his or her views on the subject. The very notion that someone opposing unfettered third world immigration might be given the chance to articulate the views of most American citizens is anathema to our media gatekeepers. Thus, we have the spectacle of Mark Krikorian sharing a platform with two open borders dogmatists from ostensibly different parts of the ideological spectrum, despite there being very persuasive progressive and libertarian arguments against mass immigration to the West from the developing world.

Even so, this discussion of the 2016 presidential race-as well as the relative merits of the various candidates-is worth watching. There may come a time very soon when patriotic immigration voices are silenced altogether. Just ask our German friends about that.

Update: Roy Beck’s statement regarding the results in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District is now available online. 

The only question that remains is whether the heretofore tone deaf GOP leadership in the House of Representatives is listening.

We, like many patriotic Americans of every partisan affiliation, are celebrating the defeat of soon to be ex-Majority Leader Eric Cantor in yesterday’s Republican Party primary. The reaction of the open borders elites seeking to downplay the magnitude of this historic event has been all-too-predictable. Cantor’s corporate benefactors are already trying to orchestrate their next move in an ongoing attempt to flood this nation with millions of unskilled workers, while the drive-by media is doing its best to obfuscate the actual issues which animated Dave Brat’s successful campaign.

As Rush Limbaugh explained on his radio broadcast today, this victory-although sweet-is no excuse for letting down our guard. Just as we were assured that Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts doomed Obamacare, now we are told that congressional support for immigration reform, i.e. amnesty, has evaporated. Don’t buy into the hype! The campaign to force amnesty down the throats of the American public will only accelerate now that Luis Gutierrez’s companero has been removed from his comfy perch in Congress.

This isn’t the time for a victory lap, but for continued vigilance in the face of an open borders behemoth which will seek to extract revenge-primarily upon the American public-for this ignominious defeat.

It turns out that the Coulter-Kaus debate was broadcast on one of  C-SPAN’s many outlets yesterday, despite the unofficial CPAC ban on discussion of the most important domestic political issue. You can watch the full debate here. In addition to covering the political costs of amnesty and the legally and constitutionally dubious nature of the Obama administration’s administrative amnesty, they also explore the Democratic and Republican presidential fields and the political and economic consequences of Obamacare, as well as entitlement reform. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E_brownjr.jpg

While most of us would see intense wealth stratification, large pockets of third world poverty, and cratering academic achievement as poor indicators of future prosperity, the governor of the nation’s largest state begs to differ. 

Asked on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” about two negative indicators — the state’s nation-high poverty rate and the large number of Californians who are unemployed or marginally employed and looking for work — Brown said, “Well, that’s true, because California is a magnet. 

“People come here from all over in the world, close by from Mexico and Central America and farther out from Asia and the Middle East. So, California beckons, and people come. And then, of course, a lot of people who arrive are not that skilled, and they take lower paying jobs. And that reflects itself in the economic distribution.”

Ah, the philosophical sophistry that politicians will indulge in the name of political expediency. Yet another benefit of the beautiful mosaic.

One of the more galling aspects of an otherwise unremarkable speech delivered by the President commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was the attempt to link the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement during the 20th century with the attempts by open borders demagogues to further erode the value of American citizenship. Although to most reasonable Americans the linkage between these two social-political movements would seem puzzling-if not patently offensive-it is one repeatedly made by the treason lobby, perhaps most bizarrely by the permanently deranged Frank Sharry, who compared the current plight of illegal aliens to the suffering of antebellum slaves in the United States.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t too long ago that seemingly principled liberals opposed legislation which would retard the economic progress of the poorest Americans while at the same time reinforcing entrenched stratification. And while some still oppose a bill that would handicap the most disadvantaged American workers-in spite of overwhelming pressure to capitulate to the prevailing  kultursmog-most have succumbed to the open borders ideology which animates most elite institutions.

That’s why the letter penned by Coretta Scott King-the widow of the man whose name is synonymous with the march President Obama honored a few days ago-and issued by the Black Leadership Forum in opposition to a law that also expanded the opportunities for immigrants while introducing the dreadful Diversity Lottery at the expense of working class Americans, is required reading. The fact that there was a point in the not so distant past where liberal Democrats opposed the machinations of the cheap labor lobby-rather than bragged about their alliance with the Chamber of Commerce-is information that needs to be impressed upon those who have not been paying attention to this momentous debate, which-like the March on Washington before it-will have an inalterable impact upon the future of this nation.

A golf clap for Univision’s lackwit La Raza cheerleader for inviting an immigration patriot onto his program. Watch the entire interview to get a sense of the entitled mindset Americans are facing in the battle to thwart the latest amnesty scheme.

In addition to growing stratification and inequality, declining quality of life for its residents-to the point of making some metropolises wholly unlivable-and the unavoidable aspect of separate and unequal enforcement of the law, one of the benefits of America’s embrace of open borders immigration policy is the increasing acceptance of institutionalized discrimination. At least, against those of us who aren’t fluent Spanish speakers and don’t hail from south of the border.

While we are endlessly regaled with sympathetic media portrayals of men and women who have endured intolerable prejudice simply because they are Mexican-which in most cases is a euphemism for being in this country illegally-we seldom hear of the systemic discrimination found in Mexican society, especially against those with a slightly darker shade of complexion than brown.

This throwback to more unpleasant times has now made its away into one of the largest cities in the United States, thanks in part to an immigration policy that preaches multiculturalism while practicing monoculturalism.  Read the story for yourself on Fox News.