Republicans, who were already much less positive than Democrats about higher education, have turned very negative on the role of colleges in America. True to form, this worries some liberal commentators, who are calling for outreach – universities should examine their implicit biases, make an effort to hire more conservative faculty, etc..
.. After all, among college professors 59 percent identify as Democrats versus only 13 percent as Republicans; senior faculty were even more liberal, with very few identifying themselves as conservatives.
.. Oh, wait – that wasn’t a survey of college professors; it was a 2004 survey of the military, and the 59-13 comparison was of Republicans versus Democrats.
.. The point is that your political orientation isn’t something handed to you, like your race or ethnicity. It’s a choice, reflecting your values – and those same values are likely to influence your choice of profession
.. But hasn’t the anti-conservative lean of academics gotten more pronounced over time? Yes – but surely that has a lot to do with the changing nature of what it means to be a conservative. When denial of climate change, and for that matter the theory of evolution, become tribal markers, you shouldn’t be surprised to find academics, very much including those in the hard sciences, decline to be identified as members of the tribe.
.. But there used to be at least some pretense of taking facts and hard thinking seriously. Now anyone pointing out awkward facts – immigrants haven’t brought a reign of terror, coal jobs can’t be brought back, Trump lost the popular vote – is the enemy. In fact, I’d argue that anti-intellectualism was, in its own way, as big a factor in the election as racism.
.. America basically invented the modern, educated society, leading the way on universal K-12 education, building the world’s finest and most comprehensive higher education system; this in turn was an important factor in how we became leader of the free world. Now a powerful political movement basically wants to make America ignorant again.
Italians Say Government Committing ‘Ethnic Replacement’ — Poll
The majority of Italians want to see migrant arrivals stopped completely, and believe the ‘ius soli’ law being pushed by Italy’s globalist government is “ethnic replacement”, enacted to boost the proportion of left wing voters in the nation.
ruling Democratic Party (PD) say that passing the long-awaited ius soli (meaning ‘law of the soil’ in Latin) bill, which would make it much easier for second generation immigrants to gain citizenship, would send an important message that “migrants are an integrated part of society”.
.. The survey found strong opposition to mass migration, with more than 70 per cent of people polled disagreeing with the statement: “[Italy] must welcome the Africans who are arriving in boats.”
Germany’s Newest Intellectual Antihero
Hitler, in retrospect, turns out to have done a paradoxical thing: He bound Germans and Jews together in a narrative for all time. In an otherwise relativistic and disenchanted world, Mr. Sieferle writes, Germans appear in this narrative as the absolute enemies of our common humanity, as a scapegoat people. The role is hereditary. There are Germans whose grandparents were not born when the war ended, yet they, too, must take on the role.
.. Specifically, Jews were cast as either indifferent to or responsible for the crucifixion. In the eyes of today’s world, German identity symbolizes a similar rejection of some kind of revelation. “In every city Christianity had built cathedrals to its murdered God,” Mr. Sieferle writes. “Today, the Jews, to whom God himself had promised eternity, build memorials throughout the world to their murdered coreligionists. Not only are the victims ascribed a moral superiority, the wrongdoers and their symbols are ascribed an eternal depravity.”
.. He believed that Germany’s self-demonization had left it unable to say anything but yes to a million or so migrants seeking entry to Europe in 2015 and that such a welcome was unsustainable. Whether he was right or wrong, this was a concern shared by many Germans, and not necessarily an idle expression of animus.
.. When the German literary establishment unanimously denounced Mr. Sieferle’s work as an extremist tract, readers did not nod in agreement. They pulled out their wallets and said, “That must be the book for me.” This is a sign that distrust of authority in Germany has reached worrisome levels, possibly American ones.
Canada’s Secret to Resisting the West’s Populist Wave
Outsiders might assume this is because Canada is simply more liberal, but they would be wrong. Rather, Canada has resisted the populist wave through a set of strategic decisions, powerful institutional incentives, strong minority coalitions and idiosyncratic circumstances.
.. In other Western countries, right-wing populism has emerged as a politics of us-versus-them. It pits members of white majorities against immigrants and minorities, driven by a sense that cohesive national identities are under threat. In France, for instance, it is common to hear that immigration dilutes French identity, and that allowing minority groups to keep their own cultures erodes vital elements of Frenchness.
Identity works differently in Canada. Both whites and nonwhites see Canadian identity as something that not only can accommodate outsiders, but is enhanced by the inclusion of many different kinds of people.
Canada is a mosaic rather than a melting pot, several people told me — a place that celebrates different backgrounds rather than demanding assimilation.
.. Around the world, people tend to identify with their race, religion or at least language. Even in the United States, an immigrant nation, politics have long clustered around demographic in-groups.
Canada’s multicultural identity is largely the resultof political maneuvering.
.. Mr. Trudeau’s solution was a policy of official multiculturalism and widespread immigration. This would resolve the conflict over whether Canadian identity was more Anglophone or Francophone — it would be neither, with a range of diversity wide enough to trivialize the old divisions.
.. It would also provide a base of immigrant voters to shore up Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party.
.. Then, in the early 2000s, another politician’s shrewd calculation changed the dynamics of ethnic politics, cementing multiculturalism across all parties.
Jason Kenney, then a Conservative member of Parliament, convinced Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the party should court immigrants, who — thanks to Mr. Trudeau’s efforts — had long backed the Liberal Party.
“I said the only way we’d ever build a governing coalition was with the support of new Canadians, given changing demography,” Mr. Kenney said.
He succeeded. In the 2011 and 2015 elections, the Conservatives won a higher share of the vote among immigrants than it did among native-born citizens.
The result is a broad political consensus around immigrants’ place in Canada’s national identity.
.. That creates a virtuous cycle. All parties rely on and compete for minority voters, so none has an incentive to cater to anti-immigrant backlash.
.. In Britain, among white voters who say they want less immigration, about 40 percent also say that limiting immigration is the most important issue to them. In the United States, that figure is about 20 percent. In Canada, according to a 2011 study, it was only 0.34 percent.
.. One reason may be Canada’s unusual immigration policies. A sponsorship system, in which Canadian families host newcomers, allows communities to feel they are a part of the country’s refugee resettlement program.
And a points system, which favors migrants who are thought to contribute economically, makes immigration feel like something that benefits everyone.
.. Virtually every immigrant to Canada is brought here deliberately. Research suggests that uncontrolled immigration, for example the mass arrival of refugees in Europe, can trigger a populist backlash, regardless of whether those arrivals pose a threat.
“We have the luxury of being surrounded by oceans on three sides, and then by the U.S. border,” Mr. Hussen said. “Which, relative to your southern border, doesn’t have the same amount of irregular migration.”
.. Immo Fritsche, a professor at the University of Leipzig, in Germany, has found that when people feel a loss of control, they cling more closely to racial and national identities. And they desire leaders who promise to reassert control.
.. But Canada’s points- and sponsorship-based systems, along with its geographic position, help communities feel a sense of control over immigration so that, even as new arrivals change politics and society, backlash has been minimal.