The Smug Style in American Leftism

Freddie tries to horn in on Emmett Rensin’s racket:

21st century liberalism: an ideology designed to tell our educated cultural elite that people who are not like them deserve suffering.

— Freddie deBoer (@freddiedeboer) May 11, 2016

As I said the last time we encountered this kind of assertion, name one liberal of any significant prominence or influence who thinks that “people who are not like them deserve suffering.” Rensin still hasn’t. And deBoer hasn’t either. He cites Jeet Heer’s twitter feed, which as you note if you scrawl down says absolutely nothing remotely resembling this. In a blog post, he cites Paul Krugman, who says…absolutely nothing remotely resembling this, and two other writers who say absolutely nothing resembling this. deBoer’s readings go well beyond uncharitable to outright dishonesty. If you read his own post carefully, you’ll note that he effectively concedes that he doesn’t have the goods:

More, I am here asking that we consider whether we want to adopt the basic logic of conservatism: that some people’s distress is deserved and thus safely ignored. Because that is the inevitable consequence of thinking like Krugman.

Krugman and the other writers, do make the point — which deBoer does not contest — that Trump’s support is largely a product of white supremacy. What he absolutely does not say is that poor white people with white supremacist beliefs “deserve to suffer.” deBoer has to smuggle in an assertion that this is an “inevitable” logical outgrowth of the arguments of Krugman et al. The first problem with this assertion is that it is risible, anti-intellectual nonsense on its face — there’s no logical contradiction in observing that white supremacy is driving a lot of Trump’s support and supporting policies that help many Trump voters. And the second problem is that, in practice, Krugman et al. do in fact support policies that will help (inter alia) economically suffering Trump supporters in West Virginia — increased wealth transfers, access to health care, infrastructure spending that would increase access to decent jobs, etc. etc. The idea that honestly analyzing the basis for Trump’s support entails a desire to punish Trump supporters just could not be more wrong.

I conclude with one of the less self-aware sentences ever written:

Nor did I get interested in politics for the righteous thrill of lording it over the wrong.

This from a man who believes this believes that the left should simply absent itself from electoral politics — leading inevitably to Republican governments that really would inflict devastation on the economically suffering, including economically suffering Trump voters — until a party nominates a presidential candidate who publicly agrees with Freddie deBoer about everything. Projection is a hell of a drug.