Politics & Society

Latino Voters’ Urgent Warning for Democrats — My Conversation With Mike Madrid

April 1, 2022 by Spencer Critchley

How could it be that the Democratic Party is losing Latino voters to the Trumpist Republican Party? How could it be that Democrats are losing support from blue collar workers? Both things are happening — and they’re related, according to voting expert, Lincoln Project co-founder, and my friend Mike Madrid.

Mike says the problem is that Democrats have increasingly become the party of a well-educated, well-intentioned but disconnected elite. He recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times called “While Democrats Debate ‘Latinx,’ Latinos Head to the G.O.P.”

I spoke with him for the March 28, 2022 episode of the Dastardly Cleverness in the Service of Good podcast. You can listen to it on any podcast app, or at dastardlycleverness.com.

A Guide for the Confused: “Wokeism,” Critical Theory, and Critical Race Theory

November 13, 2021 by Spencer Critchley

Also published at dastardlycleverness.com and as Episode 48 of the Dastardly Cleverness in the Service of Good podcast.

*Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw. Photos: Wikimedia Commons.*

On the one hand, Trumpist attacks on Critical Race Theory are in obvious bad faith: just more of the same race-based fear-mongering that helped put Birther 1 in office, that other Republicans have embraced, and that generates endless ad money for right-wing media outlets. It’s demagoguery 101.

On the other hand, even if you see through the phony panic, some of what you hear from critical race theorists can sound extreme, especially if you don’t know much about the context. For example, if you believe in equality, how should you interpret Ibram X. Kendi’s assertion that “racial discrimination is not inherently racist [if it’s] creating equity?”[1]

And by the way, what’s the difference between equity and equality?

[Read more…]

A War of Elites: The Intolerant Right vs. the Intolerant Left

August 30, 2021 by Spencer Critchley

Mirrored collage of the painting the Battle of Wagram by Horace Vernet, showing two identical Napoleons and their armies, facing each other. — *Collage of “The Battle of Wagram” by Horace Vernet. Original via Wikimedia Commons.*

The crisis we’re going through now isn’t a struggle between right and left, but between illiberalism and liberalism, on both the right and the left.

It’s the latest battle in a war that has been going on for a very long time. It amounts to a struggle for control between two intolerant elites, each trying to exploit the rest of the population in service of its own self-serving worldview.

One illiberal worldview is an empire of will, tending towards fascism — domination by a strongman who supposedly embodies the spirit of the nation — and the other an empire of mind, tending towards communism — domination by a dictatorial government supposedly legitimized by a “science of history.”

Small-l liberals, whether on the left or the right, reject both forms of illiberalism in favor of a tolerant, inclusive worldview that allows for a wide range of opinions as long as they’re expressed nonviolently.

Illiberalism of either sort is intolerant and leads to violence as the only remaining resort when people refuse to agree with the “right answer,” whether that’s defined as the right-wing illiberal’s radical individualism or the left-wing illiberal’s radical collectivism.

For those of us on the liberal left fighting the intolerance of the right but puzzled by the intolerance we see in our own ranks, I think we need to recognize its history — and make a clean break with that history.

[Read more…]

On the Podcast: Guns and Lies

June 8, 2021 by Spencer Critchley

Much of what Americans think they know about gun violence costs, causes, and solutions is wrong. To help fix that, The Guardian has been running a series of in-depth stories called “Guns and Lies.” Its lead reporter is my guest on Episode 44 of Dastardly Cleverness in the Service of Good: Abené Clayton of The Guardian. (Hear it on any podcast app.)

Abené recounts her own experiences with gun violence and the discoveries she’s made while covering the issue as a reporter. It’s a fascinating discussion that goes behind, and well beyond, the conventional wisdom and clichés of gun violence coverage.

If you don’t use a podcast app, you can also hear it at dastardlycleverness.com.

Scam + Scandal = Scamdal

March 15, 2021 by Spencer Critchley

Outraged man gaping at his smart phone — *iStock*

A few weeks ago the right wing media’s latest scam scandal — hereinafter known as a scamdal — was about the mainstream media supposedly hyping the story of Ted Cruz in Cancun, while burying allegations against Andrew Cuomo.

Surprise, it wasn’t true. The Cruz story is long gone from the MSM, while Cuomo is still leading, because there have been no new developments on Cruz and lots on Cuomo. But RW outlets issued no corrections to their scamdal; they just moved on to the next one.

Hence Dr. Seuss and the Potatoheads.

People who ignore RW media probably don’t appreciate that this happens every day, year round. The infinite cycle goes like this:

“Expose” a scamdal.
Demand to know why the mainstream media isn’t covering it. (If the story has actual news value, the MSM is covering it, but devoted RW media consumers won’t know that. If as is so often the case the story is just bull, that’s kind of a deal-breaker for legitimate journalists.)
Go “in depth” behind the “crisis,” filling the schedule.
As the story starts to feel a little old — scamdals must always be new and urgent — milk it once more in the weekly roundup of “stories the mainstream media didn’t want you to hear.”
Add it to the “evergreen” stock, along with Birtherism, Benghazi, Hillary’s emails, Fast and Furious, transgender bathroom marauders, and all the other never-corrected, ever-remembered scamdals — all of which add up to just one message, repeated over and over and over, because it’s so lucrative:

“Trust no one but us, so you’ll buy whatever we sell.”