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Goldwater explaining his opposition to the 1964 CRA: "I would like to point out to my colleagues in the Senate and to the people of America, regardless of their race, color or creed, the implications involved in the enforcement of regulatory legislation of this sort. To give genuine effect to the prohibitions of the bill will require the creation of a Federal police force of mammoth proportions. It also bids fair to result in the development of an 'informer' psychology in great areas of our national life--neighbors spying on neighbors, workers spying on workers, businessmen spying on businessmen, where those who would harass their fellow citizens for selfish and narrow purposes will have ample inducement to do so. These, the Federal police force and an 'informer' psychology, are the hallmarks of the police state and landmarks in the destruction of a free society."

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Griggs v. Duke Power almost certainly accelerated the transformation of college from an institution of higher education to a credential mill. Which is hilarious and sad at the same time, because if I had to choose whether I were allowed to give entrance exams to law students or to power plant workers, I know which one I'd choose.

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This is a great article. Well done. However, small bone to pick...

I would argue that the reactions to the Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seus debacles were not "hysterical." People rightfully sense that something is afoot and that the world as they know it is slipping away. When people watch a innocuous toy or a light hearted children's book targeted by the woke D.I.E. enthusiasts they rightfully have strong emotions and go on the defensive. That is no more "hysterical" than it is "hysterical" to engage in self defense when one is being attacked.

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The closing observation about the appeal of conspiracy theories is an insightful one. I think there's an underappreciation of how deflating the experience of the first two years of the Trump presidency (despite a GOP trifecta supposedly poised to roll back Obama-era policies) really was for the party base. Every widely celebrated progressive advance (DACA, the Affordable Care Act, same-sex marriage) seemed utterly impervious to any kind of a roll-back. Republicans had campaigned vigorously on these issues for a decade, and then suddenly were forced to reveal that there was no strategy for implementing any of that vigorous opposition. It was all theatrics.

If the only options are "Qanon" or "hard blackpill", a range of personality types will swallow literally anything other than the latter. "You're on the losing end of irreversible transformations in American politics and all we can offer you is some kind of palliative care" can never be the philosophical foundation of a successful political movement, no matter how true it may be.

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This is a great analysis of how we got here. Isn't the real issue now that the right defends institutions and processes while the left tries to get power? This idea of accomplishing what the left wants but in a better way is everywhere on the right.

The purpose of the Republican party should not be to create fair systems that can then be subverted by the left. It should be to advance the interests of its voters. A great start to this would be to actually use civil rights law to require half of public school teachers to be male and force colleges to start hiring conservative professors, for example.. Create our very own affirmative action system.

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Surprised not to see Christopher Caldwell's "The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties" referenced here. The argument he makes is similar to the argument made here. The book received several surprisingly fair reviews from the media if you want get a flavor for it. The Vox interview and NYMag review are pretty good.

I think Republicans are too scared to take on affirmative action, especially in today's climate. "Racism" and to a lesser extent "sexism" are potentially career ruining cudgels that the Democrats hold over their heads.

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“ 1) Eliminating disparate impact, making the law require evidence of intentional discrimination.”

This would mean any bigot competent enough not to put evidence in writing could run a bigoted company that doesn’t hire X sort of people. Not sure if this is what you want!

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Change the law...sigh.

I'm sure if I look I'll find 1933 Jews hiring lawyers to protect their rights from the new Government in Germany...

Change the Law. The Laws do not apply to them, the laws rarely in history apply to power.

They who are sovereign decide the exceptions, in this case they've excepted their entire apparatus of power.

We have to change the government, and as far as cancellation we need to cancel those who would cancel us, or as they put it 'Erase Whiteness." ERASE WHITENESS is pretty clear.

It's openly genocidal. Against the law 18USC s.1091 C- Incitement of Genocide- but clearly there are no laws that apply to them.

This is past a matter of laws or culture; this is an existential conflict.

Now the ERASE WHITENESS crowd are merely hired thugs doing their master's bidding.

A tiny number.

A larger but still very small number of a few thousand to a few tens of thousands drive the entire 'culture' and certainly the government.

Interestingly enough mostly elite whites and their charming spawn.

The idea of changing laws or even more ridicule worthy elections is patent fantasy.

We cancel those who wish to Erase us by any means available and all means necessary.

In survival any means are justified by the end- survival.

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So conservatives just want to go back to the 1950s? I knew it

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I found your article from a link at Revolver.news. I'm very glad I did, because you hit a 3-run homer with this article. I have thought a lot about how to combat "wokeness" and was as baffled and helpless as you described Tom Cotton (I saw that interview and even thought the same thing, he had no idea what to do about wokeness.) But I didn't have any idea either. Individual resistance is indeed futile. Your premise that the entire woke movement is based in laws passed over the years is brilliant, and I think you are absolutely right. This article is the first one I have ever read explaining the origins of wokeness. You also layout concrete, albeit long term, measures to dismantle it, which I have also never seen before. I subscribed to your newsletter and will go back and read your earlier work. I'm glad I found you, and you can thank Revolver.news.

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This is an outstanding article and it is gratifying that a writer with an audience has correctly blamed the parallel Constitution created in the 1960s and the vast academic, corporate, and governmental bureaucracies enforcing it, which every Republican now seems happy to defend as "progress."

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This isn't true - Griggs v Duke Power ruled that IF an employment test resulted in disparate impacts among minority groups, the court must evaluate whether the employment test is "reasonably related to the job for which the test is required". In this case, the court ruled that the company's employment tests were unrelated to applicants' ability to perform the jobs at issue. It's empirically false to state that Griggs v Duke Power was only about disparate outcomes.

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One more thing to add to Richard's list. The courts need to rule that subjective harm is insufficient for an institution to take action against the accused. Currently, if a student claims that certain language instigates trauma, a school will take action against the speaker. The court needs to create a standard where damages have to be proven, and can't just be subjective to the person making the claim.

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Interesting analysis. I would add one more "litmus test" on the wokeness front, although I believe this would have to be done at the state level. Many states mandate that each town in the state needs to have a certain amount of their housing set aside for low income families. I guess this was originally meant to be a way to address affordable housing issues, although I don't think there are many rural areas where this is really an issue. But at least in the woker (or more woke?) areas it's come to be a way to foster diversity. My small college town is very excited about these initiatives as a way to import poorer people and increase our racial diversity. And of course I have no problem with anyone moving into the town, and I'm glad laws prevent racial discrimination in this area. But I have no idea why it's widely accepted that we want to encourage poorer people to move in, who by definition will pay little in property taxes but require more in services and perhaps have adverse effects on crime and school performance statistics. It's the exact opposite of what normally functioning towns would want.

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Despite my earlier nitpicking I should also have said that this was a very good article and that you have a fine analytical mind and is refreshingly intellectually honest, Mr Hanania.

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I share your picture of the GOP as a completely ineffective institution in the sense that the GOP either cannot or don't want to (And I think it's the latter 'cause the donors has the last say on any issue while voters can only rubber stamp an individual for a number of years) take issue with one thing you wrote very early on "...And it makes sense because his voters don’t really care either but want someone to say the right words.”

This is absolutely not true for the most part of the voters, I would readily make an exception for the most slavish devotees of the Trump personal cult, but white average americans hasn't had somebody who has genuinely represented their interests since at least the cold war ended (And one could easily argue since before the 70s ended).

So in a sense average white americans, who make up 90 % of the GOPs electorate, are like starving children hungry for anybody that seems to take their side and seems to care about their interests and the problems they are experiencing - the media certainly doesnät - and the first sign of somebody doing that is of course their talking about the problems that affects you. This is of course not all it takes, action is necessry, but any sane man who hasn't given up on the system would still vote for the person who at least says he will take care of your interests before the candidate that is completely oblivious to your interests.

If a presidential candidate in the srtyle of Tucker Carlsson got involved in the next race and took the average americans intersts in stride verbally and then delivered on the promises Trump would be forgotten in an instant and it would become apparent how lousy of a huckster Trump really was.

Now, the dispicable GOP-politicans have understood this and always give lip service to what the voters care about when it's election season, but somehow those promises made by the GOP representatives, att all levels of government, never turn into highly prioritized policy issues - because in the end it's the donors - who are overwhelmingly socially liberal, fiscally "conservative" - ie they favor low taxes for the very rich, woke or at least not not-woke arte the one's who decide what the agenda should be when it comes to policy priorities when the electionis over. And this goes for every level in the GOP, I would say.

The best thing for white amercicans would be if the GOP was utterly destroyed and the despicable narcisstic hustler Trump was sentenced to a life sentence on Saint Helena - what election promises did he make good on: Building a wall? Stopping Migration? Making sure jobs returned to the US? Upholding Law and Order?

No, it was cutting taxes for the rich, giving Israel carte blanche for their expansionist policies and their ethnic cleansing of the West bank - something only the lunatic christian sionist fringe, an ever smaller part of the GOP electorate, cares about, and prison reform which means that ever more danceropus criminals are now out on the streets and to boot letting the worst riots for at least thirty years, arguably 50 years, just pass by with 36 people killed and billions in damages, all because a robber who had put a pistol to a pregnant womens belly and demanded her money were killed by a fentanyl overdose and how he's Saint Floyd, actually bigger than Jesus.

And for this Trump lost the white working class and suffered a well deserved defeat in a few key states (Although I wouldn't be surprized if there were election fraud involved - every part of the elite and it's institutions wanted Trump gone - but good riddance I say).

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