The New York Times just published an article headlined As Trump Attacks D.E.I., Some on the Left Approve. If you actually read what leftists say in this article, however, you’ll notice that none of them actually approve of Trump’s attacks. There are some obvious reasons why this should surprise no one:
Leftists generally do not approve of Trump
The New York Times generally does not approve of the left
Media publications often run with sensational headlines that do not actually reflect the content because they want to get clicks.
A careful reader would probably guess the truth just by looking at the headline, and would certainly find it after reading the article.
But Jamelle Bouie is counting on you not being careful. Here’s how he responds:
Again, the leftists in this article do not say that Trump “has a point” in his criticism of DEI. This quote has been utterly fabricated by Bouie because he can’t use what people like Bhaskar Sunkara and Faiz Shakir actually said. Consider Bhaskar’s comments. First he criticizes Al Sharpton for the timing of his promotion of Costco’s DEI initivatives:
Al Sharpton making Costco into a titan of progress that needs mass support days before a potential strike…
This is not an endorsement of Trump’s attacks. This is not Bhaskar saying that Trump “has a point”. This is Bhaskar criticizing Al Sharpton over a specific action on narrow strategic grounds. Here’s Bhaskar’s next quote:
I am definitely happy this stuff is buried for now…I hope it doesn’t come back.
This is not an endorsement of Trump’s attacks. This is not Bhaskar saying that Trump “has a point”. This is Bhaskar celebrating the decline of DEI initiatives for entirely different reasons. Here’s Bhaskar’s next quote:
do i roll my eyes at a lot of DEI stuff? yeah, i wrote a whole essay about why i thought it was bullshit back in 2020.
Haha just kidding, this is actually a quote from Jamelle Bouie himself. But this just illustrates the implicit rule: if a liberal has objections to DEI, we are supposed to interpret this as generously as possible, understanding that these are not objections to egalitarianism itself but rather to various corporate initiatives and cultural ideas advanced in egalitarian’s name. If a socialist has objections to DEI, however, we are to read this as ungenerously as possible, taking for granted that this is an objection to egalitarianism itself.
I want to emphasize this point because one sees variations on it constantly. If you watch the discourse closely, you’ll see liberals give themselves permission to criticize all kinds of things: DEI, Democrats, imperialism, etcetera. When they do this, it is always interpeted as a sign of broad-minded self-criticism. But if a socialist dares to say the exact same thing, this is interpreted in the worst light possible, with all kinds of insane implications drawn from it.
Bouie, for example, takes Bhaskar’s vague comment about some DEI “stuff” and asks “do bhaskar and faiz thing [sic] the civil rights act of 1964 is a distraction from class solidarity?” This doesn’t even make sense because Bhaskar’s comment is about DEI stuff that “is gone” and the Civil Rights Act is still very much with us. I asked Bhaskar about this and here’s what he said himself:
Of course, I think the Civil Rights Act of 1964-was a good thing…I think the piece is very clear, despite the selective quotes, that we think Trump is using the attacks as a fig leaf for austerity. [Bouie]’s ironically jumping on a Times written headline as opposed to any of our individual quotes.
All I can add to this is that there’s really nothing ironic about it. As I’ve noted in the past, despite his subsequent rebrand as a Bernie Sanders “progressive”, Bouie spent his entire 2016 campaign attacking socialists with spurious accusations and innuendo about racism. (Though he has deleted his tweet history from the time, one can still get a sense of what he was saying from the responses.) This kind of patently dishonest attack on socialists is exactly what a longtime watcher of Bouie should expect.
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