Whats fun about this is that those who accuse others of xenophobia at the drop of a hat have been guilty of this from the beginning. Their denials and protestations are as childish as they are hollow. The twisted logic the employ to justify their behavior is as bizarre as it comes. They claim they are coming from the intellectual and moral high ground. The reason? They agree with their own logic, the ultimate in circular reasoning. The fun part is (if you cared to waste your time to do it) that you can destroy them using Alinsky's Rules for Radicals and 99% won't even know that's what you're doing! Enjoy this short work exposing the hypocrisy.
Who’s the Xenophobe Now?
The anti-Trump and anti-Brexit forces share a snobbery toward ordinary voters.
ENLARGE
A London protest against the pro-Brexit vote, June 25. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By
William McGurn
June 27, 2016 7:20 p.m. ET
Post-Brexit, the blind are leading the bigoted.
The blind are the legions of politicos, celebrities, pollsters and opinion leaders certain Britain would vote to remain inside the European Union. Notwithstanding their utter shock that the results went the other way, they are now equally certain they know the reason: The bigoted British people.
On air, in print and across social media, the Remain camp continues to slur all who disagree. It seems not to have occurred to them that their preference for slander over argument may have backfired.
Nor do any seem to have access to a thesaurus. Not only do they all offer the same tired explanation, they all invoke the same word: xenophobia.
At such moments it’s always illuminating to step back and take in the reaction of the New York Times. It does not disappoint. A search of “Brexit” and “xenophobia” on the Times online turns up nearly a dozen stories since the vote.
In fairness, the Times is hardly an outlier here and is not even among the most ridiculous. The Independent didn’t even wait for the vote. The day before it carried a headline declaring that “Xenophobia is the new normal.”
Over at CNN, meanwhile, Christiane Amanpour reported as the voting took place that “a lot of the Leave movements are led by the hard-right, very, very xenophobic, anti-immigrant, very populist, nationalist, white identity politics.”
On Monday, the Guardian offered up a twofer pegged to a vow from soon-to-be-ex-Prime Minister David Cameron vowing he will not tolerate intolerance. “Cameron condemns post-Brexit xenophobic and racist abuse” ran the headline, over a story that later quoted the Muslim mayor of London as saying it’s crucial not to “demonise” those who voted for Brexit as “xenophobic or racist.”
Perhaps in recognition of the contradiction, a later version deleted the mayor’s call not to demonize the anti-Brexit voters or call them xenophobic.
Finally, in the sign that the word has probably lost its punch, Joe Biden reached for it in a speech in Ireland on Friday in which the vice president reproached “reactionary politicians and demagogues peddling xenophobia, nationalism, and isolationism.” It’s “un-American,” Mr. Biden said, meaning xenophobia rather than the British vote, which of course by definition would be un-American.
It’s a fascinating exercise, and it continues unabated. As this column is being written it appears that every newsman in Britain has been assigned to go out and record every anti-Muslim insult, every call for some foreigner to go back whence he came, every hate crime in which, for example, a customer in a restaurant demands he be served by a British waiter instead of a European one.
But xenophobia works both ways. Without gainsaying that some pro-Brexit voters may have been motivated by an ugly jingoism, what does it say about the tolerant class that so much of its argument is based on the proposition that most British voters are unregenerate troglodytes who had no legitimate reason to vote as they did?
Xenophobia, of course, comes from the Greek for “stranger” and “fear.” The idea here is that the British—in particular, the older, more rural and working-class voters—rejected an enlightened arrangement with Europe because they are either too stupid or too blinded by their own ignorance and prejudice to understand how good a deal this is for them.
A question: How does this view of the majority of the British people—as a form of alien life with disgusting beliefs unfit for polite society—differ in substance from the view a bigoted British bricklayer might have toward the immigrants living in his midst?
Another question: How different is this portrait of the British as xenophobes from the picture of working-class Pennsylvanians presented by Barack Obamaback when he was first running for president?
Speaking to his wealthy California patrons at a fundraiser in uber-chic Marin County, the president in 2008 characterized them as folks who “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” What could be more xenophobic?
Right now, most of the reporting on the American parallels to Brexit has focused on Donald Trump. It’s a fair comparison, especially given how the presumptive Republican nominee’s calls to rewrite U.S. trade agreements, reassess U.S. foreign alliances and revise U.S. immigration policies echo some of the arguments advanced by the anti-EU side in Britain.
But it’s not the only Trump parallel. Another is the undisguised snobbery toward ordinary voters the anti-Brexit and anti-Trump sides have in common. In Britain at least, the people appear to have picked up on it, and this helped push Brexit over the top. Maybe there’s a warning there for the anti-Trump crowd about the price of condescension in a society where the people are still sovereign.
Write to mcgurn@wsj.com.
Who’s the Xenophobe Now?
The anti-Trump and anti-Brexit forces share a snobbery toward ordinary voters.
A London protest against the pro-Brexit vote, June 25. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By
William McGurn
June 27, 2016 7:20 p.m. ET
Post-Brexit, the blind are leading the bigoted.
The blind are the legions of politicos, celebrities, pollsters and opinion leaders certain Britain would vote to remain inside the European Union. Notwithstanding their utter shock that the results went the other way, they are now equally certain they know the reason: The bigoted British people.
On air, in print and across social media, the Remain camp continues to slur all who disagree. It seems not to have occurred to them that their preference for slander over argument may have backfired.
Nor do any seem to have access to a thesaurus. Not only do they all offer the same tired explanation, they all invoke the same word: xenophobia.
At such moments it’s always illuminating to step back and take in the reaction of the New York Times. It does not disappoint. A search of “Brexit” and “xenophobia” on the Times online turns up nearly a dozen stories since the vote.
In fairness, the Times is hardly an outlier here and is not even among the most ridiculous. The Independent didn’t even wait for the vote. The day before it carried a headline declaring that “Xenophobia is the new normal.”
Over at CNN, meanwhile, Christiane Amanpour reported as the voting took place that “a lot of the Leave movements are led by the hard-right, very, very xenophobic, anti-immigrant, very populist, nationalist, white identity politics.”
On Monday, the Guardian offered up a twofer pegged to a vow from soon-to-be-ex-Prime Minister David Cameron vowing he will not tolerate intolerance. “Cameron condemns post-Brexit xenophobic and racist abuse” ran the headline, over a story that later quoted the Muslim mayor of London as saying it’s crucial not to “demonise” those who voted for Brexit as “xenophobic or racist.”
Perhaps in recognition of the contradiction, a later version deleted the mayor’s call not to demonize the anti-Brexit voters or call them xenophobic.
Finally, in the sign that the word has probably lost its punch, Joe Biden reached for it in a speech in Ireland on Friday in which the vice president reproached “reactionary politicians and demagogues peddling xenophobia, nationalism, and isolationism.” It’s “un-American,” Mr. Biden said, meaning xenophobia rather than the British vote, which of course by definition would be un-American.
It’s a fascinating exercise, and it continues unabated. As this column is being written it appears that every newsman in Britain has been assigned to go out and record every anti-Muslim insult, every call for some foreigner to go back whence he came, every hate crime in which, for example, a customer in a restaurant demands he be served by a British waiter instead of a European one.
But xenophobia works both ways. Without gainsaying that some pro-Brexit voters may have been motivated by an ugly jingoism, what does it say about the tolerant class that so much of its argument is based on the proposition that most British voters are unregenerate troglodytes who had no legitimate reason to vote as they did?
Xenophobia, of course, comes from the Greek for “stranger” and “fear.” The idea here is that the British—in particular, the older, more rural and working-class voters—rejected an enlightened arrangement with Europe because they are either too stupid or too blinded by their own ignorance and prejudice to understand how good a deal this is for them.
A question: How does this view of the majority of the British people—as a form of alien life with disgusting beliefs unfit for polite society—differ in substance from the view a bigoted British bricklayer might have toward the immigrants living in his midst?
Another question: How different is this portrait of the British as xenophobes from the picture of working-class Pennsylvanians presented by Barack Obamaback when he was first running for president?
Speaking to his wealthy California patrons at a fundraiser in uber-chic Marin County, the president in 2008 characterized them as folks who “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” What could be more xenophobic?
Right now, most of the reporting on the American parallels to Brexit has focused on Donald Trump. It’s a fair comparison, especially given how the presumptive Republican nominee’s calls to rewrite U.S. trade agreements, reassess U.S. foreign alliances and revise U.S. immigration policies echo some of the arguments advanced by the anti-EU side in Britain.
But it’s not the only Trump parallel. Another is the undisguised snobbery toward ordinary voters the anti-Brexit and anti-Trump sides have in common. In Britain at least, the people appear to have picked up on it, and this helped push Brexit over the top. Maybe there’s a warning there for the anti-Trump crowd about the price of condescension in a society where the people are still sovereign.
Write to mcgurn@wsj.com.
