E-Pluribus | Apr. 8, 2021
Here is a round up of the latest and best writing and musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Tenzin Dorjee: Anti-China is not anti-Asian
A researcher at Tibet Action Institute, Tenzin Dorjee, pushes back against the idea that criticizing the totalitarian government of China contributes to anti-Asian violence. While no one should gloss over the reality of the problem of the increase in violence, the misplaced anger of some should not justify toning down the wider abuses of the regime.
First of all, let’s be clear that there is no bipartisan political rhetoric targeting Asia, a continent of nearly 50 nations. Conflating Asia with China is the geopolitical equivalent of assuming all Asians are Chinese, precisely the kind of racial lumping that the writers themselves sensibly caution against.
To be sure, criticism of the Chinese government by policymakers in Washington has escalated in recent years. But the overwhelming volume of the rhetoric targeting Beijing has been prompted not by abstract geopolitical competition but by tangible grievances, including China’s genocide in Xinjiang, intensifying repression in Tibet, dismantling of democracy in Hong Kong and sweeping crackdown on Chinese civil society. Some of Beijing’s harshest critics are Asian Americans. Uyghur refugees, Hong Kong democrats, Chinese dissidents and Tibetan exiles such as myself, whose communities back home reel under Beijing’s boot, are urging Congress to censure China for its crimes. Asking lawmakers of conscience to hold their tongue on Beijing’s genocide to supposedly prevent racial violence here is to set up a false trade-off between Asian American safety and Uyghur lives, both of which should be treated as nonnegotiable.
Moreover, there is no research-based evidence that American lawmakers’ legitimate criticism of Beijing has a causal effect on violence against Asians. In fact, Washington’s political rhetoric has been rising steadily over the past half decade, during which Beijing built the Uyghur internment camps, demolished Hong Kong’s democracy and chipped away at the liberal international order. Anti-Asian attacks remained rare during this whole period, soaring only when the pandemic hit. If China had contained covid-19 within its borders, or if the United States had succeeded in keeping it out, no amount of congressional criticism against Beijing would have made us afraid to ride the subway at night.
Read it all at The Washington Post.
Dan McLaughlin: Papa John Was Railroaded
In a 2018 episode reminiscent of the more recent story of Donald McNeil’s departure from the New York Times over his pronouncing of a racial slur in the context of discussing another’s use of the word, John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John’s pizza, had his life similarly upended. Dan McLaughlin now details the incident with recently unsealed evidence that sheds more light on the circumstances that led to Schnatter’s downfall.
With the newly released evidence, we can now get an inside look at a saga of culture clash and betrayal. This is a story of corporate cancel culture run amok, and the only thing that makes it different is that the target was a guy big enough to fight back. If Schnatter were anything but the founder, chairman of the board, and largest shareholder of the company, what chance would he stand?
[…]
Schnatter became a high-value target in the culture wars a decade ago. In 2011, he pulled Papa John’s ads from Wonkette after the site mocked Sarah Palin’s then-toddler son for having Down syndrome, making Schnatter a long-running butt of retaliatory attacks by Wonkette’s sister websites in the Gawker Media universe, such as Deadspin. In 2012, Schnatter criticized Obamacare as bad for his business, and some Papa John’s fans rallied in support after he came under fire for that position. Schnatter was also a multimillion-dollar donor to Americans for Prosperity and other Koch brothers pro–free-market initiatives, teaming with them to endow scholars at the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville. Schnatter himself valued his total donations to Koch-related projects at $53 million.
[…]
Now that we finally have a public record of what transpired on the entire call, it is clear that Schnatter — who had no prior record of racial incidents — has been the victim of character assassination. It appears that the Forbes article may have been revenge by his ad agency after Schnatter fired them. Schnatter alleges, not without reason, that the whole thing was an ambush from the beginning, as the agency was already on thin ice with the company. Either way, the reactions by the ad-agency personnel on the call are symptomatic of people too saturated in left-wing political assumptions to see Schnatter with any measure of fairness or perspective.
Read the whole thing.
Daniel Henninger: Yes, Boycott Baseball
In the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger makes the case that boycotts can be an appropriate response to, in his words, “the progressives’ new corporate cancel-culture all-star team[.]” Henninger believes the economic reasons that lead corporations to knuckle under to “woke” pressures can also be used to force them back in the other direction.
Though he’s been absent from this column for weeks, it’s time to put Donald Trump back in play. He’s right: Boycott baseball — and the rest of the progressives’ new corporate cancel-culture all-star team, including Patagonia, H&M, Uber, Tripadvisor, Levi’s, Blue Apron, Nordstrom and SoFi.
Why boycott them? Because their leaders assume that most of their customers are compliant saps. Mr. Manfred knows that he can get away with smearing half a Southern state as racist (still), because fans everywhere will yet again choke down the political and personal insult and trudge forward to watch the “home team” play. So they win and you lose in the large-stakes political game being played daily by progressives across America.
It’s worth considering why so many corporate and institutional leaders have rolled over for any wild charge the left lobs at its enemies. There are two reasons — one commercial, the other historically deeper and more important.
Most of commercial life today revolves around one idea — promoting a company’s “brand.” No dopes, the left saw that if they could generate 500 hostile social-media posts against a corporate brand over some made-up woke offense, the CEO, having bet his career with millions in marketing costs, will think his brand is about to be destroyed by groupthink millennials who all at once will stop drinking Coke or refuse to stream baseball on MLB.TV.
Read it all here.
Around Twitter
The North Carolina legislature is considering a bill that would require government agents (presumably, in context, teachers and other school personnel) to report to parents indications of “gender nonconformity” of children under their charge:
Nicholas Clairmont cautions about using outdated First Amendment jurisprudence to make the case for other initiatives like gun rights or public health policies:
A regulation flashback:
