The Public Eye, Fall 2018
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FALL 2018 The Public Eye In this issue: A Classicist’s Guide to Misappropriated History How Christian Persecution Became White Supremacy’s Newest Disguise The Road to Flint: The Right’s 50-Year Anti-City Agenda LIBRE’s Quest to Deliver the Latinx Powerhouse to the Right Bringing Bad Sex Ed Back: Trump’s Rebranding of Abstinence-Only editor’s letter THE PUBLIC EYE QUARTERLY As this issue of The Public Eye goes to press, the midterm results are in, with the PUBLISHER Tarso Luís Ramos uneven verdict that Democrats have regained some power in Washington, but there’s EDITOR still much work to be done. Not least to address the rising tide of Far Right violence Kathryn Joyce that marked the lead-up to Election Day: violence aimed at the Jewish community and COVER ART people of color; journalists and progressive leaders; and women targeted by mobilized Eva Redamonti male supremacism. These troubling developments make it fitting that this issue large- PRINTING ly concerns the various ways racist ideology is showing up in our country today. Red Sun Press In our commentary, “A Classicist’s Guide to Misappropriated History” (pg. 3), EDITORIAL BOARD Donna Zuckerberg explores how the Alt Right and Alt Lite have co-opted classical stud- Frederick Clarkson • Alex DiBranco ies to serve as the idealization of “an imagined golden age of White supremacist patri- Gabriel Joffe • Kapya Kaoma archy they can aspire to recreate.” This misinformed and bigoted appropriation has Greeley O’Connor • L. Cole Parke Tarso Luís Ramos • Zeina Zaatari prompted academics to develop their own curricula to challenge the Alt Right. In “The New Southern Strategy” (pg. 5), Cole Parke makes the case that the The Public Eye is published by conservative cause of “religious freedom,” dominated by claims of “Christian perse- Political Research Associates cution,” has become the new code by which Republicans can appeal to White voters’ Tarso Luís Ramos EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR racial anxieties. The original “Southern Strategy” used an evolving sequence of coded Sarah Burzillo language to speak to anti-Black bias: talking first of busing and “states’ rights,” then FINANCE MANAGER “law and order” and more abstract discussions of cutting taxes. Today, Parke writes, Frederick Clarkson instead of protecting religious minorities, “religious freedom” has become a cudgel SENIOR ReseARCH ANALYST used against them, as well as against LGBTQ people and women. Cloee Cooper “The Road to Flint” (pg. 11), by Anna Clark, illustrates another contemporary re- ReseARCH ANALYST sult of that same coded racism. Flint’s devastating and prolonged water crisis began Steven Gardiner SENIOR ReseARCH ANALYST with Michigan’s appointment of emergency managers—a modern-day manifestation Heron Greenesmith of decades-old anti-urban bias and the Nixonian idea that poor cities are plagued not SENIOR ReseARCH ANALYST by racism and economic divestment, but rather lacking personal responsibility. What Amanda Hukanović happened to Flint, Clark writes, arose from the same right-wing belief “that ailing cit- OPERATIONS MANAGER ies just need a better and more authoritarian leader to get things working again—a Gabriel Joffe EDITORIAL MANAGER presumption that has proved its limits again and again.” Olivia Lawrence-Weilmann Even as much of the contemporary Right has doubled down on racist policies and PROGRAM COORDINATOR rhetoric, some right-wing advocates still attempt to market the GOP to non-White vot- Isabelle H. Leighton ers. In “Kochs in Pro-Immigrant Clothing” (pg. 13), Gabriel Arana investigates how DEVELOPmeNT DIRECTOR the LIBRE Initiative and LIBRE Institute are continuing their efforts to draw Latinxs Greeley O’Connor into the Republican Party, despite its feverish hostility to immigrants and refugees. COmmUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Through its regular presence at Latinx community events, LIBRE hopes to both “con- Teddy Wilson ReseARCH ANALYST vince Latinxs that laissez-faire capitalism will empower them and to draw the ‘sleeping Zeina Zaatari giant’ of American electoral politics to the Right.” ReseARCH DIRECTOR Lastly, in “Bringing Bad Sex Ed Back” (pg. 19), Melissa Mayer reports on how the FELLOWS Trump administration is reviving the failed, faith-based abstinence-only policies of the Ana Hernández • Jessica Quiason Bush era, now rebranded with the language of scientific legitimacy, as “Sexual Risk Spencer Sunshine • Carl Williams Avoidance.” Under Trump, abstinence-only organizations that have peddled demon- INTERNS strably false information about teenage pregnancy and sexual health have become the Mira Guth • Stef Salguero new arbiters of policy, using hugely expanded federal funding to condemn all non- BOARD OF DIRECTORS marital sexual activity. Jenny Levison, Chair Saqib Bhatti • Ellen Gurzinsky In addition to the stories in this issue, please make sure to read Alex DiBranco’s on- Lynette Jackson • Hamid Khan line commentary on the Tallahassee shooting that’s been tied to right-wing misogynist Scot Nakagawa • Dania Rajendra • Mohan Sikka mobilization, an often-unrecognized part of the increasingly mobilized Far Right. Zeke Spier • Carla Wallace • Susan Wefald In between issues of The Public Eye, PRA publishes blog posts, features, reports, and Cassandra Overton Welchlin more every week, so be sure to visit us at politicalresearch.org. FOUNdeR Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D. Kathryn Joyce 1310 Broadway, Suite 201 Somerville, MA 02144-1837 Tel: 617.666.5300 [email protected] © Political Research Associates, 2018 All rights reserved. ISN 0275-9322 ISSUE 96 www.politicalresearch.org commentary BY DONNA ZUCKERBERG THE PUBLIC EYE QUARTERLY PUBLISHER Tarso Luís Ramos EDITOR Kathryn Joyce A Classicist’s Guide to COVER ART Eva Redamonti Misappropriated History PRINTING Red Sun Press EDITORIAL BOARD Frederick Clarkson • Alex DiBranco Gabriel Joffe • Kapya Kaoma Greeley O’Connor • L. Cole Parke Tarso Luís Ramos • Zeina Zaatari The Public Eye is published by Political Research Associates Tarso Luís Ramos EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Sarah Burzillo FINANCE MANAGER Frederick Clarkson SENIOR ReseARCH ANALYST Cloee Cooper ReseARCH ANALYST Steven Gardiner SENIOR ReseARCH ANALYST Heron Greenesmith SENIOR ReseARCH ANALYST Amanda Hukanović OPERATIONS MANAGER Gabriel Joffe EDITORIAL MANAGER Olivia Lawrence-Weilmann PROGRAM COORDINATOR Design_kuch / Adobe Stock. Isabelle H. Leighton DEVELOPmeNT DIRECTOR n the face of a crushing debt crisis, Guide to the Alt-Right,” published on the side both classical sculptures and more Greeley O’Connor it seems unavoidable that students neonazi site The Daily Stormer, Andrew recent sculptures in a self-consciously COmmUNICATIONS DIRECTOR will stop reading great works of Anglin wrote that one of the movement’s classicizing style.2 These images use clas- Teddy Wilson literature and instead spend their mandates was “Endorsement of White sical art as a kind of visual shorthand for ReseARCH ANALYST Icostly college education studying top- History.” Anglin, the site’s founder, aesthetic ideals that were also leveraged Zeina Zaatari ReseARCH DIRECTOR ics that are more likely to directly lead wrote, “Rejecting revisionist arguments by the Nazis, as classicist Sarah Bond has to financial rewards. Frank Bruni’s May by modern social scientists which por- argued.3 (Famous ancient sculptures are FELLOWS 1 Ana Hernández • Jessica Quiason op-ed in The New York Times is only one tray Whites as having wrought evil on the also often used in the bizarre digital art Spencer Sunshine • Carl Williams of many premature obituaries for the planet, we view Whites as the creators that accompanies so-called “fashwave” INTERNS humanities published in recent years. and maintainers of Western civilization.” music, a subgenre of electronic music Mira Guth • Stef Salguero But the value of studying the humanities Next to Anglin’s text was a photograph of that Anglin once deemed “the Whitest BOARD OF DIRECTORS has found an unlikely (and unwanted) the Colosseum in Rome. music ever.”4) Jenny Levison, Chair group of defenders in the White nation- Ancient Greece and Rome are an origin But even before the Alt Right entered Saqib Bhatti • Ellen Gurzinsky alist “Alt Right”—or, more specifically, point of sorts for the Alt Right: an imag- the public consciousness in the summer Lynette Jackson • Hamid Khan Scot Nakagawa • Dania Rajendra • Mohan Sikka what is sometimes called the “Alt Lite,” a ined golden age of White supremacist of 2016, Far Right online communities Zeke Spier • Carla Wallace • Susan Wefald closely allied subgrouping that eschews patriarchy they can idealize and aspire were looking to ancient Greece and Rome Cassandra Overton Welchlin outright neonazism in favor of coding to recreate. Many classical scholars first for confirmation of their views. It doesn’t FOUNdeR White supremacist views as a celebration became aware of this phenomenon in the take much searching in their virtual fora Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D. of “Western culture and civilization.” weeks following the presidential election to find articles glorifying ancient history 1310 Broadway, Suite 201 These groups have become some of the of Donald Trump, when the White na- and historical figures. These fascinations Somerville, MA 02144-1837 Tel: 617.666.5300 most vocal proponents of reading classic tionalist group Identity Evropa papered are widespread within different sub- [email protected] works of (European) literature. In an Au- college campuses with posters depicting groups of “The Red Pill” community, as © Political Research Associates, 2018 gust 2016