Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future

REVIEWS 91 and the American National Election Studies Kaufmann, Eric: (ANES) datasets. He shows that it is in fact values, rather than income levels, that can ex- WHITESHIFT: POPULISM, plain most of the two votes. The crux of his IMMIGRATION AND THE FUTURE explanation is in psychological attitudes – he OF WHITE MAJORITIES. argues that people of conservative and so- called authoritarian predisposition (both of London: Allen Lane. 2018. 624 pages. which are partly heritable) are those that were most likely to vote for Trump or Brexit. Con- DOI: 10.5817/PC2020‑1 ‑91 servatives because they oppose change, and authoritarians because they prefer order and What happened? This question has been on uniformity to dissent and diversity (p. 199). many minds, not just Hillary Clinton’s, in the Immigration will be perceived more negative- wake of the 2016 election of Donald Trump ly by people of these dispositions because it and the UK referendum to exit the European brings both change and diversity. Union. Mainstream media analyses have often Looking at the data, Kaufmann shows, offered economic explanations in the form for example, that when controlling for age of the ‘left-behind’ argument, pointing to the and education, attitude to immigration can disparities between wealthy regions benefit- explain a large part of support for Trump, ing from globalization, and economically de- whereas income levels barely register. More pressed areas that have not benefited as much. interestingly, the ANES data show that over Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birk- two-thirds of those who support capital pun- beck, University of London, has in his latest ishment voted for Trump, whereas only 20 % book Whiteshift provided a comprehensive of those who oppose it did (pp. 121–122). In and persuasive argument emphasizing the cul- the BES, income levels explain more than in tural factors behind the 2016 populist revolt. the US, but still, one of the best predictors Backed by a wealth of quantitative evidence, (70 %) in Kaufmann’s analysis is one’s sup- Kaufmann argues that it is the ethnic majori- port for the death penalty (p. 198). Why are ties’ fear of decline, rather than economic con- views on the death penalty important? Draw- cerns, that drives the populist vote, and he sees ing on the work of Karen Stenner and others, the solution to this unease in a new empha- Kaufmann sees support for capital punish- sis on the expected assimilation of fast-rising ment as an indicator of authoritarian predis- ‘mixed’ populations into the majority society. position (pp. 199–200). Therefore, the 2016 In June 2016 the United Kingdom voted populist votes can be seen as the revolt of au- to leave the European Union and in Novem- thoritarians and conservatives against immi- ber of that year, Donald Trump was voted gration and ethnic change. the next president of the United States. These This revolt is taking place now, the author two events are often seen as manifestations explains, because of migration-led ethnic of a populist revolt, and the first part of the change, which is shifting the basic politi- book is devoted to explanations of these two cal divide from class to ethnicity and thus phenomena. Rather than analysing regional pitting those within the majority ethnici- disparities, Kaufmann focuses on individuals ties who cherish their particularity against and uses them as the unit of statistical analy- those of a more cosmopolitan disposition sis, utilizing the British Election Study (BES) (pp. 14–17). This culture war over immigra- 92 CZECH JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE / POLITOLOGICKÝ ČASOPIS 1/2020 tion and national identity heated up with the who renounced his own ethnic heritage while rapid shifts in liberals’ views on issues such as extolling the virtues of ethnic minority cultures gender and race, facilitated by social media, in (pp. 309–310). In the 1960s, left-modernism the years prior to Trump’s election. There was, spread from a small elite to a wider section of for instance, a significant rise in white liberals’ society thanks to television and the expanding perception of discrimination against blacks, university sector. In the following decades, this Hispanics, and women during that time, de- belief system has proliferated in the political spite the self-reported discrimination against and cultural institutions of the West (p. 21), women and minorities being at a record low. leading to wider diffusion of its norms and Concepts such as ‘microaggressions’ and taboos (pp. 297–298). The left-modernist -ta ‘whitesplaining’ were also becoming increas- boos, popularly known as political correctness ingly popular (p. 345). The 2015 appearance (p. 321), include discussion of notions such as of Trump in the political life acted as a cata- large-scale immigration and multiculturalism lyst for these phenomena (p. 346). Kaufmann (p. 347). Such ‘sacred values’ are policed by believes that such changes did not come out expanding the definition of racism and hate of the blue, but rather were rooted in a form speech (pp. 305, 347). In Kaufmann’s inter- of liberalism that has long been in the mak- pretation, this leads to repression of anxieties ing. The second part of the book is devoted to stemming from ethnic change, lest discussing analysis of its development. such issues be interpreted as racism (p. 295). Kaufmann came up with a term for the cur- This has in more recent times led to the rise rently dominant form of liberalism in the West of universities disinviting speakers whose – he calls it ‘left-modernism’ (p. 3). Left-mod- views are considered to be controversial from ernism, in his definition, is a form of liberalism the left-wing side of the political spectrum rooted in cosmopolitanism which lauds ethnic (p. 303). With the rising salience of immi- minority cultures while encouraging ethnic gration as an issue following the increase in majorities to be cosmopolitan. This trend has immigration rates after 2013 (p. 515), such ta- been gaining in prominence in the intellectual boos sharpened the polarization between the life of the West ever since the counter-cultural left-modernists and those who wished for low- decade of the 1960s, which imbued liberal pro- er immigration rates (pp. 228, 254). gressivism with the anti-majority inclinations Kaufmann also devotes a substantial part of of the beatniks (p. 54). Kaufmann sees an im- the book to analysing the past, and predicting portant distinction between left-modernism the future, of ethnic majorities in the West. In and previous forms of liberalism, such as that line with the ethno-symbolist school of na- which powered the Civil Rights Movement, tionalism studies, he views nations as being in that the latter emphasized negative liberty, based around ethnic cores (pp. 33–34). He whereas left-modernism utilizes positive lib- believes this applies to the United States as erty. The most important manifestation of this well, contrary to the popular understanding is the replacement of acceptance of diversity of the country as a nation of immigrants. The by mandating celebration of diversity (pp. 21– dominant ethnicity in the US until the 1960s 22). Left-modernism can be traced to the an- was the so-called ‘WASP’ ethnic group, root- ti-traditionalism and the revolt against cultural ed symbolically in the Anglo-Saxon heritage authority, described as ‘modernism’ by Daniel and myth of descent of those who fled the Bell (pp. 307–308). It can be found already in Norman-imposed monarchy in Britain across the 1910s in the writing of Randolph Bourne, the Atlantic (pp. 32–34). Catholic and Jewish REVIEWS 93 assimilation through intermarriage and social tural immigration points would be awarded mobility led in the 1960s to the widening of to applicants for immigration, which would WASP ethnic boundaries to create the white depend on their assimilability into the constit- American ethnic group. Kaufmann believes uent ethnic groups of a country. He believes that this process anticipates future develop- that this would reduce the prejudice of major- ments in the Western world. He foresees that ity ethnicities, as they would be assured that the non-white ethnic minorities will mostly the immigration system is designed in such assimilate into the white majorities and will a way as to facilitate assimilation (p. 525). It come to identify with the myths and symbols is this suggestion that white identity politics is of the latter, the same way that Catholics and a legitimate expression of group interests that Jews assimilated into the Protestant majority has drawn the most criticism, especially from in the US in the past (p. 501). He points to the proponents of critical race theory. high intermarriage rates of Afro-Caribbeans These scholars argue that whites do not in Britain and the Algerian French (p. 439), have the same right to employ identity politics as well as the fast-rising ‘mixed’ populations as non-white people because of the history of (pp. 456–461) as evidence that this trend is al- settler colonialism, slavery and segregation ready underway. To facilitate this process, as (Holmwood, 2019, p. 2; Ford, 2019, p. 2). For well as to alleviate the anxieties of majority pop- Gillborn (2019, pp. 98–100), such a claim is ulations, he offers several policy prescriptions. simply an attempt to maintain ‘racist status Most importantly, though controversially, quo’. Kaufmann, however, does not advocate Kaufmann defends white identity politics, for pan-white identity, based on the colour of and believes that ethnic majorities should one’s skin. What he talks about are the ethnic have the same group rights as ethnic mi- majorities in the United Kingdom, the Unit- norities, as long as they accept compromises ed States, and other Western countries, which with other groups in striving for the com- are distinguished by their myths of descent mon good of all and are open to assimilation and certain cultural markers (p.

Load more