Conservative White America, you need a new Grand Strategy

[Kennah]

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/conservative-white-america-you-need-new.html

In 1396, an allied force of European crusaders met an equally sized Ottoman Turkish force in battle at Nicopolis, in modern-day Bulgaria. The vanguard of heavily armored European knights bravely charged the Turkish lines, and after being subjected to vicious attrition by archers, sharpened stakes, and trained pikemen, were flanked by the more lightly armored and thus far more agile Turkish cavalry. It was a rout; barely any of the Crusaders escaped. (And this crushing defeat came at the hands of an enemy who was far from the most fearsome of the non-European powers of the day.)
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This fact is heavily on my mind as I think about the plight of another group of white people - conservative white Americans. I'm talking about the vast sweep of suburban and exurban whites, many of them working class or middle class, who consistently vote Republican, who hold conservative social values, and who adhere to conservative Christianity.
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The reason I'm writing this post (which only a comparatively small number of people will read) is frustration. When I look at the thought leaders of Conservative White America, I see them almost uniformly urging their followers to double down on the old model. To go back to the source, to reaffirm the traditional tactics, to keep charging their horses into the Turkish arrows. And I think that this is very bad advice.
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But I want to mention one more reason why I may seem to be in a bit of a rush to conclude that Conservative White America's strategy is not working. It's because Conservative White America's Grand Strategy looks uncomfortably similar to the approach that served the Europeans so poorly in the Middle Ages. Weak institutions, excessive trust in the Church, low mobility, education only of the elites, persecution of minorities, disdain for science and reason...we've tried this before. And it only led to hundreds of years of poverty, disease, and getting cut down by Turkish archery. One day we woke up and tried something different...and it worked. I say we keep trying something that looks sort of like the thing that worked.

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The author concedes that he uses some oversimplified history, sketchy data, and sweeping generalizations. However, I cannot really find serious fault with his writing. In fact, I think it's a noble, albeit futile, effort to try to reach across the aisle. I expect this will feed the paranoia of some elements in CWA, even though archers aren't lining up to slaughter them--just their ideas.

[Sunlei]

1. but they're afraid to come out of those gated, zoned, neighborhooded communities.

I say we cut off their internet fox email spams. It's making those angry white dudes nervous, jittery, angry white dudes.

[John2]

2. You really

think these people practice what they teach? There is a saying about people that live by their evil ways on week days and go to their Temples on Sunday. White supremacists are the biggest hypocrits there is.

[struggle4progress]

3. I suggest something involving long walks and short piers