Richard Hanania on Nostr: Imagine you’re a right wing populist and were always insecure that the vast ...
Imagine you’re a right wing populist and were always insecure that the vast majority of smart people don’t agree with you.
Then the greatest entrepreneur of our time enters the political arena. He’s smarter than any liberal who looks down on you, and you finally have hope. The libs were just midwits! The real smart people know the score!
He helps defeat the left in 2024. You have found a new hero and all is right in the world.
Then suddenly, over Christmas, he starts denigrating you over your deepest beliefs in the same terms as the leftists you thought he was fighting. Except he’s much more explicit than they ever were. His successful friends think similarly.
It suddenly starts to dawn on you that smart people are naturally opposed to what you believe in. No matter what disagreements they might have with one another, or what fields they’re in or what professional incentives they face, they all agree that anti-foreigner politics is wrong and morally revolting.
How do you recover from this? There are two paths. Acknowledge you are wrong and support an open immigration policy. Realize that your opposition to high skilled immigration in particular is a result of some deep misunderstanding of how the world works or an unmet psychological need.
Or you can double down on “populism”, use the same vapid talking points of “nation not an economy” that are too stupid for one to even know where to begin in rebutting them, and decide the only way you’ll ever get what you want is going to war with everyone in society with half a brain. Intelligence itself is the problem, your feelings are the only things that count.
I get the appeal of racism. I’ve been known to indulge in it from time to time. But once you’re keeping scientists and engineers out of your country, you’ve gone down the wrong path. Take this opportunity to reflect.
Then the greatest entrepreneur of our time enters the political arena. He’s smarter than any liberal who looks down on you, and you finally have hope. The libs were just midwits! The real smart people know the score!
He helps defeat the left in 2024. You have found a new hero and all is right in the world.
Then suddenly, over Christmas, he starts denigrating you over your deepest beliefs in the same terms as the leftists you thought he was fighting. Except he’s much more explicit than they ever were. His successful friends think similarly.
It suddenly starts to dawn on you that smart people are naturally opposed to what you believe in. No matter what disagreements they might have with one another, or what fields they’re in or what professional incentives they face, they all agree that anti-foreigner politics is wrong and morally revolting.
How do you recover from this? There are two paths. Acknowledge you are wrong and support an open immigration policy. Realize that your opposition to high skilled immigration in particular is a result of some deep misunderstanding of how the world works or an unmet psychological need.
Or you can double down on “populism”, use the same vapid talking points of “nation not an economy” that are too stupid for one to even know where to begin in rebutting them, and decide the only way you’ll ever get what you want is going to war with everyone in society with half a brain. Intelligence itself is the problem, your feelings are the only things that count.
I get the appeal of racism. I’ve been known to indulge in it from time to time. But once you’re keeping scientists and engineers out of your country, you’ve gone down the wrong path. Take this opportunity to reflect.