Nationalism Rising: When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism, Jonathan Haidt
This article is two years old, but it might as well have been written today. It's a longish article, but well worth the read. I've hacked it down to it's essential prescription, which may be painful for liberals to hear. But I really think he makes a good argument for why immigration is SO important to the right. It isn't just racism (though there is some of that), but the view that the structures and values that bind our communities together are perceived to be under threat. If this is true, then the way to beat back the rising tide of intolerance is to emphasize our common bonds as Americans, and our shared cultures and values.
https://www.the-american-interest.com/v/jonathan-haidt/
NATIONALISM RISING
When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism
JONATHAN HAIDT
And how moral psychology can help explain and reduce tensions between the two.
What on earth is going on in the Western democracies? From the rise of Donald Trump in the United States and an assortment of right-wing parties across Europe through the June 23 Brexit vote, many on the Left have the sense that something dangerous and ugly is spreading: right-wing populism, seen as the Zika virus of politics. Something has gotten into “those people” that makes them vote in ways that seem—to their critics—likely to harm their own material interests, at least if their leaders follow through in implementing isolationist policies that slow economic growth...
...[A]ll the available evidence indicates that exposure to difference, talking about difference, and applauding difference—the hallmarks of liberal democracy—are the surest ways to aggravate those who are innately intolerant, and to guarantee the increased expression of their predispositions in manifestly intolerant attitudes and behaviors. Paradoxically, then, it would seem that we can best limit intolerance of difference by parading, talking about, and applauding our sameness…. Ultimately, nothing inspires greater tolerance from the intolerant than an abundance of common and unifying beliefs, practices, rituals, institutions, and processes. And regrettably, nothing is more certain to provoke increased expression of their latent predispositions than the likes of “multicultural education,” bilingual policies, and nonassimilation.
If the story I have told here is correct, then the globalists could easily speak, act, and legislate in ways that drain passions and votes away from nationalist parties, but this would require some deep rethinking about the value of national identities and cohesive moral communities. It would require abandoning the multicultural approach to immigration and embracing assimilation.
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