Deriding press consensus on diversity

Frederick Lynch, a government professor of conservative bent at Claremont McKenna College, was speaking Sunday about his weekend New York Times op-ed that took aim at criticism of President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration and diversity. Why Trump Supporters Distrust Immigration and Diversity was distinctly contrarian to many elite media rebukes of Trump on the same topic.

It was very much in sync with long-standing Lynch views, best on display in his 1996 book The Diversity Machine: The Drive to Change the ‘White Male Workplace.’ In particular, his op-ed asked rhetorically whether Trump is pandering to racial fears—the clear consensus among media—or “addressing legitimate interest-group concerns.”

He finds much of the press captive of a one-sided debate over what motivates Mr. Trump and his supporters. There’s the stereotype of angry White voters driven by racism, resentment, declining economic or social status, irrational fears of economic or demographic change or all of the above, he put it to me.

“I think much of the press has been very (politically correct) on affirmative action/diversity, immigration and the White middle and working-class. They think there are no downsides to these policies. There’s an elite, class bias.”

The shock on many cable news hosts’ and pundits’ faces on Election Day—not to mention elite newspapers, at least one of which hadn’t thought to have a “How Trump Won” piece in the can just in case Trump did win—was obvious. It was proof of being way out of touch.”

It was mildly ironic that Lynch’s piece was soon supplanted, as far as online play, by an Emory University African-Studies professor’s piece on The Policies of White Resentment. It took exactly the tack that he finds wayward, namely finding “White resentment and White nationalism” as a central explanation of our current politics.

He thinks that view off-base, even if he’s not big fan of Trump. Ultimately, he said, “What we’ve got here is class bias: Harvard grads v. high school grads.” He cites some older studies that showed that many reporters at the top-tier papers and networks had pretty homogeneous backgrounds and views: Ivy League or state flagship school credentials, political party preferences, and the same on a variety of items on a political attitude survey.”

He asked if I thought that was still true; I think it generally holds up.

It’s a point he made in his last book and will emphasize to a greater extent in another book in-progress. The theme there will be that the “big divide in U.S. is not left-right, but elites v. masses.”

Some thoughts had to drop from his weekend op-ed as a result of space limitations, he said. One involved his view that the “contempt for Trump-oriented middle- and working-class Whites remains strong.” He cites a Frank Rich New York piece, No Sympathy for the Hillbilly, and an Emily Nussbaum New Yorker retrospective review of The Apprentice as examples (she referred to Trump’s election victory as a product of “class rage and racial fury”). He chides some on the right, too, including William Kristol and columnist Bret Stephens.

But, again, Lynch was pretty content that the most elite of media had given him the distinct time of day for his contrarian take.

“The hell it isn’t”

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