theamericanconservative--2020-12-01--When the Right Knew How to Organize

When the Right Knew How to Organize

Grassroots conservatives ca n't even influence Republican leaders .
But it has n't always been that way , and it does n't have to be now .
Organize Right is a regular column with not so much a beat as a meander on the subject of organizing : how the right does it , how the left does it , lessons from its history , and its implications for today .
The previous installment of this column offered an explanation for why Lefties are good at organizing .
This time , we ’ ll take a look at the flip @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Righties so bad at it ?
One common answer is that “ it just doesn ’ t come naturally to us.
” Those Lefties are just natural organizers , goshdarnit , and we ’ re not ; any attempt to try to learn anything new is doomed—so why bother ?
I just want to grill !
Well , it ’ s true that our ideology is more oriented to the individual ’ s liberty than is the left ’ s , and being an introvert myself it ’ s flattering to me to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But I don ’ t think we are .
If you haven ’ t noticed , recent months have seen lots of protests and rallies and demonstrations against COVID-related restrictions on activity , particularly church services .
That doesn ’ t sound like people who hate community .
Another answer you hear a lot is P.J .
O ’ Rourke ’ s famous line about why Righties don ’ t turn out for protests : “ We all have jobs.
” Again , it ’ s funny and flattering—but if you have any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s just not true .
Sure , they ’ ve got a lot of professional organizers with safe perches at nonprofits .
But most of the attendees of the Women ’ s March or If Not Now demonstrations or what have you are normal people—like you and me but leftier—and they have families and lives and , yes , jobs .
So what ’ s going on ?
To understand why we fall short , it helps to take a look at the times and places where the Right actually has done well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if you do that , what you see is that many of our organizing successes—especially the ones we ’ ve most institutionalized—are drastically limited in focus and method .
For one thing , most right-of-center organizing training is focused like a laser on the subject of getting people into office .
As a result , our most successful organizing is electoral .
Conservatives did not always have this capability .
It ’ s informative to take a look back to the rise of movement conservatism in the 1960s , itself a reaction to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s nomination for president was the result of a 1952 Republican convention screwjob by the Eastern establishment that cost Midwestern isolationist Robert Taft the nomination .
Not only did it not undo Obamacare—er , sorry , I mean the New Deal—but the Eisenhower administration gave conservatives Chief Justice Earl Warren .
But twelve years later , conservatives successfully wrangled the Republican nomination for Barry Goldwater , whose ignominious defeat nonetheless laid the groundwork for the Reagan Revolution to come .
What happened in those intervening twelve years ?
Why did Goldwater get the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that conservatives spent a good part of the intervening twelve years , not just fruitlessly spouting their ideas , but actively building conservative groups—and Clif Flynt , the architect of the Draft Goldwater movement , was one of the people who was well-connected in a lot of them .
When an opportunity to draft Barry Goldwater arose , the groups were there to be called upon and turned into an army for Goldwater specifically .
Leftists call this activation : an existing group that already has some sort of alignment with you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( It is distinct from entryism : in entryism , you put your own people in place to take over the organization , wear it as a skinsuit , and use its resources and reputation for your benefit ; in activation , the organization takes up your cause out of their own accord and in their own self-interest , though this change often involves the leadership following the membership rather than the other way round . )
If you activate a lot of entities in short order , your movement grows spectacularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public .
Righties are very hung up on galvanism for some reason .
For us , though , galvanizing the public means creating sufficient energy that our atomized individuals are drawn to whatever it is we ’ re trying to do because it speaks to them .
It ’ s a fantasy of getting a mass movement on the cheap : “ our ideas are so great , all we have to do is SAY them and the people will turn up !
” In reality , immigration hawks can not even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kansas .
The truth about activation is that , even when it looks galvanizing , it is the result of an awful lot of time-consuming groundwork .
The civil rights movement didn ’ t happen because Martin Luther King , Jr. was a magical Great Man who created a movement ex nihilo ; it happened because decades of work from a multitude of organizations and people created a network of relationships in which MLK ’ s remarkable skill could flourish .
But that groundwork paved the way for tremendous activation ; the eventual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involved whole churches joining in the movement at a time .
On the right , the crusade against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s happened in a similar way : the movement grew rapidly by spreading through churches , often through highly involved parishioners who got their other members involved .
You see the fruits of activation today in a lot of successful righty organizing , most notably the March for Life , which gives the lie to the idea that conservatives can ’ t make a crowd .
The problem with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You can ’ t activate an organization to repurpose it for a new cause unless somebody else has obligingly laid the groundwork of building that organization for you .
Righties like to say that we are builders , and the Left parasitic— “ we build things and the Left takes them over !
” This is flattering to us , but untrue .
While Lefties are very good at taking things over ( and , with a few notable exceptions like homeschooling and Neal Knox ’ s coup of the National Rifle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , they ’ re also very good at building things .
This gives them new organizations that they can use to build alternative power alongside mainstream ones .
Righties don ’ t do this much ; they mostly use organizations that are already there , like churches and gun ranges , and , er … well , there aren ’ t many kinds of Righty organizations to be activated when you think about it .
Because we mostly don ’ t build them .
Righties like to build things for a purpose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ build it for that purpose , and then use it for that purpose , and not use it for any other purpose .
The organizations conservatives have built for political purpose are mostly designed around electoral politics .
Righties like order and rules , after all , and the orderly way to get power according to the rules is to win elections .
And this is necessary , but insufficient ; unfortunately for us , a lot of the most effective use of organizing for political power takes place outside of the electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ learn to elect politicians , but can ’ t effectively pressure them to serve the people who elected them .
Leaders of our chaptered political organizations tend to do things like tweet pugnacious opinions followed by “ RT if you agree !
” rather than , say , email action items to the members of their chaptered organizations to get those members to make phone calls or use other methods to pressure public officials .
Having local organizing structures that connect with each other means that , unlike Righties , Lefties can lose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their communities .
If I could wave a magic wand and elect Republican supermajorities here in Los Angeles , it wouldn ’ t make the difference you might think .
Los Angeles has a ton of highly effective and well-trained leftist activist groups who constantly hector and harry the Democrats running the city in order to herd them further left , and they could hector and harry Republicans just as easily .
And as we know from the national scene , it ’ s hard for the grassroots to keep Republicans aimed rightward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Righties tend to be reactive : something bad happens , and Righties hurriedly cobble together some kind of bespoke organizational effort in response .
When the stimulus recedes , the response does too , as does any organization we ’ ve created .
Worse , naïve Righty grassroots efforts to build organization typically take a very top-down , large scale approach .
When we see a big problem , we have the desire to start one massive thing that will address the problem everywhere and all at once .
This inevitably flops .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it works : Lefties either take over something existing that ’ s already broad-based , or start small with something new ; we try to start a nationwide chaptered organization ex nihilo and are surprised when we fall flat on our faces .
As I mentioned in the last column , small-scale organizing is critical .
Union organizing work is putting people who have disparate interests into a power base , and doing so at small scale .
The thing about small actions is that , because their scale is small and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small actions are endlessly repeatable .
And repeated actions mean what ?
Right : practice .
So , to sum up : the answer for why Righties are so bad at organizing is pretty unflattering .
We don ’ t know how to do huge areas of it , we leave most of our grassroots untrained , we ’ re too proud to admit we have something to learn and too lazy to try .
When we build , we build the wrong way ; we don ’ t build foundations or supporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and reactive , too focused on quick gratification and outlets for our emotion .
We rely on Righty communities existing , but we don ’ t know how to build new ones .
In short , we ’ ve got a lot of work to do .
Here ’ s the good news : when you ’ re at the bottom , the only way to go is up .
David Hines has a professional background in international human rights work with a focus on recovery from forced disappearances and mass homicide .
@ @ @ @ @ @

Organize Right is a regular column with not so much a beat as a meander on the subject of organizing: how the right does it, how the left does it, lessons from its history, and its implications for today.
The previous installment of this column offered an explanation for why Lefties are good at organizing. This time, we’ll take a look at the flip side of this question: why are Righties so bad at it?
One common answer is that “it just doesn’t come naturally to us.” Those Lefties are just natural organizers, goshdarnit, and we’re not; any attempt to try to learn anything new is doomed—so why bother? I just want to grill! Well, it’s true that our ideology is more oriented to the individual’s liberty than is the left’s, and being an introvert myself it’s flattering to me to think that Righties are natural introverts. But I don’t think we are. If you haven’t noticed, recent months have seen lots of protests and rallies and demonstrations against COVID-related restrictions on activity, particularly church services. That doesn’t sound like people who hate community.
Another answer you hear a lot is P.J. O’Rourke’s famous line about why Righties don’t turn out for protests: “We all have jobs.” Again, it’s funny and flattering—but if you have any Lefty friends, you know it’s just not true. Sure, they’ve got a lot of professional organizers with safe perches at nonprofits. But most of the attendees of the Women’s March or If Not Now demonstrations or what have you are normal people—like you and me but leftier—and they have families and lives and, yes, jobs.
So what’s going on? To understand why we fall short, it helps to take a look at the times and places where the Right actually has done well at organizing to some degree. Because if you do that, what you see is that many of our organizing successes—especially the ones we’ve most institutionalized—are drastically limited in focus and method.
For one thing, most right-of-center organizing training is focused like a laser on the subject of getting people into office. As a result, our most successful organizing is electoral. Conservatives did not always have this capability. It’s informative to take a look back to the rise of movement conservatism in the 1960s, itself a reaction to the disappointing Eisenhower administration. Eisenhower’s nomination for president was the result of a 1952 Republican convention screwjob by the Eastern establishment that cost Midwestern isolationist Robert Taft the nomination. Not only did it not undo Obamacare—er, sorry, I mean the New Deal—but the Eisenhower administration gave conservatives Chief Justice Earl Warren. But twelve years later, conservatives successfully wrangled the Republican nomination for Barry Goldwater, whose ignominious defeat nonetheless laid the groundwork for the Reagan Revolution to come.
What happened in those intervening twelve years? Why did Goldwater get the nod and Taft fail? The answer is that conservatives spent a good part of the intervening twelve years, not just fruitlessly spouting their ideas, but actively building conservative groups—and Clif White, the architect of the Draft Goldwater movement, was one of the people who was well-connected in a lot of them. When an opportunity to draft Barry Goldwater arose, the groups were there to be called upon and turned into an army for Goldwater specifically.
Leftists call this activation: an existing group that already has some sort of alignment with you becoming an active ally in your fight. (It is distinct from entryism: in entryism, you put your own people in place to take over the organization, wear it as a skinsuit, and use its resources and reputation for your benefit; in activation, the organization takes up your cause out of their own accord and in their own self-interest, though this change often involves the leadership following the membership rather than the other way round.) If you activate a lot of entities in short order, your movement grows spectacularly and looks like a galvanic response in the public.
Righties are very hung up on galvanism for some reason. For us, though, galvanizing the public means creating sufficient energy that our atomized individuals are drawn to whatever it is we’re trying to do because it speaks to them. It’s a fantasy of getting a mass movement on the cheap: “our ideas are so great, all we have to do is SAY them and the people will turn up!” In reality, immigration hawks cannot even use this to elect Kris Kobach in Kansas.
The truth about activation is that, even when it looks galvanizing, it is the result of an awful lot of time-consuming groundwork. The civil rights movement didn’t happen because Martin Luther King, Jr. was a magical Great Man who created a movement ex nihilo; it happened because decades of work from a multitude of organizations and people created a network of relationships in which MLK’s remarkable skill could flourish. But that groundwork paved the way for tremendous activation; the eventual cascade of activity that desegregated the South involved whole churches joining in the movement at a time.
On the right, the crusade against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s happened in a similar way: the movement grew rapidly by spreading through churches, often through highly involved parishioners who got their other members involved. You see the fruits of activation today in a lot of successful righty organizing, most notably the March for Life, which gives the lie to the idea that conservatives can’t make a crowd.
The problem with activation it that it is fundamentally parasitic. You can’t activate an organization to repurpose it for a new cause unless somebody else has obligingly laid the groundwork of building that organization for you. Righties like to say that we are builders, and the Left parasitic—“we build things and the Left takes them over!” This is flattering to us, but untrue. While Lefties are very good at taking things over (and, with a few notable exceptions like homeschooling and Neal Knox’s coup of the National Rifle Association, Righties mostly suck at it), they’re also very good at building things. This gives them new organizations that they can use to build alternative power alongside mainstream ones. Righties don’t do this much; they mostly use organizations that are already there, like churches and gun ranges, and, er … well, there aren’t many kinds of Righty organizations to be activated when you think about it. Because we mostly don’t build them.
Righties like to build things for a purpose. So Righties building an organization will build it for that purpose, and then use it for that purpose, and not use it for any other purpose. The organizations conservatives have built for political purpose are mostly designed around electoral politics. Righties like order and rules, after all, and the orderly way to get power according to the rules is to win elections. And this is necessary, but insufficient; unfortunately for us, a lot of the most effective use of organizing for political power takes place outside of the electoral arana. Righties focusing on the rules learn to elect politicians, but can’t effectively pressure them to serve the people who elected them. Leaders of our chaptered political organizations tend to do things like tweet pugnacious opinions followed by “RT if you agree!” rather than, say, email action items to the members of their chaptered organizations to get those members to make phone calls or use other methods to pressure public officials.
Having local organizing structures that connect with each other means that, unlike Righties, Lefties can lose elections and still have an impact in their communities. If I could wave a magic wand and elect Republican supermajorities here in Los Angeles, it wouldn’t make the difference you might think. Los Angeles has a ton of highly effective and well-trained leftist activist groups who constantly hector and harry the Democrats running the city in order to herd them further left, and they could hector and harry Republicans just as easily. And as we know from the national scene, it’s hard for the grassroots to keep Republicans aimed rightward.
Lacking structures promoting grassroots action, Righties tend to be reactive: something bad happens, and Righties hurriedly cobble together some kind of bespoke organizational effort in response. When the stimulus recedes, the response does too, as does any organization we’ve created. Worse, naïve Righty grassroots efforts to build organization typically take a very top-down, large scale approach. When we see a big problem, we have the desire to start one massive thing that will address the problem everywhere and all at once. This inevitably flops.
Look at what Lefties do, because it works: Lefties either take over something existing that’s already broad-based, or start small with something new; we try to start a nationwide chaptered organization ex nihilo and are surprised when we fall flat on our faces. As I mentioned in the last column, small-scale organizing is critical. Union organizing work is putting people who have disparate interests into a power base, and doing so at small scale. The thing about small actions is that, because their scale is small and the scale of the world is huge, small actions are endlessly repeatable. And repeated actions mean what? Right: practice.
So, to sum up: the answer for why Righties are so bad at organizing is pretty unflattering. We don’t know how to do huge areas of it, we leave most of our grassroots untrained, we’re too proud to admit we have something to learn and too lazy to try. When we build, we build the wrong way; we don’t build foundations or supporting infrastructure. We’re too emotional and reactive, too focused on quick gratification and outlets for our emotion. We rely on Righty communities existing, but we don’t know how to build new ones. In short, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Here’s the good news: when you’re at the bottom, the only way to go is up.
David Hines has a professional background in international human rights work with a focus on recovery from forced disappearances and mass homicide. He lives in Los Angeles.


theamericanconservative--2020-12-02--What TV Can Teach Us About the White Working Class

Roseanne and John Goodman ( Photo by Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images ) Even in a nation obsessed with representation in the media and politics , the white working class has often gone forgotten .
Their economic decline , cultural decay , and frustration with the political system went unnoticed until it helped swing the 2016 presidential election .
Yet even as cable news hosts and politicians were completely blindsided , narrative television did a decent job of showing this group ’ s suffering—even when it wasn ’ t portrayed accurately .
The white working class has been looked down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ television .
As early as the mid-1950s , TV shows such as The Honeymooners and The Flintstones depicted working-class men as agents of chaos who got themselves into scrapes that their wives or middle-class bosses had to fix .
Characters like Ralph Kramden were loud , overweight , and scheming to get ahead , while fathers and husbands on shows that depicted middle-class families—such as I Love Lucy , Father Knows Best , The Dick Van Dyke Show , and Bewitched—were sensible figures who brought stability to their families .
When All in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ character of Archie Bunker received similar treatment .
He was a loud-mouthed bigot who often looked like he was taking his wife for granted and couldn ’ t understand his countercultural daughter , Gloria , or Mike , his hippie son-in-law .
Yet while Archie wasn ’ t always portrayed in a positive light , his political incorrectness made him an anti-hero and he was able to lead a respectable lifestyle in a single-income family .
Like most men of his time , he was a homeowner who enjoyed strong civic institutions and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Archie was able to be cast as an antagonist because his side was then winning .
Richard Nixon was in the White House and Archie was the breadwinner : though he battled the younger characters on the show , he still commanded a level of respect .
They disagreed with his conservative values , but they respected him enough to wait for him to eat dinner , serve him a drink or cigar after work , and never sit in his favorite living room chair .
That level of protection afforded to working-class @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1970s as they bore the brunt of a changing global economy .
In the fifth season of All in the Family , Archie ’ s union goes on strike and he becomes dependent on his family for income .
In one scene , his wife Edith is cutting his hair while Archie reflects on how fearful he is of the future .
It was a side of Archie , and most working-class white men , not usually depicted on scripted television .
The 1970s were a time of immense economic growth , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 15.6 million new jobs were created from 1972 to 1980 , but most were in white-collar professions .
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics , white-collar workers saw their employment expand by 30 percent while for blue-collar workers it was less than 8 percent .
At the same time , wages also began to stagnate .
From 1948 to 1973 , productivity increased by nearly 97 percent and hourly compensation grew by 91 percent .
Wages began stagnating quickly afterward , and by the early 1980s , they were in a solid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For those like Archie with a high school diploma or less , median wages fell from $ 16.88 in 1980 to just $ 12.76 per hour by the year 2000 , according to a study by the Congressional Research Service .
After a few episodes , the strike ended and Archie got a raise .
But as Michael pointed out to Gloria , even a 15 percent raise for the next three years couldn ’ t match the rising costs .
A few seasons later , Archie lost his job for good after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ended up on his feet when he used a second mortgage on the house to become the co-owner of a bar .
While Archie as bar owner would go on to a successful spinoff called Archie Bunker ’ s Place , younger members of the white-working class wouldn ’ t have the same kind of savings to fall back on .
The slow decline of “ hardhat men ” was on clear display decades before politicians became aware of it .
The visibility of working-class white families fell significantly after All in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before Hollywood produced a trio of shows that gave serious attention to the demographic , with the creation of Married… with Children in 1987 , Roseanne in 1988 , and The Simpsons in 1989 .
Until they premiered , American TV had focused instead on the upper-middle class , with programs like The Cosby Show , Growing Pains , and Family Ties .
Married with Children ’ s Al Bundy put a farcical twist on working-class men ’ s loss of social standing .
He was a shoe salesman making menial wages while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the 1980s .
Al was a cultural throwback .
He demanded recognition , social status , and respect , but was looked down upon by his family and neighbors for his working-class lifestyle and less-than-respectable living situation .
The only way the Bundys could attain the materialism they desired was by stealing , showing the desperation of working-class people to keep up with the Joneses .
Al channeled the frustration he had with his life and economic status into attacking the role that feminism was playing in society .
In the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ When did men become such losers ?
It used to be so great to be a man .
Women were there to please us , they ’ d look after the kids , and we ’ d go out and have a good time .
That ’ s the natural order of things .
What happened , Steve ?
I ’ ll tell you what happened , Steve .
Someone told women that they should start enjoying sex , too .
Now they like it but it ’ s work for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us .
It ’ s this equality thing , it ’ s killing us.
” Al was living in a post-second wave feminist world .
He believed his economic and cultural misfortune could be blamed in large part on the rise of the women ’ s movement .
In later seasons , he even started an organization called the National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood or NO MA ’ AM .
This move was made in retaliation after his bowling night was turned into a women ’ s only night and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s coffee bar .
While society claims that white men have advantages in the workforce that are not afforded to minorities and women , those advantages are based more on class than race or gender .
According to a study by the University of Massachusetts , Amherst , white men working in blue-collar professions have more competition from minorities and barriers to entry based on their education .
In nearly every state , white women are more likely to receive a white-collar professional job than white men , especially those lacking a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ created broad resentment against many different groups , and , for Al , the target ended up being feminists .
Roseanne was a far less daft perception of working-class life .
The punchlines were set up so that the fans laughed with the Conners rather than at them , unlike on Married with Children .
The title character , Roseanne Conner , was a Midwestern wife and mother of three living in a post-industrial town .
With her husband , Dan , she struggled to keep the lights on .
Over the course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs after leading a walkout at the factory where worked in the show ’ s first season , while Dan worked as a dry-waller .
The few times the Conners were afforded opportunities to move up the economic ladder , it was through an angel investor .
Dan briefly owned a motorcycle shop after a former friend gave him the funds needed to get the business off the ground , but within a season it fizzled out , and both Dan and Roseanne found themselves unemployed .
Roseanne later became the co-owner of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the money .
The idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps was not a possibility for families like the Conners .
This feeling of being stuck amid economic circumstances trickled down to the Conner children .
Not wanting the life their parents had , Roseanne ’ s oldest daughter Becky worked hard in school and dreamed of escaping her hometown .
In the show ’ s fourth season , when she was looking to apply for college , her parents had to break it to her that she couldn ’ t afford @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out , asking what all her hard work had been for , and told her dad that his economic woes “ blew it for everyone.
” She eloped with her high school sweetheart , Mark , a deadbeat with few prospects , and ended up living in a mobile home back in Lanford .
Roseanne was one of the earliest shows to explore the idea that surpassing one ’ s parents on the economic ladder is not so simple for those in the working class .
The Conners ’ other daughter , Darlene @ @ @ @ @ @ @ art school , starting a career in publishing , and moving to Chicago .
But after she lost her job , she found herself back in Lanford living with her parents .
Solutions like tax cuts and trickle-down economics can ’ t help the Conners in the ways they would have helped other TV families at the time .
Roseanne dealt with many political themes , but the only time it actually engaged with a politician was when the titular character met a state representative going door-to-door .
She told him , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down to the unemployment office and meet them all at once ?
” The politician ’ s solution for the community ’ s economic decline came right out of the supply-side playbook : offer companies tax cuts and a pool of labor that doesn ’ t demand union wages .
Roseanne said , “ So they ’ re gon na dump the unions so they can hire us at scab wages and then for that privilege we get to pay their taxes ?
” These are the voters who made up the base @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same voters they abandoned in exchange for cosmopolitan liberals , college-educated suburban women , and minorities .
Nearly 7 million of these working-class whites switched their votes to Trump in 2016 , just like Roseanne inevitably did when the show returned in 2018 .
At the premiere of the reboot , audiences saw the Conner family in almost the exact same situation they were in 20 years before .
Roseanne and Dan , now seniors , were struggling to get by and unable to afford their medication .
Their three older children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is the unfortunate truth for the blue-collar life .
Workers with only a high school diploma saw their incomes drop by nine percent from 1996 to 2014 , and their children were likely to find themselves in a similar financial situation .
According to New York University sociologist Michael Hout , blue-collar workers ’ children were overwhelmingly likely to end up as members of that same economic class .
The 1990s offered more representation for the white working class than any other time on television .
Hit show Grace Under Fire , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ single mother in recovery from alcoholism .
King of the Hill rolled out in 1997 , an animated show that explored the life of a working-class neighborhood in Texas centered on Hank Hill .
Unlike other shows of its era , King of the Hill made its family patriarch the clear conscience and moral center of his friend group and family .
Hank was a middle-aged propane salesman who found himself uncomfortable in a changing world that runs counter to his traditional conservative beliefs .
A large chunk of the show revolved around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and eccentric son Bobby , who preferred stand-up comedy , music , and modeling to traditionally masculine interests like beer , cars , and girls .
In one episode , Hank tried to fix Bobby by telling him , “ This is a carburetor .
Take it apart , put it together , repeat until you ’ re normal.
” When Bobby got his first job selling soda , Hank said , “ If you weren ’ t my son , I ’ d hug you.
” The show also tackled the subjects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the first season , a family of Laotian immigrants moved next door to the Hills .
The well-to-do new neighbor Kahn looked down on the Hills as ignorant rednecks , while Hank held stereotypical views of Asians .
When Hank refused to go to their barbecue , his wife Peggy said he must or people will think he ’ s a racist .
Hank responded , “ What the hell kind of country is this where I can only hate a man if he ’ s white ?
” King of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before the 2016 presidential election , but the show was already exploring an issue central to President Trump ’ s victory .
Cultural , economic , and racial changes caused a massive shift in the opinions of working-class people over the last few decades .
By the time the 2016 presidential election rolled around , according to a WSJ/NBC poll , 48 percent of white working-class Americans said , “ Things have changed so much that often they feel like strangers in their own country.
” And less than a third of Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ changes that have made America more diverse .
The feeling of grappling with cultural change is a theme explored by the white working class on television .
Unlike characters on older shows like Archie Bunker , Hank found himself increasingly on the losing end of the culture war .
Yet unlike on other animated TV shows , Hank is never vilified for his conservative values and they aren ’ t dismissed as being too old-fashioned .
In the opening credits of every episode , Hank is seen standing outside his home drinking a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dale , Bill , and Jeff , as the world progresses without them .
This probably wasn ’ t an intentional choice by the creators , but it is certainly reflective of the experience of white working-class men at the turn of the century .
They ’ re preparing for a future they ’ re told they don ’ t belong in , where they ’ ll be a racial minority and better-off white liberals will tell them to “ check their privilege.
” The 2000s featured more family-friendly depictions of the white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Middle and The Middle .
These shows were slightly different from previous sitcoms because the vantage point was often taken from the experience of a child growing up among the working poor .
On Malcolm in the Middle , the titular character and his three brothers live in a working-class community in suburban California .
Their parents , Hal , a low-level white-collar worker , and Lois , an employee at a convenience store , struggle to keep food on the table , something they remind their sons of constantly .
Their working-class @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lack of physical comforts like a new car or expensive vacation , but also in the stress it creates within the family dynamic .
Lois ’ and Hal ’ s jobs make them miserable and make the boys think that to grow up means to live a miserable existence .
In the show ’ s first season , Malcolm takes an aptitude test .
Because of his 165 IQ and photographic memory , the guidance counselor tells him he can be anything he wants .
Malcolm imagines several jobs from the vantage points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leads to anything fulfilling .
In the series finale , Malcolm graduates high school and is accepted into Harvard University but can barely afford it even with scholarships and working several jobs before , during , and after class .
Prior to his graduation ceremony , he ’ s offered a lucrative career as an alternative to school .
Before he ’ s even allowed to consider it , his mother tells him he has to go to school and work to end up as president .
She explains her logic by saying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposed to have is you go to Harvard and you earn every fellowship and internship they have , you graduate first in your class and you start working in public service—either district attorney or running some foundation and then you become governor of a mid-sized state and then you become president.
” She continues , “ You ’ ll be the only person in that position who will ever give a crap about people like us .
We ’ ve been getting the short end of the stick for thousands of years and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of it.
” Malcolm asks why he can ’ t just buy himself the presidency and have the easy life .
Lois says , “ You don ’ t get the easy path .
You don ’ t get to just have fun and be rich and live the life of luxury.
” It becomes obvious that the working class are no longer looking to traditional parties and politicians to solve their economic and cultural crisis .
The promises of a better life delivered through neoliberalism and meritocracy never materialized for people like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working-class family died off with these shows , replaced by reality shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo , Ax Men , and Ice Road Truckers .
These programs served to further “ otherize ” the experience of the working poor as ignorant , filthy , and a subordinate class .
The few times that television producers decided to again focus on the working-class experience , it came in the form of a feminist experience , as with Two Broke Girls , or by focusing on working-class minorities , as with One Day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; and Atlanta .
The last long-running narrative show about poor white families is the dramedy Shameless , now in its eleventh and final season .
The show follows the life of an unemployed , alcoholic , and drug-addicted single father named Frank Gallagher and his six children who live in Chicago ’ s South Side .
Shameless provides a darker look into poverty , including mental illness , crime , drug abuse , incarceration , gentrification , and homelessness .
It also shows life for the white working poor in the aftermath @ @ @ @ @ @ @ big sort.
” Unlike families on shows like Roseanne , All in the Family , King of the Hill , and Malcolm in the Middle , the Gallaghers don ’ t have an upper-middle class neighbor looking down on them .
They live in a poor ghetto where other families such as the Miklovichs have it far worse than they do .
There ’ s no angel investor grandparent or family friend who can make their lives a little better .
All this creates pride in being part of the ghetto , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Side.
” There ’ s open hostility and even mockery when any of the Gallaghers try to move themselves up the economic ladder .
When the eldest son Ian goes to college , he ’ s asked to prove that he hasn ’ t lost his “ South Side edge ” by committing a crime against yuppies who have moved into the area and are raising the cost of living .
Characters openly admit they live depressing lives , but it ’ s the only thing they feel like they own , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The assumption is that life for the working class involves living shamelessly to get past the circumstances of their birth and attain a decent living standard .
The social institutions once afforded to the working class have completely broken down .
And what replaces the lodge meetings , churches , and homeowners associations is the welfare state .
Lip echoes this when he yells at his sister Fiona for investing their money with the hopes of getting a job as a club promoter .
When she comes up short , Lip tells @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poor , the only way to make money is to steal it or scam it !
” In the later seasons of the show , Frank decides he needs to fix his life and work to establish a relationship with his youngest child .
He takes a job at a home improvement store that he finds fulfilling , but as with many brick-and-mortar businesses , he finds it can ’ t compete with the internet .
At a jobs fair , he sees a line full of middle-aged white men who spent their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how he can ’ t get ahead , the only path he sees to avoid sweeping the floors is by going back to being shameless and running a prescription drug ring to Canada .
After Trump won the presidency , the show changed and tried to be more politically woke .
During the 2018 election cycle , Frank earns beer money putting down and picking up lawn signs for a black and a gay Hispanic congressional candidate .
Both tell him they prefer to hire more urban people .
Even though Frank has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Side of Chicago , his skin color precludes him from being part of the working-poor experience .
This isn ’ t the first time that Shameless had tackled liberal hypocrisy .
In earlier seasons , Carl Gallagher couldn ’ t get into military school because all the available slots were left open for non-white applicants .
Frank ’ s youngest son , Liam , who ’ s black for a reason the show never fully explains , is only accepted into an expensive private school to fill a diversity visa .
Both children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ receives special treatment because liberal tolerance for the poor is only skin-deep .
Yet then the show ’ s writers went and threw most of their genuine storylines away to portray the white working class as racist , because Trump was in office and that ’ s what Hollywood must do .
Frank drafts his own candidate , a former congressman named Mo White who has a long history of advocating for working-class ethnic whites , to run against the candidates who told him he didn ’ t fit their racial quota .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Trump campaigned on in the 2016 presidential election and , when White wins despite being down in the polls , a local news anchor says it ’ s because people weren ’ t telling pollsters they were “ bigots.
” On hearing he won , Frank asks White what he plans on doing when he gets to Congress , and he replies , “ Not a damn thing.
” There ’ s some truth there to how the white working class perceives politicians who promise to fight for them .
But more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and producers of shows like Shameless think of the white working-class voters they talk about on their shows .
The characters are either apolitical , having accepted their future in the dustbin of history , vocal progressives , or bigots .
In a world where Trump pervades every part of our culture and the Left believes all institutions have a responsibility to fight against him and his supporters , it ’ s unlikely we ’ re going to see many more accurate TV portraits of white working-class families .
Yet that doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than they were before he was elected .
The general decline and desperation exhibited from All in the Family in 1972 to Shameless in 2011 shows they need more focus , not less .
Ryan Girdusky is a host of TAC Right Now .

Even in a nation obsessed with representation in the media and politics, the white working class has often gone forgotten. Their economic decline, cultural decay, and frustration with the political system went unnoticed until it helped swing the 2016 presidential election. Yet even as cable news hosts and politicians were completely blindsided, narrative television did a decent job of showing this group’s suffering—even when it wasn’t portrayed accurately.
The white working class has been looked down upon since the earliest days of narrative television. As early as the mid-1950s, TV shows such as The Honeymooners and The Flintstones depicted working-class men as agents of chaos who got themselves into scrapes that their wives or middle-class bosses had to fix. Characters like Ralph Kramden were loud, overweight, and scheming to get ahead, while fathers and husbands on shows that depicted middle-class families—such as I Love Lucy, Father Knows Best, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Bewitched—were sensible figures who brought stability to their families.
When All in the Family premiered in 1971, the character of Archie Bunker received similar treatment. He was a loud-mouthed bigot who often looked like he was taking his wife for granted and couldn’t understand his countercultural daughter, Gloria, or Mike, his hippie son-in-law.
Yet while Archie wasn’t always portrayed in a positive light, his political incorrectness made him an anti-hero and he was able to lead a respectable lifestyle in a single-income family. Like most men of his time, he was a homeowner who enjoyed strong civic institutions and a union that protected his job.
Archie was able to be cast as an antagonist because his side was then winning. Richard Nixon was in the White House and Archie was the breadwinner: though he battled the younger characters on the show, he still commanded a level of respect. They disagreed with his conservative values, but they respected him enough to wait for him to eat dinner, serve him a drink or cigar after work, and never sit in his favorite living room chair.
That level of protection afforded to working-class white men began to erode in the 1970s as they bore the brunt of a changing global economy. In the fifth season of All in the Family, Archie’s union goes on strike and he becomes dependent on his family for income. In one scene, his wife Edith is cutting his hair while Archie reflects on how fearful he is of the future. It was a side of Archie, and most working-class white men, not usually depicted on scripted television.
The 1970s were a time of immense economic growth, but it was extremely uneven. More than 15.6 million new jobs were created from 1972 to 1980, but most were in white-collar professions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, white-collar workers saw their employment expand by 30 percent while for blue-collar workers it was less than 8 percent.
At the same time, wages also began to stagnate. From 1948 to 1973, productivity increased by nearly 97 percent and hourly compensation grew by 91 percent. Wages began stagnating quickly afterward, and by the early 1980s, they were in a solid decline for middle- and low-wage workers. For those like Archie with a high school diploma or less, median wages fell from $16.88 in 1980 to just $12.76 per hour by the year 2000, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service.
After a few episodes, the strike ended and Archie got a raise. But as Michael pointed out to Gloria, even a 15 percent raise for the next three years couldn’t match the rising costs. A few seasons later, Archie lost his job for good after 30 years in the union. He ended up on his feet when he used a second mortgage on the house to become the co-owner of a bar.
While Archie as bar owner would go on to a successful spinoff called Archie Bunker’s Place, younger members of the white-working class wouldn’t have the same kind of savings to fall back on. The slow decline of “hardhat men” was on clear display decades before politicians became aware of it.
The visibility of working-class white families fell significantly after All in the Family. It took about a decade before Hollywood produced a trio of shows that gave serious attention to the demographic, with the creation of Married… with Children in 1987, Roseanne in 1988, and The Simpsons in 1989. Until they premiered, American TV had focused instead on the upper-middle class, with programs like The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, and Family Ties.
Married with Children’s Al Bundy put a farcical twist on working-class men’s loss of social standing. He was a shoe salesman making menial wages while living amid the consumerism that swept America during the 1980s.
Al was a cultural throwback. He demanded recognition, social status, and respect, but was looked down upon by his family and neighbors for his working-class lifestyle and less-than-respectable living situation. The only way the Bundys could attain the materialism they desired was by stealing, showing the desperation of working-class people to keep up with the Joneses.
Al channeled the frustration he had with his life and economic status into attacking the role that feminism was playing in society. In the first season, Al asks his neighbor Steve, “When did men become such losers? It used to be so great to be a man. Women were there to please us, they’d look after the kids, and we’d go out and have a good time. That’s the natural order of things. What happened, Steve? I’ll tell you what happened, Steve. Someone told women that they should start enjoying sex, too. Now they like it but it’s work for us. Everything’s work for us. It’s this equality thing, it’s killing us.”
Al was living in a post-second wave feminist world. He believed his economic and cultural misfortune could be blamed in large part on the rise of the women’s movement. In later seasons, he even started an organization called the National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood or NO MA’AM. This move was made in retaliation after his bowling night was turned into a women’s only night and his favorite strip club turned into a women’s coffee bar.
While society claims that white men have advantages in the workforce that are not afforded to minorities and women, those advantages are based more on class than race or gender. According to a study by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, white men working in blue-collar professions have more competition from minorities and barriers to entry based on their education. In nearly every state, white women are more likely to receive a white-collar professional job than white men, especially those lacking a college degree like Al. This has created broad resentment against many different groups, and, for Al, the target ended up being feminists.
Roseanne was a far less daft perception of working-class life. The punchlines were set up so that the fans laughed with the Conners rather than at them, unlike on Married with Children. The title character, Roseanne Conner, was a Midwestern wife and mother of three living in a post-industrial town. With her husband, Dan, she struggled to keep the lights on.
Over the course of the show, Roseanne bounced between jobs after leading a walkout at the factory where worked in the show’s first season, while Dan worked as a dry-waller. The few times the Conners were afforded opportunities to move up the economic ladder, it was through an angel investor. Dan briefly owned a motorcycle shop after a former friend gave him the funds needed to get the business off the ground, but within a season it fizzled out, and both Dan and Roseanne found themselves unemployed. Roseanne later became the co-owner of a luncheonette after her mother put up the money. The idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps was not a possibility for families like the Conners.
This feeling of being stuck amid economic circumstances trickled down to the Conner children. Not wanting the life their parents had, Roseanne’s oldest daughter Becky worked hard in school and dreamed of escaping her hometown. In the show’s fourth season, when she was looking to apply for college, her parents had to break it to her that she couldn’t afford to go. The teenager then lashed out, asking what all her hard work had been for, and told her dad that his economic woes “blew it for everyone.” She eloped with her high school sweetheart, Mark, a deadbeat with few prospects, and ended up living in a mobile home back in Lanford.
Roseanne was one of the earliest shows to explore the idea that surpassing one’s parents on the economic ladder is not so simple for those in the working class. The Conners’ other daughter, Darlene, does fare better, going to art school, starting a career in publishing, and moving to Chicago. But after she lost her job, she found herself back in Lanford living with her parents. Solutions like tax cuts and trickle-down economics can’t help the Conners in the ways they would have helped other TV families at the time.
Roseanne dealt with many political themes, but the only time it actually engaged with a politician was when the titular character met a state representative going door-to-door. She told him, “Why don’t you just go down to the unemployment office and meet them all at once?” The politician’s solution for the community’s economic decline came right out of the supply-side playbook: offer companies tax cuts and a pool of labor that doesn’t demand union wages. Roseanne said, “So they’re gonna dump the unions so they can hire us at scab wages and then for that privilege we get to pay their taxes?”
These are the voters who made up the base of the Democratic Party for decades, the same voters they abandoned in exchange for cosmopolitan liberals, college-educated suburban women, and minorities. Nearly 7 million of these working-class whites switched their votes to Trump in 2016, just like Roseanne inevitably did when the show returned in 2018.
At the premiere of the reboot, audiences saw the Conner family in almost the exact same situation they were in 20 years before. Roseanne and Dan, now seniors, were struggling to get by and unable to afford their medication. Their three older children were all working various dead-end jobs.
This is the unfortunate truth for the blue-collar life. Workers with only a high school diploma saw their incomes drop by nine percent from 1996 to 2014, and their children were likely to find themselves in a similar financial situation. According to New York University sociologist Michael Hout, blue-collar workers’ children were overwhelmingly likely to end up as members of that same economic class.
The 1990s offered more representation for the white working class than any other time on television. Hit show Grace Under Fire, which premiered in 1993, featured a single mother in recovery from alcoholism. King of the Hill rolled out in 1997, an animated show that explored the life of a working-class neighborhood in Texas centered on Hank Hill.
Unlike other shows of its era, King of the Hill made its family patriarch the clear conscience and moral center of his friend group and family. Hank was a middle-aged propane salesman who found himself uncomfortable in a changing world that runs counter to his traditional conservative beliefs.
A large chunk of the show revolved around Hank trying to relate to his sensitive and eccentric son Bobby, who preferred stand-up comedy, music, and modeling to traditionally masculine interests like beer, cars, and girls. In one episode, Hank tried to fix Bobby by telling him, “This is a carburetor. Take it apart, put it together, repeat until you’re normal.” When Bobby got his first job selling soda, Hank said, “If you weren’t my son, I’d hug you.”
The show also tackled the subjects of race and immigration, when, in the first season, a family of Laotian immigrants moved next door to the Hills. The well-to-do new neighbor Kahn looked down on the Hills as ignorant rednecks, while Hank held stereotypical views of Asians. When Hank refused to go to their barbecue, his wife Peggy said he must or people will think he’s a racist. Hank responded, “What the hell kind of country is this where I can only hate a man if he’s white?”
King of the Hill might have premiered nearly two decades before the 2016 presidential election, but the show was already exploring an issue central to President Trump’s victory. Cultural, economic, and racial changes caused a massive shift in the opinions of working-class people over the last few decades. By the time the 2016 presidential election rolled around, according to a WSJ/NBC poll, 48 percent of white working-class Americans said, “Things have changed so much that often they feel like strangers in their own country.” And less than a third of Republicans said they were comfortable with the societal changes that have made America more diverse.
The feeling of grappling with cultural change is a theme explored by the white working class on television. Unlike characters on older shows like Archie Bunker, Hank found himself increasingly on the losing end of the culture war. Yet unlike on other animated TV shows, Hank is never vilified for his conservative values and they aren’t dismissed as being too old-fashioned.
In the opening credits of every episode, Hank is seen standing outside his home drinking a domestic beer with his middle-aged white friends Dale, Bill, and Jeff, as the world progresses without them. This probably wasn’t an intentional choice by the creators, but it is certainly reflective of the experience of white working-class men at the turn of the century. They’re preparing for a future they’re told they don’t belong in, where they’ll be a racial minority and better-off white liberals will tell them to “check their privilege.”
The 2000s featured more family-friendly depictions of the white working class, including Malcolm in the Middle and The Middle. These shows were slightly different from previous sitcoms because the vantage point was often taken from the experience of a child growing up among the working poor.
On Malcolm in the Middle, the titular character and his three brothers live in a working-class community in suburban California. Their parents, Hal, a low-level white-collar worker, and Lois, an employee at a convenience store, struggle to keep food on the table, something they remind their sons of constantly. Their working-class experience is not only felt in the lack of physical comforts like a new car or expensive vacation, but also in the stress it creates within the family dynamic.
Lois’ and Hal’s jobs make them miserable and make the boys think that to grow up means to live a miserable existence. In the show’s first season, Malcolm takes an aptitude test. Because of his 165 IQ and photographic memory, the guidance counselor tells him he can be anything he wants. Malcolm imagines several jobs from the vantage points of his parents, where work never leads to anything fulfilling.
In the series finale, Malcolm graduates high school and is accepted into Harvard University but can barely afford it even with scholarships and working several jobs before, during, and after class. Prior to his graduation ceremony, he’s offered a lucrative career as an alternative to school. Before he’s even allowed to consider it, his mother tells him he has to go to school and work to end up as president.
She explains her logic by saying, “The life you’re supposed to have is you go to Harvard and you earn every fellowship and internship they have, you graduate first in your class and you start working in public service—either district attorney or running some foundation and then you become governor of a mid-sized state and then you become president.” She continues, “You’ll be the only person in that position who will ever give a crap about people like us. We’ve been getting the short end of the stick for thousands of years and I, for one, am sick of it.”
Malcolm asks why he can’t just buy himself the presidency and have the easy life. Lois says, “You don’t get the easy path. You don’t get to just have fun and be rich and live the life of luxury.”
It becomes obvious that the working class are no longer looking to traditional parties and politicians to solve their economic and cultural crisis. The promises of a better life delivered through neoliberalism and meritocracy never materialized for people like them.
Narrative sitcoms about the white working-class family died off with these shows, replaced by reality shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Ax Men, and Ice Road Truckers. These programs served to further “otherize” the experience of the working poor as ignorant, filthy, and a subordinate class. The few times that television producers decided to again focus on the working-class experience, it came in the form of a feminist experience, as with Two Broke Girls, or by focusing on working-class minorities, as with One Day at a Time; Love, Victor; and Atlanta.
The last long-running narrative show about poor white families is the dramedy Shameless, now in its eleventh and final season. The show follows the life of an unemployed, alcoholic, and drug-addicted single father named Frank Gallagher and his six children who live in Chicago’s South Side. Shameless provides a darker look into poverty, including mental illness, crime, drug abuse, incarceration, gentrification, and homelessness.
It also shows life for the white working poor in the aftermath of what Charles Murray called “the big sort.” Unlike families on shows like Roseanne, All in the Family, King of the Hill, and Malcolm in the Middle, the Gallaghers don’t have an upper-middle class neighbor looking down on them. They live in a poor ghetto where other families such as the Miklovichs have it far worse than they do. There’s no angel investor grandparent or family friend who can make their lives a little better.
All this creates pride in being part of the ghetto, or, as they say, “being South Side.” There’s open hostility and even mockery when any of the Gallaghers try to move themselves up the economic ladder. When the eldest son Ian goes to college, he’s asked to prove that he hasn’t lost his “South Side edge” by committing a crime against yuppies who have moved into the area and are raising the cost of living. Characters openly admit they live depressing lives, but it’s the only thing they feel like they own, even if it’s not theirs.
The assumption is that life for the working class involves living shamelessly to get past the circumstances of their birth and attain a decent living standard. The social institutions once afforded to the working class have completely broken down. And what replaces the lodge meetings, churches, and homeowners associations is the welfare state.
Lip echoes this when he yells at his sister Fiona for investing their money with the hopes of getting a job as a club promoter. When she comes up short, Lip tells her, “When you’re poor, the only way to make money is to steal it or scam it!”
In the later seasons of the show, Frank decides he needs to fix his life and work to establish a relationship with his youngest child. He takes a job at a home improvement store that he finds fulfilling, but as with many brick-and-mortar businesses, he finds it can’t compete with the internet. At a jobs fair, he sees a line full of middle-aged white men who spent their lives working for corporate America. Seeing how he can’t get ahead, the only path he sees to avoid sweeping the floors is by going back to being shameless and running a prescription drug ring to Canada.
After Trump won the presidency, the show changed and tried to be more politically woke. During the 2018 election cycle, Frank earns beer money putting down and picking up lawn signs for a black and a gay Hispanic congressional candidate. Both tell him they prefer to hire more urban people. Even though Frank has spent his entire life on the South Side of Chicago, his skin color precludes him from being part of the working-poor experience.
This isn’t the first time that Shameless had tackled liberal hypocrisy. In earlier seasons, Carl Gallagher couldn’t get into military school because all the available slots were left open for non-white applicants. Frank’s youngest son, Liam, who’s black for a reason the show never fully explains, is only accepted into an expensive private school to fill a diversity visa. Both children are extraordinarily underprivileged, but only one receives special treatment because liberal tolerance for the poor is only skin-deep.
Yet then the show’s writers went and threw most of their genuine storylines away to portray the white working class as racist, because Trump was in office and that’s what Hollywood must do. Frank drafts his own candidate, a former congressman named Mo White who has a long history of advocating for working-class ethnic whites, to run against the candidates who told him he didn’t fit their racial quota. Frank plays into some of the themes that Trump campaigned on in the 2016 presidential election and, when White wins despite being down in the polls, a local news anchor says it’s because people weren’t telling pollsters they were “bigots.”
On hearing he won, Frank asks White what he plans on doing when he gets to Congress, and he replies, “Not a damn thing.”
There’s some truth there to how the white working class perceives politicians who promise to fight for them. But more importantly, it’s how writers and producers of shows like Shameless think of the white working-class voters they talk about on their shows. The characters are either apolitical, having accepted their future in the dustbin of history, vocal progressives, or bigots.
In a world where Trump pervades every part of our culture and the left believes all institutions have a responsibility to fight against him and his supporters, it’s unlikely we’re going to see many more accurate TV portraits of white working-class families. Yet that doesn’t mean their struggles are less real than they were before he was elected. The general decline and desperation exhibited from All in the Family in 1972 to Shameless in 2011 shows they need more focus, not less.
Ryan Girdusky is a host of TAC Right Now.


theamericanconservative--2020-12-03--Barack Obama and the Death of Idealism

Barack Obama and the Death of Idealism

Obama 's deception and warmongering killed the `` hope and change '' he promised on the campaign trail .
We should n't be sad to see them go .
Americans are sickened of an “ idealism that is oblique , confusing , dishonest , and ferocious , ” as H.L .
Mencken wrote a hundred years ago .
Though Mencken was condemning President Woodrow Wilson , the same verdict could characterize the legacy of former president Barack Obama .
Obama is now on a book tour issuing calls for honest government , civic virtue , and similar tripe .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any president since Wilson .
A dozen years ago , Americans were enthralled by the newly elected president from Illinois .
After the deceit and demagoguery of the George W. Bush era , Obama ’ s first presidential campaign with its “ Yes , We Can ” motto swayed Americans that he could personally restore the moral grandeur of government .
Its idealism was epitomized by the famous “ Hope ” campaign poster that practically deified the candidate .
Shortly before his first inauguration , Obama announced , “ What is required is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founders displayed.
” After Obama ’ s inaugural address , the media rejoiced as if a new age of political idealism had arrived .
Practically the entire world joined the race to canonize the new president .
Less than 12 days after he took office , Obama was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize—which he received later that year .
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared at a White House state dinner , “ We warmly applaud the recognition by the Nobel Committee of the healing touch you have provided and the power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shortly after receiving the Peace Prize , Obama announced he would triple the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan .
The Peace Prize helped insulate him from criticism as he proceeded to bomb seven nations during his presidency .
Obama-style idealism quickly became a shroud for federal atrocities .
On Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 23 , 2009 , Obama called for “ fighting the silence that is evil ’ s greatest co-conspirator.
” Ironically , on the same day , Obama decided to oppose creation of a truth commission to vigorously investigate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama visited CIA headquarters and praised his audience for helping to “ to uphold our values and ideals , ” Obama chose not to prosecute any CIA officials who created a secret worldwide torture regime because “ it ’ s important to look forward and not backwards.
” Over the next five years , Obama administration officials vigorously fought a Senate investigation into Bush torture abuses , and Obama personally defended the CIA after it was caught illegally spying on the Senate to thwart the inquiry .
The Obama administration also torpedoed every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court .
In 2011 , Obama draped his decision to bomb Libya by invoking “ democratic values ” and the “ ideals ” which he asserted were “ the true measure of American leadership.
” But terrorist groups fighting dictator Muammar Qaddafi were already slaughtering civilians .
Obama was so convinced of the righteousness of targeting Qadaffi that his appointees signaled that federal law ( such as the War Powers Act ) could not constrain his salvation mission .
In the chaos that subsequently engulfed Libya , ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. consulate in Benghazi .
When their corpses arrived back in the U.S. , Obama hailed the victims for embodying “ the courage , the hope , and yes , the idealism , that fundamental American belief that we can leave this world a little better than before.
” Obama ’ s soothing rhetoric failed to deter the proliferation of slave markets where black migrants were openly sold in Libya .
Obama declared that America ’ s “ ideals still light the world , and we will not give them up for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ address .
But one of Obama ’ s most shocking legacies was his claim of a prerogative to kill U.S. citizens labeled as terrorist suspects without trial , without notice , and without any chance for the marked individuals to legally object .
Obama ’ s lawyers even refused to disclose the standards used for designating Americans for death .
Drone strikes increased tenfold under Obama , and he personally chose who would be killed at weekly “ Terror Tuesday ” White House meetings which featured PowerPoint parades of potential targets .
Year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and abuses of power corroded the idealism that helped him capture the presidency .
As a presidential candidate , he promised “ no more illegal wiretaps ” ; as president , he vastly expanded National Security Agency ’ s illegal seizures of Americans ’ emails and other records .
He promised transparency but gutted the Freedom of Information Act and prosecuted twice as many Americans for Espionage Act violations than all the presidents combined since Woodrow Wilson .
He perennially denounced “ extremism ” at the same time his administration partnered with Saudi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that were slaughtering Syrian civilians in a failed attempt to topple the regime of Bashar Assad .
Obama helped establish an Impunity Democracy in which rulers pay no price for their misdeeds .
As The New York Times noted after the 2016 election , the Obama administration fought in court to preserve the legality of defunct Bush administration practices such as torture and detaining Americans arrested at home as “ enemy combatants.
” Last August , in his speech to the Democratic National Convention , Obama declared , “ Look , I understand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” But he has never owned up to his personal role in embittering millions of Americans who bought into his “ Mr .
Smith Goes to Washington ” shtick in 2008 .
Rather than restoring trust in the government , Obama ’ s presidency simply confirmed millions of Americans ’ worst suspicions about officialdom .
In the final years of his presidency , Obama was far more likely to condemn cynicism than he was to trumpet idealism .
By the end of Obama ’ s presidency , idealism was roadkill on the political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pledge to “ drain the swamp ” was the ultimate perverse political promise—at least according to the standards of the Washington establishment .
The 2020 presidential race between Trump and Joe Biden was about as uplifting as a hemorrhoid ointment commercial .
But this is a positive development for anyone who values straight dealing in public life .
Idealism has surpassed patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel .
Idealistic appeals were used by Presidents John F. Kennedy , Lyndon Johnson , and Richard Nixon to vindicate the Vietnam War , by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Serbia , and by President George W. Bush to dignify the devastation of Iraq .
The mainstream media is almost always willing to help presidents shroud foreign carnage with pompous claptrap .
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius declared in late 2003 that Bush ’ s war on Iraq “ may be the most idealistic war fought in modern times.
” Idealism encourages citizens to view politics as a faith-based activity , transforming politicians from hucksters to saviors .
The issue is not what government did in the past—the issue is how we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Politicians ’ pious piffle is supposed to radically reduce the risk of subsequent perfidy .
And this could be the hook the media uses to coronate Joe Biden as a born-again idealist , thereby perpetuating the same Teflon shield it provided him during the presidential campaign .
Early Americans idealized the Constitution , yet much of Biden ’ s career was devoted to obliterating Americans ’ constitutional and legal rights .
Biden was the architect of federal asset forfeiture programs that wrongfully plundered billions of dollars from innocent Americans .
As chairman of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 1994 crime bill which The New York Times noted helped spawn “ the explosion of the prison population.
” Biden boasted in 1994 that “ every major crime bill since 1976 that ’ s come out of this Congress… has had the name of the Democratic senator from the State of Delaware : Joe Biden.
” But Biden can probably expunge his sordid record if he champions Washington ’ s favorite type of idealism—one that exalts government action as the highest expression of the best within us .
After Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the political establishment is striving to put the federal government and Washington back on a pedestal .
As a recent Washington Post headline proclaimed , “ Washington ’ s aristocracy hopes a Biden presidency will make schmoozing great again.
” ( The Post quickly changed its initial headline to “ Washington ’ s Establishment ” but “ aristocracy ” remained in the body of the article . )
That same aristocracy hopes that idealism will provide the magic words to make the peasantry again defer to their superiors .
“ Idealism is going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Woodrow Wilson proclaimed shortly after World War I left much of Europe in ruins and paved the way for Communist and Nazi takeovers .
Nowadays , idealism is often positive thinking about growing servitude .
Obama was only the most recent president to rely on “ rent-a-halo ” rhetoric to blur political reality .
Americans can not afford to venerate any more Idealists-in-Chief hungry to seize new power or start new wars .
James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights , Attention Deficit Democracy , and Public Policy Hooligan .
He is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him on Twitter @ JimBovard .

Americans are sickened of an “idealism that is oblique, confusing, dishonest, and ferocious,” as H.L. Mencken wrote a hundred years ago. Though Mencken was condemning President Woodrow Wilson, the same verdict could characterize the legacy of former president Barack Obama. Obama is now on a book tour issuing calls for honest government, civic virtue, and similar tripe. But Obama did more to discredit idealism than any president since Wilson.
A dozen years ago, Americans were enthralled by the newly elected president from Illinois. After the deceit and demagoguery of the George W. Bush era, Obama’s first presidential campaign with its “Yes, We Can” motto swayed Americans that he could personally restore the moral grandeur of government. Its idealism was epitomized by the famous “Hope” campaign poster that practically deified the candidate.
Shortly before his first inauguration, Obama announced, “What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed.” After Obama’s inaugural address, the media rejoiced as if a new age of political idealism had arrived.
Practically the entire world joined the race to canonize the new president. Less than 12 days after he took office, Obama was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize—which he received later that year. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared at a White House state dinner, “We warmly applaud the recognition by the Nobel Committee of the healing touch you have provided and the power of your idealism and your vision.” Shortly after receiving the Peace Prize, Obama announced he would triple the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The Peace Prize helped insulate him from criticism as he proceeded to bomb seven nations during his presidency.
Obama-style idealism quickly became a shroud for federal atrocities. On Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 23, 2009, Obama called for “fighting the silence that is evil’s greatest co-conspirator.” Ironically, on the same day, Obama decided to oppose creation of a truth commission to vigorously investigate and expose Bush administration crimes. After Obama visited CIA headquarters and praised his audience for helping to “to uphold our values and ideals,” Obama chose not to prosecute any CIA officials who created a secret worldwide torture regime because “it’s important to look forward and not backwards.” Over the next five years, Obama administration officials vigorously fought a Senate investigation into Bush torture abuses, and Obama personally defended the CIA after it was caught illegally spying on the Senate to thwart the inquiry. The Obama administration also torpedoed every lawsuit by a torture victim in U.S. court.
In 2011, Obama draped his decision to bomb Libya by invoking “democratic values” and the “ideals” which he asserted were “the true measure of American leadership.” But terrorist groups fighting dictator Muammar Qaddafi were already slaughtering civilians. Obama was so convinced of the righteousness of targeting Qadaffi that his appointees signaled that federal law (such as the War Powers Act) could not constrain his salvation mission. In the chaos that subsequently engulfed Libya, ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed during an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. When their corpses arrived back in the U.S., Obama hailed the victims for embodying “the courage, the hope, and yes, the idealism, that fundamental American belief that we can leave this world a little better than before.” Obama’s soothing rhetoric failed to deter the proliferation of slave markets where black migrants were openly sold in Libya.
Obama declared that America’s “ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake” in his first inaugural address. But one of Obama’s most shocking legacies was his claim of a prerogative to kill U.S. citizens labeled as terrorist suspects without trial, without notice, and without any chance for the marked individuals to legally object. Obama’s lawyers even refused to disclose the standards used for designating Americans for death. Drone strikes increased tenfold under Obama, and he personally chose who would be killed at weekly “Terror Tuesday” White House meetings which featured PowerPoint parades of potential targets.
Year by year, Obama’s lies and abuses of power corroded the idealism that helped him capture the presidency. As a presidential candidate, he promised “no more illegal wiretaps”; as president, he vastly expanded National Security Agency’s illegal seizures of Americans’ emails and other records. He promised transparency but gutted the Freedom of Information Act and prosecuted twice as many Americans for Espionage Act violations than all the presidents combined since Woodrow Wilson. He perennially denounced “extremism” at the same time his administration partnered with Saudi Arabia to send weapons to terrorist groups that were slaughtering Syrian civilians in a failed attempt to topple the regime of Bashar Assad. Obama helped establish an Impunity Democracy in which rulers pay no price for their misdeeds. As The New York Times noted after the 2016 election, the Obama administration fought in court to preserve the legality of defunct Bush administration practices such as torture and detaining Americans arrested at home as “enemy combatants.”
Last August, in his speech to the Democratic National Convention, Obama declared, “Look, I understand why many Americans are down on government.” But he has never owned up to his personal role in embittering millions of Americans who bought into his “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” shtick in 2008. Rather than restoring trust in the government, Obama’s presidency simply confirmed millions of Americans’ worst suspicions about officialdom.
In the final years of his presidency, Obama was far more likely to condemn cynicism than he was to trumpet idealism. By the end of Obama’s presidency, idealism was roadkill on the political highway. Donald Trump’s 2016 pledge to “drain the swamp” was the ultimate perverse political promise—at least according to the standards of the Washington establishment. The 2020 presidential race between Trump and Joe Biden was about as uplifting as a hemorrhoid ointment commercial.
But this is a positive development for anyone who values straight dealing in public life. Idealism has surpassed patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel. Idealistic appeals were used by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon to vindicate the Vietnam War, by President Bill Clinton to sanctify the bombing of Serbia, and by President George W. Bush to dignify the devastation of Iraq. The mainstream media is almost always willing to help presidents shroud foreign carnage with pompous claptrap. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius declared in late 2003 that Bush’s war on Iraq “may be the most idealistic war fought in modern times.”
Idealism encourages citizens to view politics as a faith-based activity, transforming politicians from hucksters to saviors. The issue is not what government did in the past—the issue is how we must do better in the future. Politicians’ pious piffle is supposed to radically reduce the risk of subsequent perfidy.
And this could be the hook the media uses to coronate Joe Biden as a born-again idealist, thereby perpetuating the same Teflon shield it provided him during the presidential campaign. Early Americans idealized the Constitution, yet much of Biden’s career was devoted to obliterating Americans’ constitutional and legal rights. Biden was the architect of federal asset forfeiture programs that wrongfully plundered billions of dollars from innocent Americans. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden co-wrote the 1994 crime bill which The New York Times noted helped spawn “the explosion of the prison population.” Biden boasted in 1994 that “every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress… has had the name of the Democratic senator from the State of Delaware: Joe Biden.”
But Biden can probably expunge his sordid record if he champions Washington’s favorite type of idealism—one that exalts government action as the highest expression of the best within us. After Trump’s endless denunciations of the Deep State, the political establishment is striving to put the federal government and Washington back on a pedestal. As a recent Washington Post headline proclaimed, “Washington’s aristocracy hopes a Biden presidency will make schmoozing great again.” (The Post quickly changed its initial headline to “Washington’s Establishment” but “aristocracy” remained in the body of the article.) That same aristocracy hopes that idealism will provide the magic words to make the peasantry again defer to their superiors.
“Idealism is going to save the world,” President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed shortly after World War I left much of Europe in ruins and paved the way for Communist and Nazi takeovers. Nowadays, idealism is often positive thinking about growing servitude. Obama was only the most recent president to rely on “rent-a-halo” rhetoric to blur political reality. Americans cannot afford to venerate any more Idealists-in-Chief hungry to seize new power or start new wars.
James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights, Attention Deficit Democracy, and Public Policy Hooligan. He is also a USA Today columnist. Follow him on Twitter @JimBovard.


theamericanconservative--2020-12-03--Scientist, Spy Chief, Apologist for Torture? Meet Biden’s New DNI

Joe Biden announced last week that he will nominate Avril Haines to the position of Director of National Intelligence .
Haines provided legal cover for CIA agents and worked closely with Barack Obama and CIA Director John Brennan on Obama ’ s tenfold expansion of drone killings .
If confirmed by Congress , Haines will be the first woman to head up the coalition of 17 intelligence agencies ranging from the National Security Agency to the FBI and the State Department , all under the umbrella of the DNI .
“ If she gets word of a threat coming to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign interference in our elections , she will not stop raising alarms until the right people take action .
People will be able to take her word because she always calls it as she sees it , ” said Joe Biden when announcing Haines ’ nomination .
Haines is billed as someone who speaks “ truth to power.
” It ’ s an ironic about-face for the person who decided not to punish those who hacked into the computers of Senate staffers investigating the CIA ’ s torture program .
Haines ’ “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having to answer for their use of torture , and her team redacted the board findings .
Yet Haines is being touted by former Obama administration officials for allegedly making the drone program “ more responsible.
” “ This is a pretty ominous signal about what is to come ” in a Biden administration , a Senate staffer who works on national security issues told The Daily Beast .
“ To have [ Haines ] touted for her record in advancing human rights and respect for the rule of law I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not only her record but her deliberate choices of advocacy.
” Whatever policy changes Haines implemented , far too often U.S. drone strikes killed civilians and turned weddings into funerals .
The standards fell “ far short of the standards for transparency and accountability needed to ensure that the government ’ s targeted killing program is lawful under domestic and international law , ” according to the American Civil Liberties Union .
Haines also supported the controversial nomination of waterboarding proponent Gina Haspel , who had direct supervision over the CIA ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the CIA under President Trump .
“ If Haines couldn ’ t even oppose the appointment of a torturer as CIA director , how can she be expected to rein in American intelligence agencies ’ abuses of power ?
” asks The Guardian .
After a detail to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee put Haines on Biden ’ s radar in late 2010 , she moved to the White House , where she eventually chaired the interagency lawyers ’ group that created the legal framework for “ targeted killings ” —i.e .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ White House counterterrorism adviser and former CIA officer John Brennan .
“ We wanted to make sure that the counterterrorism program and any type of lethal strikes that we might take would be very sharply caverned within a framework that made certain stipulations [ and ] criteria before any strike was taken , ” said Brennan .
Despite the tenfold increase in drone strikes under the Obama administration , Brennan framed their roles as one of “ limiting strikes.
” “ Avril and I bore the scars of a lot of the pushback @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wanted to have more latitude in carrying out strikes , ” he said .
“ Former Obama aides have retroactively sought to cast [ Haines ] as a voice of restraint and protecting civilians , but this revisionism…is undeserved , ” tweeted Sarah Lazare , editor of In These Times .
“ Whatever supposed safeguards Haines included to limit harm to civilians , they didn ’ t work .
The effect of the presidential policy guidance she co-authored was to turn the world into a US battlefield & normalize drone war that was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lethal for civilians.
” Samantha Power , former ambassador to the United Nations , disagrees .
“ When someone doesn ’ t get everything they seek inside the U.S. government , critics can say ‘ that person is legitimating policy by improving it , ’ ” said Power , “ but the fact of the matter is that more innocent civilians would have died and a far wider set of targets would have been pursued without the changes that she secured.
” In op-eds strewn throughout the media , Haines has been recast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and supergirl , with a life like “ a movie script.
” “ Avril Haines ’ appointment will make America — and the world — safer , ” gushes CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd .
“ Her incredible background — including her love of science , flying planes and brown belt in judo — may read like a movie script , but it ’ s real .
Among her other accomplishments , she ’ s a skilled lawyer , a physicist and has been described by a colleague as someone who ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any of us have ever met . '
” CNN ’ s write-up is notably similar to this one in the Sydney Morning Herald : Avril Haines ’ journey to the top of the national security world reads more like a movie script than the path of a woman about to make history as America ’ s first female spy chief .
Long before President-elect Joe Biden nominated her this week to be his Director of National Intelligence , Haines mastered judo at an elite academy in Tokyo , learnt to fly planes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bookstore in Baltimore that occasionally hosted readings of erotic literature .
“ While much news coverage has dwelled on her quirky life history – she rebuilt a plane !
She ’ s a brown belt !
She owned a bookstore !
– she also played a key role in overseeing the drone strike program under Obama , ” points outThe Guardian ’ s Nathan Robinson .
“ This should be completely disqualifying , because Obama ’ s use of drones was a national disgrace .
There has been very little accountability or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Anyone involved with the program should have been prosecuted .
Instead they ’ re being rewarded.
” Vinograd says that she worked with Haines during the Obama administration and that Haines won ’ t get political like Richard Grenell and current DNI John Ratcliffe have , in her telling .
“ In the time that I worked with her , I never once heard her mention politics or party or anything of that sort , ” she writes .
“ In the wake of Trump ’ s undermining of the intelligence community , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ service will help her restore the soul of the intelligence community which , at its core , is supposed to speak truth to power.
” In her glowing op-ed , Vinograd omits Haines ’ role in sparing CIA personnel accountability for torture and hacking Senate computers .
Others are not so quick to forget .
The New York Times reports that Haines “ is likely to win confirmation in a sharply divided Senate but encounter hard criticisms from the left.
” The selection of Haines to lead DNI is “ very ” concerning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told The American Conservative , and particularly if the Biden administration “ continues the forever wars in Afghanistan , Iraq , and Syria and Africa , as [ I ] expect it will.
” “ Not only did [ Haines ] show an absence of ethical values in her role in the Obama White House , but she will have a powerful bureaucratic self-interest in maximizing the drone strikes , which have occupied a major share of the CIA ’ s staffing in the past , ” he said .
Haines ’ drone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and on “ the torture report , she was part of an administration that was much more hostile to the Senate ’ s [ investigation ] efforts than was warranted , ” said Katherine Hawkins , senior legal analyst for Project on Government Oversight , in an interview with The American Conservative .
Haines “ signed off on the CIA ’ s decision to exonerate itself for spying on and making a false criminal referral about the Senate staff….
” Biden undoubtedly chose Haines because she is a “ familiar face , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question is whether Biden and Haines recognize that the U.S. is in a “ very different moment ” now , as a war-weary public faces the COVID-19 pandemic .

Joe Biden announced last week that he will nominate Avril Haines to the position of Director of National Intelligence. Haines provided legal cover for CIA agents and worked closely with Barack Obama and CIA Director John Brennan on Obama’s tenfold expansion of drone killings.
If confirmed by Congress, Haines will be the first woman to head up the coalition of 17 intelligence agencies ranging from the National Security Agency to the FBI and the State Department, all under the umbrella of the DNI.
“If she gets word of a threat coming to our shores, like another pandemic or foreign interference in our elections, she will not stop raising alarms until the right people take action. People will be able to take her word because she always calls it as she sees it,” said Joe Biden when announcing Haines’ nomination.
Haines is billed as someone who speaks “truth to power.” It’s an ironic about-face for the person who decided not to punish those who hacked into the computers of Senate staffers investigating the CIA’s torture program. Haines’ “accountability board” spared CIA personnel from having to answer for their use of torture, and her team redacted the board findings.
Yet Haines is being touted by former Obama administration officials for allegedly making the drone program “more responsible.”
“This is a pretty ominous signal about what is to come” in a Biden administration, a Senate staffer who works on national security issues told The Daily Beast. “To have [Haines] touted for her record in advancing human rights and respect for the rule of law I don’t think can be adequately squared with not only her record but her deliberate choices of advocacy.”
Whatever policy changes Haines implemented, far too often U.S. drone strikes killed civilians and turned weddings into funerals. The standards fell “far short of the standards for transparency and accountability needed to ensure that the government’s targeted killing program is lawful under domestic and international law,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Haines also supported the controversial nomination of waterboarding proponent Gina Haspel, who had direct supervision over the CIA’s torture program, as first female director of the CIA under President Trump.