Coleman Hughes on Black Lives Matter – and the election
The following is a great video – until the end, when he says he plans to vote for Biden (34:35):
How can Hughes say he will vote for Biden after spending about a half hour arguing against the premises of the Democratic Party, and adding that he doesn’t find Biden “inspiring”? His tepid reason – that Biden can beat Trump, and that Biden is “incredibly boring,” which is how he wants his presidents to be – is not only unconvincing, but to me it’s not even on the money, unlike nearly everything else Hughes says in the video.
Among other things, although Biden has always been dumb and wrong, he’s always also been quirky, an individual given to colorful stories and braggadocio, not unlike the things that Hughes probably detests in the Trump style. Biden still has those characteristics on occasion, and watching him is about as “boring” as watching a slow motion train wreck. Strange outbursts can happen at any moment – “dog-faced pony soldier”; “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” and so many others. And Biden has become the soul of identity politics (including his early announcement of the criteria for his VP pick), something Hughes seems to detest.
So why on earth is Hughes determined to vote for Biden, and more than willing to say so four months prior to the election? I can’t say I expected Hughes to say he would vote for Trump. What I expected him to say was that he’s not keen on either candidate, but that’s it’s still quite some time before the election and many things have yet to happen that could be relevant. Instead, he wasted no time in saying he was voting for Biden.
Looking back, I think the key to why he said that is twofold. First, don’t underestimate the revulsion a very cerebral and calm person such as Hughes might have to someone perceived as non-cerebral and impulsive, such as Trump. Second, the clue comes when Hughes is asked about affirmative action, and he says he would consider affirmative action based on finances. He’s talking about a color-blind but not needs-blind affirmative action, in which standards are lowered and different criteria used for the admission of someone whose family and/or community has less money.
To me, although that has some intuitive attractiveness, it’s another trap that leads to a bad outcome, and is inherently unjust. Why “unjust”? Because it’s another example of the quest for cosmic justice, a quest Thomas Sowell describes and then demolishes in his book The Quest for Cosmic Justice. Simply put, that is an impossible quest to fulfill. We cannot make such decisions because we don’t know enough. And in our attempts to pursue that goal, we inevitably commit other injustices – for example, a child of rich parents may be up against myriad other obstacles in life that we cannot measure and cannot know (abuse from parents or siblings, just to take one example, or serious depression, or a host of other issues that do not appear on his or her application). The other problem is the same one that all efforts at affirmative action face: that of possible poor fit of student to school, which only goes to hurt the person who is the supposed beneficiary of the program.
The fact that Hughes still potentially favors some sort of affirmative action indicates to me that he has not abandoned the quest for cosmic justice. It’s understandable, because brilliant though he is he still is very young, and because that quest is incredibly difficult to give up. It is so well-intentioned that it is seductive – if only we could finally get it right! But we can’t, and we must “first, do no harm” in the meantime.
So it follows, I suppose, that Hughes also cannot give up some of the dreams that seem to be what the Democrats continue to mouth. And that results in a rejection of Trump and the hopes that Biden won’t be too bad, and that empowering the Democrats somehow won’t be the disaster it promises to be. If someone as brilliant as Hughes can come to this conclusion, it frightens me.
Coleman Hughes is a very bright young man indeed, but he is too young to have become fully informed on many issues (a task which necessitates much reading not only in history and politics, but also in literature and philosophy). It is possible that he may, in time, become closer in spirit to the attorney Leo Terrell, a pugnacious and elderly civil-rights activist very much invested in helping “black lives”, who has finally realized that BLM, founded on lies, is a dangerous racket ( a “shakedown” operation in his description) and unworthy of the support of any thinking person, whether black or white.
In other shocking news, People Vote their Skin / Tribe in Multi-ethnic ‘societies’ (it’s really too polite a word).
All the rest is just Wishing it Weren’t So.
Unless there is a plan afoot to re-code the human genome tomorrow, this is how it is and how it’s gonna be and the sooner everyone gets with the program and faces reality the less likely there will be a bloodbath.
Really that simple. Some of us may not *like* unpleasant brute reality, but that won’t make it go away. Far smarter and more moral to approach it honestly and work out ways of handling what we are as a species and not what some fairy tale wishes we were.
I am sure you can imagine what would happen to Coleman Hughes if he said he will vote for Trump, or even that he will not vote at all (and will thus passively enable Trump).
Another snob who just can’t bring himself to in any way be associated with Those People, the Deplorables and their Orange King. It’s not on brand.
The profound flaw leading to young, deep thinking Mr Hughes’s tepid support for Joe Biden is likely an emotional carryover from having supported Obama. Although we can thank the latter for having saved us successively from McCain and Romney, O’s contribution to the deep state is aggressively malignant.
Emotional commitments can override reason to the point of inflicting blindness to glaringly obvious problems. Lack of appreciation (via damaged reason) of the danger of the deep state tumor is arguably the most harmful aspect of Obama’s legacy. Recovering from this condition is a challenging test, but a nationally self-inflicted one that all of us collectively inherited.
The mere fact that Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee is frightening. After watching his latest failed attempt to simply read a sentence from a teleprompter, I can’t understand how he was chosen to be the nominee. I know there are people who would actually prefer that the country be run by a behind the scenes panel of experts but I find the idea that we have to pretend that there is nothing wrong with Biden infuriating.
Stephen Kruiser has the amusing thought Dr. Jill Biden is working hard to get her husband into the White House so she can run things:
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It’s Dr. Jill Biden who should be looking out for her man, but she seems to revel in his spotlight, no matter how painful it is to watch.
I said then that I truly believe Jill Biden wants to be Edith Wilson 2.0. Woodrow Wilson’s wife basically ran the White House after his stroke in 1919. She only had to do that for two years. I’m pretty sure that Jill Biden would like at least an eight-year run at the gig.
–Stephen Kruiser, “Jill Biden Wants to Trash Her Husband’s Dignity to Be Edith Wilson 2.0”
https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2020/07/09/the-morning-briefing-jill-biden-wants-to-trash-her-husbands-dignity-to-be-edith-wilson-2-0-n621841
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The bit about Edith Wilson is true, though largely forgotten. However, the Democratic Party undoubtedly has other women in mind for Biden’s de facto vacancy as President,
He can afford to make a lifestyle choice to vote for Biden.
Most people can’t afford that luxury.
He can vote however he wishes once he gets into the ballot box, though. There are a lot of people who say (a) and do (b), as 2016 proved.
I myself have always found Joe Biden to be half-bright and fully self-involved, and far too erratic to be trusted. And it would appear from his long career, that his party largely came to the same conclusion and kept him away from anything important. I think the party has only recently become confident that he can be safely and productively managed, now that he’s in his dotage.
Mr. Hughes should consider that Biden would most likely be replaced by his VP early on his term. Might not happen for a yr or two but it would happen. Then what happens? The VP will be further to the left of Biden by a mile.
Maybe he’s afraid to say publicly that he will vote for Trump. In 2015-2016 I knew many people who whispered that they were going to vote for Trump. Now, people don’t even feel safe to whisper. But I think they will vote for Trump (hope so)
Maybe he’s afraid to say publicly that he will vote for Trump. In 2015-2016 I knew many people who whispered that they were going to vote for Trump. Now, people don’t even feel safe to whisper. But I think they will vote for Trump (hope so).
My dad came here from a DP camp after WWII as a child..
most of the family slaughtered..
I gave up childhood to study and get into bronx science
But with no money, was not able to get degrees (sis got 5)
Had to leave home at 19 unlike sis
slept on park bench to take continuing ed courses
built a career, destroyed by feminisms favoritisms, and blind siding with someone using the system to take my son, make me homeless, ruin my reputation, and force bankruptcy on me
rebuilt… got a job at a great place..
worked for 15 years… but now i am a racist, and dont deserve any of it
losing my home, my wife, and family
will end it all at the last step… no other choice at my age..
hoping for a reprieve of some sort looking for work, willing to relocate
but may are afraid to hire
and many people from a country far away run interference and skim jobs making it very hard.. including pretending to be you and getting the interview.. or double sending your resume so you cant get it… or sending their friend with a lower salary after finding out what you need… or or or.
waiting to die is the hardest part..
then i hope it gets easier for everyone
He’s voting for Biden the same reason I would (if forced to vote)–the lockdowns will finally come to an end, the experts will suddenly tell us that we no longer have to worry about the virus, and life will return back to normal and worth living. Trump winning means that we will be stuck in the cycle of endless lockdown for four more years (due to covid-20, 21, 22, 23, and 24), and have to endure endless race riots, cities without police, and one impeachment sideshow after another. You either vote for your safety and freedom to be returned to you (through a Democrat win) or vote for four more years of slavery.
“…and freedom…”
“Ay, there’s the rub…”
“How can Hughes say he will vote for Biden after spending about a half hour arguing against the premises of the Democratic Party, and adding that he doesn’t find Biden “inspiring”?”
Aside from the whole bit about how literally everyone in his life would turn on him if he voiced support for Trump which others have noted, Coleman Hughes is 24-years-old and already occupies a position as public intellectual without actually…you know…ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING OF SIGNIFICANT MERIT.
I’m not saying the guy is not smart but compare young Mr. Hughes’ resume to Christopher Hitchens, who at the same age was a foreign corespondent covering a crisis of the military junta that ruled Greece at the time.
Coleman Hughes is what is wrong with modern intellectualism. Again, I’m not saying he’s not smart but he’s not some 24-year-old genius in math or physics or some prodigy when it comes to the oboe. He’s essentially a public philosopher and at 24 he knows jack about squat.
Coleman Hughes doesn’t like Donald Trump because Trump literally IS an existential threat to the world in which Hughes lives, which is a world where dinks, dorks, and asses like Matthew Yglesias, Jonah Goldberg, and Kevin Williamson are what passes for “smart.”
Mike
Intelligence is a factor, sabotaged by underlying currents of diversity (e.g. class-based or color judgments). We need to address progressive prices sustained through single, central solutions, and shared responsibility to obfuscate and redistribute their effects.
1) Even if one supports affirmative action — even of the typical racial kind — that would be no reason to vote for the party that wants to end life as we know it, and that seems to be the Khmer Rouge combined with with racial supremacy.
2) I’m sympathetic with people who desire affirmative action for people who grew up under difficult circumstances — for example caring for one’s siblings and having to work to support the family. Such a person, if liberated from his domestic responsibilities and given a sufficient scholarship, will in general get much better grades than he did before, and will be a better student than the privileged person who got slightly better grades in high school. I think such affirmative action is good in principle, but I acknowledge that it might not be practical to really do it well.
However, I consider the usual racial/sexual affirmative action to be bad in principle as well as in practice.
“After watching his latest failed attempt to simply read a sentence from a teleprompter, I can’t understand how he was chosen to be the nominee. Gregory Harper
Dem leadership knows that an unapologetic radical i.e. marxist stands little chance of being elected but that’s necessary to the implementation of their next step, so nominating a senile idiot whose record can be twisted to appear to support the assertion that said nominee is a liberal ‘moderate’ is the way to get his radical VP successor into the Presidency. Once in Biden will be ousted through the incapacitation provision of the 25th amendment. That has to be the plan because Biden is incapable of delivering even a State of the Union address much less doing the job.
Anonymously,
News flash! Should Biden be elected, life will NOT return back to normal and will increasingly not be worth living because you will be neither safe nor free. That’s so because the left cannot implement its agenda in a society that is safe and free.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin
ArtfldgrUselessNothing—were you formerly Artfldgr?
I feel your pain—but a lot of good my empathy does.
Leo Terrell, a Los Angeles civil rights lawyer, has exposed the Black Lives Matter organization for what it is, has exposed the hijacking of the Democratic Party, and will vote for Trump!
See,
https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/18/leo-terrell-donald-trump-joe-biden-democratic-party/
and
https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/09/leo-terrell-donald-trump-black-lives-matter-democratic-party/
I agree that a boring president is a good thing. Biden isn’t actually boring, however, just vague and malleable. Those are less good. He will do what more interesting people tell him to.
Eisenhower and Ford were both boring presidents, and I like them just fine.
As much as I am impressed by Hughes, I do agree with what MBunge said, though I will say just being rationale about the politics that has happened in the past 4 or so months while not standing with BLM is an accomplishment by itself for anyone under 40 these days. I’m still on the “wait and see” side for Hughes if he’s the real thing in that if he continues on being rational about race relations.
Unlike many blacks who became conservative, or non-prog/regressive, later on in their lives (i.e. Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell) and then publicly voiced their thoughts, Hughes has been given coveted intellectual positions in think tanks at such a young age without much life experience or time away from politics. This is not to say his positions are wrong or undeveloped, but just that public exposure can make the ego grow. In many ways he benefits from both Williams and Sowell since they have paved the way for him for the non-prog/regressive racial commentary to be heard and to not be automatically dismissed. Unlike Williams and Sowell, Hughes has not yet produced an original piece of work about race on the grounds of what he has already stated and advocated for. As I said, I’ll wait and see – and hope, that he’ll continue on his path.
Biden, in his current, quasi-vegetative state is merely the next logical step up from Obama’s description of himself as a “blank screen on which people…project their own views”.
To some extent, certainly, everyone—especially politicians—might be described in such a way, though some go out of their way to cultivate ambiguity.
Politicians seem to believe this to be a necessity, perhaps even a virtue.
Contrast this to Trump’s extreme WSYWYG-gedness….(Might this be part of the reason he is so despised? But also so admired…?)
In any event, Biden is the ne plus ultra “blank screen”.
And it is precisely his blankness that so many fervently hope and pray will “catch the conscience of the king”.
On the other hand it may be going to far to even refer to Biden as “Blankness Visible”.
It seems far more likely that he’s trending more in the direction of a speech-impaired, not-even vague Chance the Gardener appearing in a highly touted but hugely underwhelming sequel called “Being (Not All) There”.
Barry Meislin:
But the very odd thing about Biden’s current stance as a blank screen is that, unlike Obama, Biden’s been in the public eye for over 40 years as a very prominent politician. And people have consistently rejected him on the basis of that lengthy record that he’s amassed.
Now in his dotage, as his mind fades, he is recasting himself (or his operatives are?) as a newly-blank screen. So it’s even odder than you say. It’s surpassingly odd, just another indication that many people have lost their minds in the last 4 years.
Well, yes, certainly. But as you say, it’s a reflection of the times.
True, in more normal times, it would be absolutely insane. But we are living in insane times. More specifically, the Democratic Party (and therefore, too, its media helots) have decided that going insane is the epitome of good politics.
Nonetheless, the Democrats do have at least one toe grounded in reality, which is why Biden’s not being allowed to “come out of the basement”, except very selectively and under “adult”—such as it is—supervision.
So yes, they do know what they’re doing. They are aware. But they believe that with the assistance of the tremendous amount of flak and garbage being so liberally spewed by the MSCM (one rationale, perhaps, for all the odious reporting on Trump’s Fourth of July speech) and since Biden is NOT (Heaven forfend) BERNIE—even though the Democrats have been encouraging things that go far and beyond the Bernie Bros'(TM) wildest dreams—they can successfully pull off this sleight of hand in November.
All they have to do—so they believe—is to portray Trump as ever and ever more despicable, disgusting, incompetent and dangerous.
Which is what they’re currently doing (since the Russia hoax and those several impeachment efforts didn’t do the trick).
Once again, they’re convinced that they will succeed in this campaign.
On the other hand, can a person (or organization) committed to achieve power AT ANY PRICE; that is convinced that it MUST obtain this power; that is persuaded that nothing it does or says is too crazy (or too destructive) as long as the objective is achieved, really, truly be considered “irrational”?…
Barry Meislin:
I just put up a new post on the subject.
But you misunderstand me if you think I mean that Democratic leaders/operatives are insane in doing this. I think they’re extremely clever. When I mentioned people going insane, I meant the public, those who might vote for Biden because they’re been brainwashed into belief that Trump is evil and/or that Biden isn’t as impaired as he is.
Actually, in spite of some of the things I said above, I believe that the Democratic Party HAS gone insane.
But it’s the kind of “insanity” that comes with believing that you’re invincible; that you can get away with anything; that rules are for others because you know better—and ARE better—than those “others”.
IOW, criminal and/or pathological insanity. that is, no, not even “crazy like a fox”.
(Though to paraphrase Woody Allen—can one still do that?—the country MIGHT in fact vote (or should that be, “vote”?) for them because it “needs the eggs”. In which case the country is in deep trouble.)