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Feature 04.15.2019 3 minutes

Winning the New Irrepressible Conflict

MvA_Feature

How to defeat the multiculturalists' bid for disunion.

“Multiculturalism,” writes Claremont Institute board chairman Thomas Klingenstein, “conceives of society as a collection of cultural identity groups, each with its own worldview, all oppressed by white males, collectively existing within permeable national boundaries. Multiculturalism replaces American citizens with so-called ‘global citizens.’ It carves ‘tribes’ out of a society whose most extraordinary success has been their assimilation into one people. It makes education a political exercise in the liberation of an increasing number of ‘others,’ and makes American history a collection of stories of white oppression, thereby dismantling our unifying, self-affirming narrative—without which no nation can long survive.”

No longer the faddish doctrine it once appeared to be, safely confined to the faculty lounge, multiculturalism, says Klingenstein, has coercively sought to become America’s new normal. And only in 2016 did a national figure prove capable of blunting its drive. “During the 2016 campaign, Trump exposed multiculturalism as the revolutionary movement it is. He showed us that multiculturalism, like slavery in the 1850s, is an existential threat. Trump exposed this threat by standing up to it and its enforcement arm, political correctness.”

Now what?

Norman Podhoretz says Trump is on the right side of the fundamental divide. Conrad Black argues Americans must therefore choose between multiculturalism and Trump’s leadership. Were it not for Trump’s opposition to the multiculturalist temptation on both the Right and the Left, R. R. Reno writes, his candidacy would have failed.

Philosophically, John Marini explains, the multiculturalist movement is a manifestation of mass technology and consumer society. Practical success against it, according to John Fonte, means moving the fight from politics into policy. While David Azerrad lays bare the identity politics playbook, Richard Reinsch emphasizes the cultural imperatives of a restored constitutional morality.

The American Mind presents a range of perspectives. Views are writers’ own and do not necessarily represent those of The Claremont Institute.

The American Mind is a publication of the Claremont Institute, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated to restoring the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. Interested in supporting our work? Gifts to the Claremont Institute are tax-deductible.

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