| Abstract | The question about religion’s helpfulness must always be bracketed, of course, because American religion—defined for current purposes as Prosperity Protestantism—has so obviously not been helpful within our collective memories. But this seems to me a moment when we need to look at our bracketing and our reasons for doing it, as we cannot afford to indulge old reflexive habits in this dangerous new period.But this seems to me a moment when we need to look at our bracketing and our reasons for doing it, as we cannot afford to indulge old reflexive habits in this dangerous new period.In just eight compressed paragraphs, Robin reminds us that today’s multicultural neoliberalism, epitomized by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, is essentially backward-looking and fear-based.It can never understand those enemies as political actors, making calculations, taking advantage of opportunities, and responding to constraints.The religion of Trump supporters is clearly one of the primary things that our neoliberal elites consign to the black hole.Robin frames the alternative to multicultural neoliberalism as a multiracial social democracy, the kind of thing Bernie Sanders was pointing us toward.He points to the economic violence of the decades-long “meritocratic” project, which has concealed the immiseration of a white working class that “increasingly comes to resemble the black underclass in indices of social disorganization.” Tang does not say, but I will say, that a politics rooted…
|
