Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals) : A History.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schultz, Kevin M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Liberals--United States--History.

Liberals.

White people--Political Activity--United States.

White people.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2025.

Summary:

A bracing, accessible history of white American liberals—and why it’s time to change the conversation about them. If there’s one thing most Americans can agree on, it’s that everyone hates white liberals. Conservatives hate them for being culturally tolerant and threatening to usher in communism. Libertarians hate them for believing in the power of the state. Socialists hate them for serving as capitalism’s beard. Even liberals hate liberals—either because they can’t manage to overcome their own prejudices, or precisely because they’re so self-hating. This is the starting point for Kevin M. Schultz’s lively new history of white liberals in the United States. He efficiently lays out the array of objections to liberals—ineffective, spineless, judgmental, authoritarian, and more—in a historical frame that shows how protean the concept has been throughout the past hundred years. It turns out, he declares, that how you define a “white liberal” is less a reflection of reality and more a Rorschach test revealing your own anxieties. Sharply assessing how decades of attacks on liberals and liberalism have steadily hollowed out the center of American political life, Schultz also explains precisely what needs to be done to avoid digging ourselves even further into the hole of polarization. The ultimate goal, he argues, is to achieve political fragmentation that will fuel the rise of a true multiparty system, where ideology will matter more, not less. With a tight command of postwar American history and a spirited voice, Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals) is a must-read for anyone wishing to understand—and envision a way forward in—the complicated landscape of American politics.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION It's just a Word

ONE The Birth of the White Liberal· 1912 to 1960

TWO "I Smell the Blood of a Liberal": The Buckley Playbook

THREE "Please Don't Ever Call Me a Liberal": The Left against Liberalism

FOUR My White Liberal Problem-and Ours: Putting the White in White Liberals

FIVE Radical Chic and Positive Polarization: White Liberals as Out-of-Touch Elites

SIX Ceding the 1960s, Losing Liberalism

SEVEN Neoliberal (Neo-liberal?) America

EIGHT First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: Owning the Libs

CONCLUSION Time far Something New

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780226824352

OCLC:

1515462529