Ellen Pao should stop helping Donald Trump

There’s good PC and bad PC.  The good PC says you should not go around calling Mexicans “rapists and murders”.  The bad PC is harder to explain, but I tried in this Econlog post.  The real problem is not so much the idea of political correctness, but rather that it is used as a weapon in an ideological war.  More specifically, it’s used by the left to shame the right.  Viewed from this perspective, you could say that if the PC advocates are correct about the need for PC, then it’s actually used far to little. It also needs to be used against the left.  Here’s Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in The Week:

If there are saints in the church of secular progressivism, the Hollywood Ten are surely among them. These are the individuals who worked in Hollywood and were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer the question, “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” — thus becoming political martyrs.

In its popular form, the story of the Hollywood blacklist has been distorted somewhat. While the fear of Communist agitators — a fear not wholly removed from fact — working in Hollywood was used by Sen. Joe McCarthy for opportunistic political motives, the movement was originally launched by private individuals genuinely interested in removing Communist influence from Hollywood, and they did this through peaceful, “non-coercive” means: naming and shaming, boycotts, and threats of boycotts.

Several members of the Hollywood Ten actually were members of the Communist Party and had remained members of the Communist Party even after the Stalinist Purges of the 1930s that removed that party’s credibility in America. That is to say, whatever their other beliefs or intentions, they endorsed the end of liberal democracy and the advent of a global totalitarian government ruled by Joseph Stalin or someone like him. And yet, the idea that such people should be blacklisted is regarded as anathema by the contemporary left. So they are seen as progressive saints.

The problem actually goes far beyond the Hollywood Ten. Much of the 20th century left is morally tainted by being soft on communism (just as much of the right was tainted by being soft on fascism).  Even today, many 20th century artists are revered on the left for being “politically conscious”, when in fact they knowingly supported genocidal communist regimes.  Sorry, but that’s not OK.

I point this out because you may have heard that the renowned Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, a man whom it is seemingly impossible to refer to without using the word “contrarian,” is a supporter of Donald Trump. After Thiel recently decided to donate $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign, the group Project Include, led by former venture capitalist Ellen Pao, has decided to sever ties, not even with Thiel himself, but with Y Combinator, a renowned Silicon Valley incubator that has named Thiel as a part-time partner.

It seems that on the progressive left, blacklists are only bad when they target a certain group of people.

This helps to explain part of the appeal of Donald Trump.  His supporters see how PCism is used as a cudgel against them, and how large groups of Americans (on the left) are completely exempt from criticism by the cultural elites.  Their resentment pushes them to unfortunate extremes, supporting someone who engages in both the morally justified and morally unacceptable types of political incorrectness.  But it’s entirely predictable that you’d get this sort of backlash.

If the left wants to be taken seriously on political correctness, they need to write an entirely new history of the 20th century.  In this new history, many of their most revered artists will become Leni Riefenstahls.  I don’t think there is anyone on the left that is willing to look history in the eye, in quite that way.  I hope I’m wrong.

PS.  Here’s an example, if you don’t know what I’m talking about.  The 1930 Soviet (Ukrainian) film “Earth” is a fine film on pure aesthetic grounds. (But then the same could be said of Riefenstahl’s films.)  It also has a very sinister subtext, as it portrays kulaks as villains.  Recall that Stalin demonized and murdered them by the millions, just as Hitler demonized and murdered the Jews.  Now let’s consider a typical film review of Earth, this one from “Senses of Cinema” (but you could find another dozen similar ones):

Seen today as the final work in a loose trilogy that also comprises Zvenigora (1928) and Arsenal (1929), Earth is Dovzhenko’s ultimate paean to nature, the land and those who toil on it and whose lives are inextricably bound up with it. The film is literally teeming with grandiose images of the natural world: such as the opening shots of a vast sky and rolling fields, of sunflowers and apples. The farmers collective relationship to this world and its order is immediately established through the juxtaposition of an old man dying (the end of life, of a cycle) and young children (the beginning); the fact that they are eating the apples that lie strewn on the grass further crystallises the sense of a constant, natural cycle of birth, growth and death (as does the justly famous shot of a woman and a sunflower, in which the composition makes them almost graphically contiguous across the frame).

It goes on and on in these glowing terms, with no reference to the sinister implications.  (Imagine the critical response to a typical Nazi-era German film that mocked Jews.)  The humanities in most countries are heavily tainted by their ambiguous relationship with communism.  Lots of people assume that the problem has gone away, now that the Cold War is over.  Not so, it’s as bad as it ever was–indeed getting worse.  Support for communism among millennials is rising fast, with 37% having a favorable view of Che Guevara.  That’s more than for Trump!  You can find posters of Guevara on the walls of faculty offices in many colleges across the country.  Indeed 18% even have a favorable view of Mao.  And liberals can’t imagine how 40% of Americans plan to vote for Trump (some with an unfavorable view of him).

PPS.  My daughter’s high school has a picture of Mao on one of its wall murals.  No picture of Hitler, however.  Seems they don’t care about the feelings of those students whose parents fled communist China.  Maybe Newton, Massachusetts needs a bit more political correctness.


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33 Responses to “Ellen Pao should stop helping Donald Trump”

  1. Gravatar of Effem Effem
    19. October 2016 at 08:42

    Where in the quote below does it say that Mexicans are rapists? I believe he asserts a theory that illegal Mexican immigrants are more likely to be involved in rape/drugs/crime than Mexicans as a whole. Sounds possible, but i’m not even sure we are diligent enough to keep such stats.

    I see the Trump vote as anti-PC but also a vote against people who see any “brash” tone as somehow racist, sexist, etc. Pretending Trump said something he didn’t also feeds into that.

    “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

  2. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    19. October 2016 at 09:03

    I hope Trump wins, but evidence at this point points to a Clinton victory. Especially where Sumner lives. No point in talking about a probable loser. Talk about how Clinton will promote Islamic terrorism, war with Russia, TPP, etc. And how her court will mandate affirmative action on all states and legislate amnesty by executive order. I weep for this country.

  3. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    19. October 2016 at 09:05

    I’m opposed to all PC. Let the degenerates spout their BS and let them be called degenerates. Americans must have a clear-eyed view of things.

  4. Gravatar of Patrick Sullivan Patrick Sullivan
    19. October 2016 at 09:25

    ‘In its popular form, the story of the Hollywood blacklist has been distorted somewhat. ‘

    Somewhat! The fact is that all of the Ten had been Communists at one time or another. We know this from, among other evidence, the two memoirs one of them wrote, Edward Dmytryk’s ‘Odd Man Out’

    http://hisstoryisbunk.blogspot.com/2014/09/maxspeak-of-devil-ii.html

    Here’s how he described his fellow ‘Tenners’ performance at the famous HUAC hearing;

    ‘Anyone who has ever read The Daily Worker will immediately recognize such vituperation as the hallmark of the doctrinaire communist’s attitude toward anyone who might disagree with his or her vision.’

    and;

    ‘As one can see, the strategy [John Howard] Lawson used was one at which the communists were past masters: construct your own straw man, then proceed to knock him down. …. It was unnecessary for Lawson to identify himself as a communist; the answer was implicit in his position paper….’

    Btw, it was Ronald Reagan who helped Ed Dmytryk regain his professional career, after he’d served a six month prison sentence for contempt for his refusal to testify at that HUAC.

    Also, every single person Joe McCarthy accused of being a Communist, or a sympathizer, was in fact just that.

  5. Gravatar of Patrick Sullivan Patrick Sullivan
    19. October 2016 at 09:32

    Speaking of reasons for voting for Trump (he isn’t Hillary), Phil Gramm has a good Op-ed in the WSJ;

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/where-clinton-will-take-obamacare-1476746073

    ———–quote———
    ObamaCare’s plan was always to cook the frog slowly. It didn’t immediately close the individual market or shut down the small-group market as HillaryCare did. President Obama granted substantial flexibility in implementation, such as suspending penalties for individuals and employers, waiving income-verification requirements and easing the premium shock on young enrollees by administratively adjusting the community-rating system. But the result of delaying the coercion ObamaCare requires has been an explosion in health-care premiums and massive losses by insurers.

    Except for the fact that it is occurring right before the elections, the four largest national health insurers dropping out of ObamaCare is not a problem. This is the plan. Eliminating the facade of private insurance is how ObamaCare “morphs” into HillaryCare and ultimately into a single-payer plan like Medicaid or Medicare. This is exactly what Mr. Obama and the Clintons wanted to begin with. Right on cue, they are now campaigning for a Bernie Sanders-type nationalized health-care system.

    For the ObamaCare of today to be transformed into the HillaryCare of 1993 and finally into a nationalized health-care system, a president is needed who has the willpower to impose the coercive details, nail down hard deadlines and unleash agencies to tighten controls and squeeze the life out of private insurers. In 1993 Hillary Clinton unapologetically proposed to do just that. If she is elected president she will have the unilateral power under ObamaCare to do it. The loss of what remains of Americans’ health-care freedom is an election away.
    ————endquote———–

  6. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    19. October 2016 at 09:39

    I agree! I would caution however that your career on a college campus may have exposed you to the excesses of PCism more than most people. I only got a dose of that while attending college, and probably it wasn’t as bad back then. PCism hasn’t been any kind of problem for me in the decades I’ve been in the workforce since then.

    But by all means we should do something about this excessive left wing PCism where it exists. I tend the agree with Ben Shapiro that that wrong approach is to replace it with a mirror image PCism of the right (where to be labeled an “SJW” is akin to being called a “racist” on the left). I think he puts it “Don’t fight bad morality with no morality. Fight bad morality with good morality!” Shapiro challeged Milo to debate this, but Milo wimped out.

    @Effem, you write:

    Where in the quote below does it say that Mexicans are rapists?

    I’d say right about here:

    They’re rapists.

    That was an easy one! =)

  7. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    19. October 2016 at 09:46

    I weep for this country.

    There’s always Russia. A country that knows how to put a strongman in control and cuck opponents in prison (or the grave). Have you considered emigrating?

  8. Gravatar of Adam Adam
    19. October 2016 at 10:43

    Can “communism” as a concept be divorced from the (failed) 20th century attempts to impose it via totalitarianism? I suspect those millenials and campus communists suggest that it can, while Scott seems to be insisting it cannot.

    Although that obviously does not explain venerating someone like Mao.

  9. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    19. October 2016 at 10:55

    @Harding:

    Wait a sec, so you now acknowledge the reality that Trump is probably toast. So when others would tell you this for the last few weeks you kept saying how everyone got it wrong in the primary, and the betting markets are wrong, etc.

    Why the change?

  10. Gravatar of Student Student
    19. October 2016 at 11:42

    Sumner: Fair. Well said.

    Hardin: “I’m opposed to all PC. Let the degenerates spout their BS and let them be called degenerates.” I think this is pretty much what happens in America. Example… Trump. He hasn’t been arrested are shut up at all. He spouts garbage, gets called on it, and loses.

  11. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    19. October 2016 at 11:55

    “Why the change?”

    -His polls in North Carolina and Florida aren’t great, and Trump has failed to respond to his poor poll performance with brutally truthful attacks on where Clinton is strongest in the polls -foreign policy and nuclear weapons. The polls for Trump were pretty great during the primary. I don’t trust betting markets. I do trust polls.

    “Have you considered emigrating?”

    -By the end of Clinton’s first term (if it happens), I will have decided.

  12. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    19. October 2016 at 11:58

    “He spouts garbage, gets called on it, and loses.”

    -Hasn’t lost yet. Wait a little.

  13. Gravatar of Student Student
    19. October 2016 at 12:03

    True.

  14. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    19. October 2016 at 12:21

    In my opinion political correctness occurs when of one political ideology is dominating. The core of political correctness is asking one question all the time: Is this opinion/view/finding in line with the dominating ideology or not?

    At the moment liberalism is dominating. So admiring Che Guevara is actually politically correct, criticizing him is not. Playing down or even glorifying people like Che Guevara and Mao is not an unintentional mistake or blind spot of PC, it is its very essence.

  15. Gravatar of Jeff Jeff
    19. October 2016 at 12:28

    “Have you considered emigrating?”

    -By the end of Clinton’s first term (if it happens), I will have decided.

    Finally, a reason to vote for Hillary!

    Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

  16. Gravatar of Randomize Randomize
    19. October 2016 at 14:27

    It’s always bothered me that people on both sides of the aisle confuse endorsement of an economic model with endorsement of a political figure and/or system. You hear people on the left say this all the time when they sling “capitalist” around like a dirty word when they’re really referring to cronyism or imperialism. On the right, they’re happy to damn anyone who would identify as a communist as if that person’s endorsement of the economic model somehow means they love Stalin and totalitarianism.

    Dr. Sumner, did any member of the Hollywood 10 endorse Stalin or his actions? Did any of them vote for him or knock on doors and hand out flyers to elect him dictator? You and I agree that they were wrong about economics but that’s no reason to jump to conclusions about their thoughts on elections or civil liberties.

  17. Gravatar of Effem Effem
    19. October 2016 at 16:26

    @Tom Brown
    Whites are rapists…and nice people too. As are blacks, asians, and Mexicans. I don’t understand your point.

  18. Gravatar of Joe B Joe B
    19. October 2016 at 16:40

    I find PC’ism is across the political spectrum and in the selection of polite topics of discussion.

    Small example: US federal employees in the military are referred to as an “all-volunteer” force. Not “mercenaries.”

    Another example: the topic is always the minimum wage, but never the universal criminalization of push-cart or truck-vending in American cities.

    There is plenty of PC to go around!

  19. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. October 2016 at 17:35

    Adam, Interesting question, and the same applies to fascism. I don’t know, but given that communism is about zero for 20, I’d rather not take a chance.

    Christian, Mao was a mass murderer, and Che was a torturer and killer. To say that liberals favor those things is absurd. The problem with liberals is not that they are pro-communist, they aren’t, it’s that they are not sufficiently anti-communist.

    Randomize, I think you misunderstood my post. I do not think that the Hollywood Ten should have been boycotted, nor do I think Thiel should have been boycotted.

    I can’t speak to that particular case, but yes, there was lots of support on the left for Stalin, even as his crimes were fully understood. It was not just communism in the abstract, it was support for Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Che, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, etc.

    Effem, You said:

    “Whites are rapists…and nice people too.”

    Seriously? Are you seriously claiming that Trumps comments were simply equating Mexican immigrants with white people? Ask his alt right supporters if that’s how they interpreted his remarks. Ask Steve Bannon.

    Joe, Another one I hate is “drug pushers”. Why not drug sellers? I’ve never heard of drugs being pushed on anyone. No one has ever pushed drugs on me—I wouldn’t even know where to buy them. The pushers are the people who keep calling you trying to sell you some stupid product.

  20. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    19. October 2016 at 17:40

    @ssumner:

    Your answer to Joe immediately recalled one of my favorite Chris Rock bits (paraphrasing): “Why does everyone call drug pushers that? They don’t push drugs, they don’t sell drugs….they OFFER them. Have you ever seen a drug dealer sitting around saying ‘damn how am I gonna get rid of all this crack?'”

  21. Gravatar of Steve Steve
    19. October 2016 at 18:34

    “Another one I hate is “drug pushers”. Why not drug sellers? I’ve never heard of drugs being pushed on anyone. No one has ever pushed drugs on me—I wouldn’t even know where to buy them.”

    Meh. The devil doesn’t “push” Faustian bargains either; he just makes the temptation irresistible.

    And, if you wouldn’t know where to buy drugs, perhaps you aren’t in the best position to evaluate policy options?

    Why not have a fact based policy: start with a survey of 1000s of addicts and ask them what the triggering event was for getting them addicted? Pain meds, docs, curiosity, “pushers”, family/friends, gateway drugs (pot or alcohol), desperate levels of emotional/physical pain, etc. I’d like to see this myself.

  22. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    19. October 2016 at 19:01

    ‘Dr. Sumner, did any member of the Hollywood 10 endorse Stalin or his actions?’

    Yes, as a matter of fact they did. Dalton Trumbo certainly was pro-Stalin.

    Edward Dmytryk related the attempt of one of his fellow-‘Tenners’ to convince him that South Korea had attacked North Korea to start the Korean War, while both were incarcerated in the same prison farm.

    The Ten (minus Dmytryk who only joined the CP because he thought it would be good for his career) were hard core Commies, to a man.

  23. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    19. October 2016 at 19:11

    ‘The problem with liberals is not that they are pro-communist, they aren’t, it’s that they are not sufficiently anti-communist.’

    No, many of them are/were pro-Communist. Owen Latimore, John Stewart Service, Jane Fonda, Lilian Hellman, George Bernard Shaw, the Webbs, Paul Robeson ….

    Unless you want to argue they WERE Communists, and not liberals.

  24. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    19. October 2016 at 21:16

    What a word salad by Sumner. Everything and the kitchen sink! I like this part: “Maybe Newton, Massachusetts needs a bit more political correctness” – so Sumner’s mixed-race daughter identifies with Asians and is offended by Mao’s portrait? And she’s the kind that carries around a notebook documenting every day’s discrimination against her, so her daddy can sue the school district? Will help pay for his retirement in SoCal. That’s the implication I read behind that sentence.

  25. Gravatar of Effem Effem
    20. October 2016 at 05:25

    @Scott
    I interpreted his remarks to mean: “illegal mexican immigrants are disproportionately involved in crime including drug crimes and rape.” I believe that is accurate (by a wide margin) although I also believe the stats are spotty.

    That doesn’t alarm me. “Tone” doesn’t mean much to me relative to content.

  26. Gravatar of Anand Anand
    20. October 2016 at 07:05

    Sorry in advance for the long winded comment.

    Interesting post, though a bit incoherent. I mostly agree that PC can be and is used an ideological weapon. The climate of opinion against Trump in the media and popular culture is reaching ridiculous levels. Trump is not a fascist, 2016 US is not 1930s Germany. Trump is more like Berlusconi, his crude sexual behaviour included. Luigi Zingales wrote a good piece on Trump in 2011 (http://www.city-journal.org/html/dodging-trump-bullet-10850.html)

    However, I think the the post is marred by a crude filter of “left” vs “right”, which doesn’t really work.

    Zerothly, the 37% figure is wrong. It is 37% of 60% (those who are aware of who Che was). That works out to 22%. That might still be too high for you.

    Firstly, I fail to see what Ellen Pao has to do with communism. If anything, one should blame rich left-of-center liberal elites for her behaviour, not communism. Conflating her actions with communism is about as sensible as accusing you of supporting Donald Trump; since you have libertarian sympathies and libertarianism is generally considered rightwing, at least on economic matters. I doubt that you’ll find many communists trying to align themselves with rich Silicon Valley liberals. “Liberal” is curse word in communist circles, probably only next to “fascist”.

    As for Che being a murderer and torturer, I assume you are referring to his actions in the tribunals after the Cuban revolution/coup. Those were bad, no doubt.

    Since you are a utilitarian, I wonder if every time classical liberalism is mentioned, one has to point out colonialism in India? I admire John Stuart Mill – On Liberty is one of my favourite books of all time – but I don’t overlook the fact that he referred to Indians as “barbarous” in the book. He wrote one of the classics of “humanitarian intervention”, a defence of colonialism in India. Mill was an official of the East India Company, so he was a direct participant, not just a philosopher.

    More generally, one has to recognize that every “independence movement”, the Cuban case included, involved terrorism. The Indian independence movement was extremely bloody, contrary to the impression of Gandhian non-violence in popular myth. And there was plenty of state terrorism by Nehru etc. post-independence. To take one example, the invasion and annexation of Hyderabad by the Indian army in 1948 led to the deaths of at least 50,000 and more likely 200,000 people, mostly Muslim civilians.

    This is just a long way of saying that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”.

    Lastly, I agree that the reaction against Thiel is a bit ridiculous. But let’s not carried away, shall we? A voluntary disassociation from a venture is slightly different from boycott of working professionals in Hollywood. It is not nice being shunned by your colleagues, but I doubt that there is a lack of people in Silicon Valley which will still line up to take Thiel’s money.

  27. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    20. October 2016 at 12:19

    Steve, You said:

    “And, if you wouldn’t know where to buy drugs, perhaps you aren’t in the best position to evaluate policy options?”

    Suppose someone told me they are available in “the South End of Boston” How would that make me more qualified to opine on drug laws?

    Patrick, I am talking about modern liberals. But thanks for that info on the Hollywood Ten.

    Ray, You have quite a vivid imagination.

    Effem, I haven’t seen any data to back up that claim.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/02/surprise-donald-trump-is-wrong-about-immigrants-and-crime/

    Anand, I think I was one of the first to make Berlusconi comparisons, so I agree. But Trump is even worse, and Berlusconi doesn’t have his finger on the nuclear trigger.

    You said:

    “Zerothly, the 37% figure is wrong. It is 37% of 60% (those who are aware of who Che was). That works out to 22%. That might still be too high for you.”

    That’s a pretty heroic assumption. 37% of the 60% who have heard of Che, but zero percent of the other 40% if they were told about Che. That’s your assumption? I don’t think so. I think 37% is our best guess of where this group stands.

    And yes, even 22% is a horrific number.

    I never in any way compared Pao to the communists; just the opposite, I compared her to anti-communists. The anti-communists were the PC people of the 1950s.

    The rest of your comment is over the top, or else in support of my argument against political correctness. The “other people were bad” arguments can be used to defend Hitler. After all, both Hitler and Mill did “bad things”. Do you really want to go down that road? Are you seriously comparing Castro and has gang of thugs to the Indian independence movement? The revolution was not about making Cuba independent, it was about making it into a totalitarian communist state. So why put posters of Che on a college office wall?

    You said:

    “This is just a long way of saying that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”.”

    Which is of course a really dumb thing to say. They weren’t fighting for freedom, they were fighting for totalitarianism.

    You said:

    “Lastly, I agree that the reaction against Thiel is a bit ridiculous. But let’s not carried away, shall we?”

    Um, aren’t the stupid liberals who worship the Hollywood Ten as if they are important martyrs and ignore the 30 million (or more) killed by Mao the people who actually “get carried away”? Imagine if American intellectuals ignored the Holocaust and made a big deal about 10 former Nazis who lost jobs in post-war West Germany.

    Personally, I don’t care if they boycott Thiel, I just find their smug self-righteousness to be rather tiresome. The 1950s anti-communist “hysteria” was political correctness, plain and simple. If they are going to defend it today, and many progressives do, then at least have the decency to also defend the 1950s anti-communists.

    I would add that’s I’ve met little known victims of PCism, such as adjunct profs fired for their political views. It’s not just what you read in the papers.

  28. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    20. October 2016 at 14:32


    Mao was a mass murderer, and Che was a torturer and killer. To say that liberals favor those things is absurd.

    I never said liberals favor those things. I said they are playing down or even glorifying people like Che Guevara and Mao – for example by evading/ignoring/downplaying their ugly sides.

  29. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    20. October 2016 at 14:39


    then at least have the decency to also defend the 1950s anti-communists.

    They can’t because nearly every ideology got its own political correctness and taboos.

  30. Gravatar of Anand Anand
    20. October 2016 at 16:22

    Scott,
    I agree with you about not-so-well known people being hurt by PC; indeed I said this up front. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. I am simply not convinced that Thiel makes the same category.

    You say “Imagine if American intellectuals ignored the Holocaust and made a big deal about 10 former Nazis who lost jobs in post-war West Germany.”

    But something like this in fact happened. The West German bureaucracy was mostly staffed by ex-Nazis. See this Financial Times report for example (https://www.ft.com/content/3b5abe60-8efc-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78). Western intellectuals were mostly fine with that. The reason was simple: If you were leftist, you went to East Germany. If you were rightist (including Nazis) you stayed in West Germany. And you simply couldn’t find qualified people untainted by their past. The most famous example of an ex-Nazi feted in the US was Wernher von Braun, who worked in NASA. Tom Lehrer wrote a song about von Braun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro)

    Nobody cared about the Holocaust back then, except, you can guess it, communists. Communists had their own axe to grind, of course.

  31. Gravatar of Miguel Madeira Miguel Madeira
    21. October 2016 at 02:04

    “George Bernard Shaw, the Webbs (…) Unless you want to argue they WERE Communists, and not liberals”

    Booth Shaw and the Webbs were fabian socialists, nor communists neither liberals.

  32. Gravatar of Effem Effem
    21. October 2016 at 08:04

    @Scott

    You cited stats on all immigration in response to a theory on illegal immigration. No one is suggesting legal immigration is a major crime problem. In fact, I think many would argue that a benefit of less illegal immigration would be more legal immigration. It has the side benefit of feeling more “fair” as well.

    I will acknowledge the data is very spotty. But my guess is the fear of offending immigrants prevents us from even tracking such things…a tragedy of its own.

    Having said that, there is certainly reason for concern about illegal immigrants and crime…

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/08/08/illegal-alien-crime-accounts-for-over-30-of-murders-in-some-states/

  33. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    21. October 2016 at 12:45

    Anand, Your example doesn’t really have anything to do with my hypothetical. I agree that lots of Nazi’s got jobs, but at no time did Americans express more anguish about 10 Nazi’s losing their jobs than they did for the Holocaust. (Although I accept your point that in the early post war years people didn’t really fully register the awfulness of the Holocaust. But it was never viewed as less important than 10 jobs.)

    How about this:

    Films on the Holocaust: 500?

    Films glorifying the Hollywood Ten: 5?

    Films on the Great Leap Forward: Any?

    Effem, First of all, if you link to an alt-right rag like Breitbart, I’m not even going to read it. At least pick a respectable conservative news site. Second, I agree the data is spotty, but illegals have a strong incentive to avoid getting arrested for even a small thing, which could result in deportation. Trump’s claim was inflammatory, and I don’t think he had enough data to justify making it.

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