Really, can’t we do better? Why do we put up with this?
The answer to my questions may be that the people who won’t put up with it leave and take their income with them. Then the state redoubles to draw in people who’ll need government services, because that’s what their incentives are.
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As we all prepare (if only nominally) to recall the gratitude we ought to feel for the establishment of the beacon of freedom into which we were born, with a specific nod to a moment of shared humanity on Thanksgiving, take a moment to play with a fancy interactive infographic Bloomberg published in September. The sub-headlined point sets the stage:
The year after Black Lives Matter protests, the S&P 100 added more than 300,000 jobs — 94% went to people of color.
For context — although it’s getting more difficult to find data that isn’t slathered in diversity triumphalism and narrative promotion — “White alone non-Hispanic” Americans still make up 58% of the United States population. To put a nice clear box around it: Only 6% of all new jobs in America’s top companies were parceled out to nearly 60% of the population. I’m certainly not a fan of “equity” talk, but is there a non-racist, non-vindictive way to justify that imbalance?
Scroll through Bloomberg’s infographic, and the problem only becomes more worrying. The disproportion gets worse as one moves down the career ladder. The “less-senior roles” in these companies saw a decrease of 18,800 white people, while white professionals, managers, and executives did better. Looking at total workforces, and not just new hires, if you dip below “managers,” white people are not proportionately represented in the total existing workforce at these companies.
As indicated above, I don’t put much stock in racial quota tracking, but a likely outcome is easy to see, here. To “make gains” in “equity,” companies are actively blocking white Americans from accessing the lower rungs of the ladder. This will (oh, yes, it will) create a bitter underclass, for which the mainstream solution appears to be mockery, scorn, and vilification, even by the U.S. military, to which people in those circumstances used to turn for a straight-and-narrow path to self-respect and self-improvement. These trends will not turn out well. The more desperate white folks in the lower economic ranks become, the more America’s elites will use their reaction to despair as evidence of the need for restricted rights and the unfit nature of the white lower class.
These trends expose the entire racialist line as the lie that it is. There is no conspiracy of whiteness. Our economic system does not favor white people as white people. White elites are happy to suppress working and poor whites, who (lest we forget) are actually the majority in their classes, too. Racial solidarity of people with light skin is a malevolent myth… at least for the time being. As the reality of the “equity” program becomes increasingly obvious, the rationality of an actual “white identity” will become irresistible.
Whether it is fanciful or not, the idea of a unifying shared meal in America’s colonial past represents a valuable ideal. Those of our neighbors who insist that it never existed tend to go much farther, sowing division at every opportunity and proving by their actions that, whether such unity is possible, they do not find it desirable.
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop AI.
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If you’re not familiar with the poem, “Antigonish,” give it a read. The classic example of surreal poetry might feel relevant to Rhode Island’s political landscape.
Speaking with a friend in the foyer prior to the 2023 Freedom Banquet of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity, by which I used to be employed, I expressed my astonishment that most Rhode Islanders — even those who make a point of being informed — have to be forgiven for not knowing that the organization exists at all. The most-recent entry on the organization’s media-center page is from 2021, and the featured image there is of the late Bill Rappleye.
And yet, the event was apparently the most successful in the organization’s history. It featured a live interview by CEO Mike Stenhouse of national conservative media figure Guy Benson and a panel featuring three high-level executives of the nationally powerful Americans for Prosperity about its commitment to its branch in Rhode Island. How is it possible that such an event is apparently of no account locally?
To be sure, American society is so vast that we humans are able to find alcoves of community that are, in objective terms, significant in size, but that hardly rank for attention. So much is this true that organizations can become quite profitable using the Internet to micro-target specific audiences. A fair living can be made by defining a “small” group of a few thousand people and catering to its needs.
The subject at hand, however, is different in an important way. The Center is a civic organization, offering an alternative point of view to that of the powers who be in Rhode Island. In that context, the knowledge that some hundreds of people are interested in paying money to come together in the middle of the workday to support the alternative can change people’s understanding of their state, and therefore their activities, and therefore the course of history.
Yet, there it is. Bill Rappleye. Articles from 2021. And scarce a mention of the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity since. One suspects the reason the group (along with Anchor Rising, for that matter) has become unmentionable is that mentioning it might have some modest effect on the course of history. Making opposition irrelevant is a coup for political control.
On a particular day when she was still the governor of Rhode Island and COVID had not yet hit, Bill interviewed Gina Raimondo, and afterwards (as journalists are wont to d0) he mentioned that he was on his way next to speak with Mike Stenhouse and asked if she had any thoughts on what he might ask. “Why are you talking to them?,” she reportedly asked. Coming from the governor of a state — a rising star in her political party — such questions can hardly be taken as mere curiosity. Recall that Ted Nesi of WPRI (primary competitor to Bill’s WJAR) won the coveted first in-person, post-COVID-lockdown interview with the Governor Raimondo. “Why are you talking to them?” was a clear admonition that “you should not be talking to them” — a decree from on high.
Something changed after the election of Donald Trump that became ingrained during COVID. Journalists and other institutional practitioners used to prove, through their actions, their belief that pretenses to objectivity required some effort to engage with people they’d rather shun; they have since given themselves permission to pretend their pretenses were unassailable, with no proof needed. We’ll regret the results if we let them carry on like that. The Center for Freedom & Prosperity exists and is active. It is vital that we remember such facts of reality.
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 2.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- Crowley feted as the air to RI’s union throne
- RI embarrassed by wandering quahogs
- Denouncing “hate crime” to set the narrative before it can be disproven
- Finding Patriotic Day divisive during public school Spirit Week
- The party of socialism and anti-Semitism lets the mask slip
- Cannabis reveals some of the old, corrupt lines in the Ocean State
Featured image by Justin Katz using Firefly AI and Photoshop with AI assist.
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But I have to wonder: as these groups come forward demanding more money, is anybody — whether journalists or state agencies — investigating the services that are being provided, the mandates imposed on the providers, or the nuts and bolts of the organizations providing them?
Such stories typically evince no trace of skepticism about the claims of the providers and to be based wholly on the assumption that they’re selfless and doing all that can be done for all the right reasons. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not, or maybe they’re good people caught in a corrupt system, but journalists seem seamlessly and maybe unconsciously to jump from the existence of a problem to the conclusion that more money is the answer.
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Conversations related to the Washington Trust settlement with the government, requiring the bank to address alleged racial discrimination on its part, indicate two views or standards for handling blame in society.
One side is convinced that somebody is to blame for the circumstances of life and that the job of society (particularly government) is to find people and organizations on which to pin that blame and impose a consequence for “justice.” The fact that a rationale or investigative methodology is able to assign blame is, of itself, proof that the rationale or methodology is valuable and accurate.
The other side believes that blame isn’t so direct, simplistic, or easy to assign and, therefore, thinks it is the burden of society (particularly government) to prove that an individual or organization truly is to blame for a specific result before imposing consequences.
The first is the conduct of an easily guided mob. The second provides a path to civilization and true justice.
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The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports (Page 11) that as of the fourth quarter of 2022, Rhode Island has fifty dealerships that sell new cars. Note that this figure does not include dealerships selling new trucks, new buses, new motor homes, new motorcycles, et etera.
Governor Dan McKee’s proposed 2024 budget, Page 158 of the Executive Summary, projects sales tax revenue from “Motor Vehicles” for 2024 at $117,200,000, falling modestly to $103,404,368 for FY 2028.
Now add to the state’s annual budget the income tax it collects on the roughly $200,000,000+ in wages from the thousands of people employed by those dealerships.
Why am I bringing this up? Because Rhode Island is poised to implement “Advanced Clean Cars II (ACCII) & Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT)” rule which would implement H6055/S0195, passed in May by the Rhode Island General Assembly and signed by Governor McKee [Correction, 12/8/23: ACT and ACCII were not passed by the General Assembly; H6055 was heard and held in committee; the hearing on S0195 was “postponed”. Governor McKee is implementing by executive order.] ACCII and ACT would
… require that, by 2035, all new cars imported for sale in Rhode Island be non-gas powered.
… actually, non-gas AND non-diesel powered. In other words, all new vehicles sold in Rhode Island would have to be electric.
Nothing about this initiative is tethered to reality. Car manufacturers have no obligation to make these vehicles. Rhode Islanders have no obligation to purchase them and lots do not have either the interest or the means to do so.
Rhode Island’s electric grid does not have the capacity to accommodate the corresponding stepped up demand. Charging infrastructure in the state for cars is woefully inadequate; for big rigs, all but non-existent.
The impact of Rhode Island going to zero emissions will have no impact on global warming, as John Kerry himself has effectively said.
“The United States could go to zero tomorrow—I mean we can’t but if you’re figuratively speaking could go to zero—we’d still have a problem. The world would still have a problem,” Kerry told Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart. He continued, “If China went to zero tomorrow with the United States, we’d still have a problem. …”
With regard to supply, we are watching in real time as manufacturers pull back on the production of electric cars because consumer demand for them has cooled. No kidding. People cannot afford them, which even the New York Times acknowledges.
Buyers remain interested in electric vehicles, surveys show, but struggle to afford them. The average price paid for an electric vehicle in the United States was less than $51,000 in September, according to Cox Automotive. That’s a huge decline from last year’s $65,000. But it’s still too high for many new-car buyers, especially as high interest rates have made monthly car payments more expensive.
We learned recently, thanks to the Hummel Report, that the State of Rhode Island itself failed to achieve a 25% change-over of its fleet to “clean” electric vehicles in a ten year timeframe.
If the state itself, with all of its resources, cannot meet even a modest target for changing to electric vehicles, that speaks volumes about the practicality for us ordinary folk and ordinary businesses of complying with ACCII and ACT.
As to practical impact. What happens if the sale of fossil fuel vehicles are banned but they are not replaced with electric vehicles, either in dealerships because manufacturers stop making them or by Rhode Islanders because they cannot afford them – AS HAS ALREADY STARTED HAPPENING? With no customers and no inventory, dealerships close or relocate out of state.
In short, if ACCII and ACT are implemented, there is a real risk that Rhode Island won’t get “clean” cars but will get cleaned out of new vehicle dealerships and a whole lot of tax revenue.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- What the CD1 results suggest for Rhode Island Republicans
- What Cicilline is trying to get away with from the RI Foundation
- What Baldelli-Hunt’s resignation suggests
- Why the judge cares about Neronha’s tweets (and what Neronha wants)
- How the Providence Journal is securing its representation of classic journalistic principle
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop with AI assist.
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