Is There a New Civil Rights Movement or New Cold War?
If so, it won’t be like last time.
Today’s guest column is by Cliff Smith, a lawyer and a former congressional staffer. He lives in Washington, D.C., where he works on national security related issues.
Veteran political reporter Juan Williams recently opined in a new book that we are in the midst of a second Civil Rights movement. He has reported on civil rights for decades and has written books about Civil Rights leaders like Thurgood Marshall. He’s worth taking seriously.
But Williams’ thesis raises a pitfall in our political discussions that should not go unexamined. Specifically, the traps that present themselves in making too close of comparisons to successful movements of the past.
If you are a Democrat, you’ve probably heard a lot about how the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson were able to make huge strides in equality during the Civil Rights movement. If you are a Republican, you’ve probably heard a lot about how Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot. There’s truth in both claims, and generations of political actors seek to apply the lessons learned to today’s challenges. This is inevitable, and largely a good thing.
But reality is messier than the stories partisans tell. Reagan took many indispensable actions in winning the Cold War, but it would not have been fought on favorable terms had it not been for Harry Truman, a Democrat, who began assistance to countries resisting the Soviet Union (USSR). Also, it is true that JFK and LBJ were instrumental in the Civil Rights cause, but Republicans in Congress gave a greater percentage of their votes to the 1964 Civil Rights Act than Democrats did. Neither triumph is owned by one “side” alone.
Moreover, politics is not static.
Williams rightly points out that the new movement, “battles a behemoth of lingering racial inequalities left unresolved by the first movement,” and has made strides in calling attention to economic inequalities and police abuses that had received too little attention. But he warns that this movement “can thrive only so long as it adopts the strongest parts of what came before.”
That last part is tricky.
The horrifying injustices which led to the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police clearly called for a reckoning. But while soul-searching and reform is warranted, the “Defund the Police,” movement of 2020 not only went too far, but undermined the cause.
“John Lewis and I were very concerned when these slogans came out about 'defund the police,’” Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said of himself and the late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), his former colleague and a major Civil Rights hero who had died just months earlier. “We sat together on the House floor and talked about how that slogan... could undermine the (Black Lives Matter) movement, just as 'burn, baby, burn' destroyed our movement back in the ‘60s.”
This happened, in part, because popular discourse cloaked new policies and new movements in the glories of past achievements without deeper thought. Instead many sought to silence critiques as opposing advancement of the cause, or worse.
Thankfully, the “Defund the Police,” movement is dead, but there are other issues in the mix today that present challenges.
Yascha Mounk, a Professor at Johns Hopkins University, has written about the rise of what he calls the “identity synthesis,” an outgrowth of intellectual and political trends popularized by people like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. This synthesis is certainly in the mix of Williams’ second Civil Rights movement, and focus almost exclusively on power between racial identity groups. Mounk argues this synthesis is used by “many activists and politicians invoke their heritage as a justification for their political position,” leading to fruitless debates about the evils of “whiteness,” or who is the “authentic” voice of minority groups, rather than thoughtful deliberation on policies that helps minorities.
He’s not alone. Serious African American scholars such as Columbia University’s John McWhorter, are even harsher, “At a certain point,” some of those who focus on the contest between distinct identity groups want people to “stop using logic and you're just supposed to … believe,” that their methods will improve minorities lives. McWhorter strongly disagrees.
Both Mounk and McWhorter agree that seemingly neutral policies can be malicious, a key claim of what might popularly be called critical race theory, but say only a smart re-commitment to equality can make forward progress on combating racism. Kendi and DiAngelo, on the other hand, claim that good or “antiracist” discrimination, done in the name of the “right” identity group, is necessary to remedy bad or “racist” discrimination. If the latter are correct, a fundamental position of the original Civil Rights movement is no longer operative, and perhaps was always fictional.
The point is not to get into the nitty gritty of academic debates, but these issues are hotly debated, and will serve as a rudder for the current Civil Rights movement. It would be irrational, and dishonest, to accept such a serious amendment, like Kendi’s, to a fundamental position in the name of the original Civil Rights movement without serious reflection. Such reflection has not taken place.
Likewise, you can barely discuss foreign policy without hearing analogies to the Cold War and World War II. Ian Bremmer, the President of the Eurasia Group, recently said that that “we’re entering a uniquely dangerous period on par with the 1930s & early Cold War.”
China under the Chinese Communist Party clearly aims to expand its reach, and coerce countries into playing by its rules. The “no limits” partnership between China, Russia, and their close cooperation with Iran, recalls the World War 2 axis powers. Russia’s barbaric and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has destabilized any sort of order that prioritized national sovereignty and peace among the leading world powers. Bremmer’s on to something.
At the same time, the situation is very different from what presented itself prior to World War II, or during the Cold War. Rather than a great depression, the worldwide economy has, save for the brief covid downturn, thrived for 15+ years. Unlike being economically isolated, as the USSR was, the economies of China and America are deeply interlinked. While Russia and Iran are under heavy sanctions, they find many ways to evade them.
The goal concerning Hitler and Imperial Japan was made clear by President Franklin Roosevelt: unconditional surrender. Likewise, America beat the USSR in large part by bankrupting them in a fierce economic competition where it built more and better weapons than the USSR could afford. But can America and its allies force China to surrender, or bankrupt it while it is economically interlinked? It’s a unique challenge. What worked last time won’t work again.
Ironically, prominent skeptics of continuing to arm Ukraine, such as Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) argue us that we should focus on China and view Ukraine as a secondary issue that threatens to drain our resources from our first priority, China. Others, such as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the Taiwanese envoy to the US, argue that defeating Russia in Ukraine is necessary to deterring China’s axis. Both are invoking Cold War logic. Like civil rights, this debate cannot be swept aside by invoking America’s past victories. The divisions are too fundamental to be overlooked.
The lessons are simple, but not easy: don’t sign up for any policy or movement without close inspection. Claiming the mantle of past glories doesn’t give modern movements the same moral authority, and they don’t guarantee the same results.