Shelby and Eli Steele’s new film goes straight at the white-guilt grifters



Are you guilty? That depends. Are you white? Then yes, you are guilty. But whiteness is no longer the only offense. Believe in God? Believe Christ saves sinners? Believe in objective morality, the rule of law, or marriage between one man and one woman? Then skin color hardly matters. You are guilty anyway.

Guilty of what? Guilty of the sins of history, the inequities of the present, and whatever new offense the racial racketeers invent tomorrow. At least that is what grifters like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo have spent years selling to America, often for staggering sums underwritten by universities eager to flatter the ideology. Arizona State University, where I teach, has offered classes on the problem of whiteness. ASU’s Barrett Honors College teaches the evils of settler colonialism.

You, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, are footing the bill for Struggle Session 101.

That is the backdrop for “White Guilt,” the new documentary from Shelby Steele and his son, Eli Steele, which premieres this week at ASU. Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and recipient of the National Medal of the Humanities, has spent decades writing about race, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. In his 2006 book “White Guilt,” he argued that racial moralism had become a tool for gaining power over others rather than a path toward justice.

The film appears at a moment when Americans have begun to see more clearly how much of the modern racial industry depends on intimidation, guilt, and fraud.

Steele understands the temptation from the inside. As a young man, he felt drawn to the black power movement. His parents had been active in the civil rights movement, and he wanted to help his community. But he came to see that race blame solves nothing. It degrades everyone it touches. Blame wielded by race remains racism, no matter who aims it or who absorbs it.

The better question, Steele argues, asks what it means to live as a free and responsible person. What happens when an individual takes responsibility for his own choices? What kind of life becomes possible when dignity comes from agency rather than grievance? That moral vision sits much closer to the American ideal than the racial spoils system now preached across much of higher education.

Steele rejects the fashionable claim that slavery was America’s original sin. The deeper sin, he argues, is the use of race to gain power over others. That temptation did not die with Jim Crow. It adapted. It migrated into institutions, party politics, nonprofits, and university bureaucracies. Today it thrives in classrooms where professors insist they do not teach racism while teaching students to judge one another by skin color, ancestry, and inherited guilt.

That fraud has paid well.

Black Lives Matter offered perhaps the clearest recent example. In the wake of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, BLM became a moral brand for affluent liberals, activist professionals, and corporate America. Shelby and Eli Steele explored the lie at the movement’s foundation in their earlier film, “What Killed Michael Brown?” Their new film picks up a related question: How did the language of anti-racism become such a lucrative racket?

The answer is not hard to find. Much of the left’s social justice industry runs on a simple formula: Manufacture guilt, divide people by race, promise absolution, then collect money, influence, and institutional power. Sell moral panic to well-intentioned Americans, then invoice them for redemption.

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Want to end racism? Write a check. Sign the DEI pledge. Sit through the seminar. Keep your head down while the consultants explain that your skin makes you complicit and your silence proves your guilt.

The strategy stays simple. Divide humanity into categories. Teach each group to resent the others. Tell people that the brokenness of the world is not a permanent feature of fallen life but the fault of their neighbors. Then arrive as the enlightened manager who can fix it all, for a fee. That formula has wrecked poorer countries for generations. Now left-wing elites have imported it into American life, dressed it up in therapeutic language, and sold it as virtue.

Anyone who has spent time around a university classroom knows the script. A professor begins with a banal truth: The world is filled with injustice. The class nods. Then comes the poisonous turn: Would you like to know who is to blame? Look around the room. Identify the oppressor. Assign the guilt. Require ritual silence from some students and ritual confession from others. Repackage humiliation as education.

And you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, are footing the bill for Struggle Session 101.

Instead of surrendering to this politics of racial hatred, envy, and managed guilt, Americans should recover a better ideal. Freedom means more than license. It means responsibility. It means building a life through choice, discipline, and moral agency rather than through grievance and tribal score-settling. Whether the world crowns that life a success or a failure, it still belongs to you. No race hustler can take that from you.

“White Guilt” premieres March 25 at 6 p.m. at ASU Tempe in Bateman Physical Sciences F Wing, Room 166.

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White culture exists — and America is losing it



Jeremy Carl, Trump-appointee and author of “The Unprotected Class,” faced a grilling at the United States Senate when Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tore into his beliefs on “white identity.”

“You’re now retreating to ethnic identity. You don’t speak about ethnic identity. You speak about white identity. So tell me the values that stitch together white identity and that make it different than black identity,” Murphy asked.

“I would say that the white church is very different than the black church in terms of its tone and style on average. Foodways could often be different. Music could be different, if you look at the Super Bowl halftime show, which was not in English this year,” Carl explained.

Murphy responded, “So our ability to access white churches or white food or white music is being erased?”


“I am concerned with the majority common American culture that we had for some time, that through particularly mass immigration, I think has become much more balkanized, and I think that weakens us,” Carl said.

BlazeTV host Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman is of the mind that Carl is right.

“On second viewing, I mean, I watched this live, and by the way, in the context of this hour-long Senate hearing, he was just getting grilled from all directions ... he was being accused of anti-feminism, he was being accused by [Sen.] John Curtis of Utah [R] for not being, like, sufficiently loyal to Israel. And then there was this white thing,” Lomez tells BlazeTV co-host Christopher Rufo on “Rufo & Lomez.”

“And I think what we saw there was him a little bit stumbling through the answer, but it’s actually the right answer. I mean, he gives the right answer, the specific details,” Lomez continues.

Lomez points out that there are different parts of American culture, and different races have their own piece.

“I’m not saying this, by the way, just to please a liberal listener. It’s all true, OK? This is all deeply embedded in our culture and the common culture as well, but it is predominantly what we might call 'white,'” he explains.

“When you turn on Netflix or something, or like Hulu, or just turn on the TV, there’s BET. There’s Black Entertainment Channel, and there’s black stories to enjoy with your family on Hulu, and then there’s Asian stories, and you know, you get the whole diaspora of all these different groups,” he continues.

“There’s no white channel, there’s no white story section ... because ... that is the baseline culture that these other things are kind of orbiting around and existing within. And what Jeremy is suggesting here is that we are losing that common culture. We are losing that common white culture,” he adds.

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My court fight over DEI at Arizona State isn’t culture-war noise



“Who will rid us of this meddlesome philosopher?”

Arizona State University hopes the Arizona Supreme Court will. I’m confident that my case against required diversity, equity, and inclusion training raises issues far larger than one professor or one ideological program. Fundamental questions about employee rights, public accountability, and the rule of law hang in the balance.

If I succeed in showing that ASU bears legal responsibility — and that employees can hold it accountable — the implications reach far beyond one HR program.

Why would the largest state university in the country defend mandatory DEI training in court? Why would it spend thousands — likely tens of thousands — defending its “inclusive communities” training, a program that teaches employees about the alleged moral and social failures of “whiteness” and “heteronormativity”?

The answer defies common sense. Yet ASU presses forward. In doing so, it has turned what many dismiss as a culture-war skirmish into an employment-rights case with statewide consequences.

Most people hear “DEI” and instantly map the political lines. This case deserves a different reaction. Required ideological training should make any employee — left, right, or indifferent — pay attention.

First, the training relies on racial essentialism. It instructs ASU employees to view themselves and others primarily through skin color, then assigns moral weight and collective guilt on that basis.

Second, it attacks traditional Christian moral teaching, especially marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Either flaw should have pushed administrators to retire the program long before I raised formal objections.

A third issue should unite every employee, regardless of where they stand on DEI: ASU treated this as an employment matter. The university did not admit error, revise the program, and move on. It hired Perkins Coie to defend racial essentialism. Yes, Perkins Coie — the firm widely associated with the Hillary Clinton-era Steele dossier controversy. ASU employs a full team of in-house attorneys. Why pay a nationally prominent and politically charged firm to defend a training program many already viewed as controversial — and, I argue, unlawful?

ASU’s posture gets stranger. The university has since taken down the required training, yet it continues paying lawyers to defend it in court. When this ends, Arizona lawmakers and taxpayers will want a number: How much did ASU spend on legal fees, and which administrators approved the contracts?

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ASU’s legal strategy aims at dismissal. The university claims I lack standing. Put plainly, ASU argues that an employee cannot hold his public employer accountable for violating state law. At that point, the dispute stops being about DEI and becomes about every employee in Arizona. If ASU wins at the Arizona Supreme Court, employees across the state lose a crucial tool for legal accountability.

Professors to my political left may sneer at my critique of DEI. They should still worry about the precedent.

Imagine a scenario pulled from their nightmares: A future administration takes over ASU and imposes mandatory ideological training from the opposite end of the political spectrum — required ICE-themed training, or MAGA-themed training. If that training violated Arizona law, those same professors would demand the right to sue. ASU’s argument would bar them. This case concerns enforceable employee rights, not just contemporary politics.

ASU’s first bid to dismiss the case failed. A lower court rejected the university’s argument. ASU appealed, and the appellate court sided with the university. That posture put the case on a path to the Arizona Supreme Court.

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Two facts matter here. The Arizona Senate and the state representative who authored the law I claim ASU violated have filed an amicus brief supporting my position. Their message is simple: A public employee has standing to hold a public employer accountable for breaking the law. The statute prohibits the kind of racial blame and collective guilt that ASU’s training promoted. The principle should not require explanation: Don’t assign moral fault to entire groups based on skin color.

So why does ASU defend this?

Because ASU does not view this fight as one training module that can be swapped out and forgotten. Race-based blame sits near the center of the contemporary left’s approach to education. If I succeed in showing that ASU bears legal responsibility — and that employees can hold it accountable — the implications reach far beyond one HR program. ASU’s initiatives aimed at combatting “whiteness” would come under scrutiny. Its embedded social justice goals face legal challenge and public examination. Students could follow with suits over race blame in a “decolonized curriculum.”

“Who will rid us of this meddlesome philosopher?” ASU really hopes the Arizona Supreme Court will.

Every employee in Arizona should watch what happens next. The outcome will determine whether public institutions answer to the law — or whether employees must comply silently, no matter what ideology administrators impose from above.

University of Minnesota faces backlash over project that seeks to cure the 'Whiteness Pandemic'



The Trump administration has worked with great success over the past year to dismantle racist DEI initiatives in government and public education across the country. Nevertheless leftist identity politics continue to linger in various taxpayer-funded institutions.

The parental advocacy group Defending Education recently highlighted that the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, which received $628 million in federal research awards in the 2024 fiscal year, is harboring an anti-white research project that claims America is suffering from a "Whiteness Pandemic."

'Family socialization into the centuries-old culture of Whiteness — involving colorblindness, passivity, and fragility — perpetrates and perpetuates US racism.'

Rhyen Staley, research director at Defending Education, said in a statement obtained by Blaze News, "This far-left programming at a major public university is another example of how ingrained DEI is in higher education and is not going away any time soon."

The UMTC's Culture and Family Lab, which is part of the school's Institute of Child Development, has a page titled, "Whiteness Pandemic Resources for Parents, Educators and other Caregivers."

The website:

  • characterizes the white family as a threat, stating, "At birth, young children growing up in White families begin to be socialized into the culture of Whiteness, making the family system one of the most powerful systems involved in systemic racism";
  • tells white adults that it is their "responsibility to self-reflect, re-educate [themselves], and act" and that they need to engage "in courageous antiracist parenting/caregiving";
  • recommends white adults begin "listening to, taking seriously, and following the stories and recommendations" of the scandal-plagued Black Lives Matter organization and "humanizing victims of police brutality and racism — such as Mr. George Floyd"; and
  • links to various works of agitprop for parents to "read and watch with children as part of a discussion about race, racism, white privilege, and antiracism."

While the website references content from various radical sources, it largely focuses on a 2021 paper by the lab's director, Gail Ferguson, titled "The Whiteness pandemic behind the racism pandemic: Familial Whiteness socialization in Minneapolis following #GeorgeFloyd’s murder."

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Photo by KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images

The paper, which was published in the journal American Psychologist and dedicated to repeat offender George Floyd, claims that "family socialization into the centuries-old culture of Whiteness — involving colorblindness, passivity, and fragility — perpetrates and perpetuates U.S. racism, reflecting an insidious Whiteness pandemic."

While generally implying that "Whiteness" is a disease, the UMTC professor suggested that "color-evasion and power-evasion" specifically are "pathogens of the Whiteness pandemic" that "are inexorably transmitted within families, with White parents serving as carriers to their children unless they take active preventive measures rooted in antiracism and equity-promotion."

According to Ferguson, who is black, and the paper's other authors, one litmus test for whether a white mother is helping spread the supposed "Whiteness" disease comes down to how that mother responded to George Floyd's death.

A mother's apathy over the criminal's death and her unwillingness to discuss so-called "systemic racism" with her children were treated as indicators that she approves of or is at the very least indifferent to imagined racism. Alternatively the willingness of mothers to express grief and concern over Floyd's death and to discuss it "and Black Lives Matter with their children using color- and power-conscious parenting" were regarded as signs of a desired "antiracist" mentality.

The authors stressed that to dismantle "colorblind racial ideology," white students should be subjected to "racism and antiracism education," especially at a young age, and that "it will be important to go beyond how White women learn to say the right things to also consider how they learn to do the right things and actually 'show up' for racial justice."

The basis for the conclusions in the paper was a survey of 392 white mothers, 51% of whom were "somewhat or very liberal," 18% of whom were "somewhat or very conservative," and over 91% of whom had a bachelor's degree or higher.

The racist initiative was made possible with the help of federal funds provided by the National Institute of Mental Health during former President Joe Biden's tenure.

When asked about the anti-white project, the UMTC told the National Review that it remains "steadfast in its commitment to the principles of academic freedom." The NIMH reportedly did not respond to the Review's request for comment.

"It is not only concerning that these programs appear to still be up and running, but that absurd ideas like 'whiteness' also gain legitimacy through dubious activist-academic 'scholarship,'" said Staley. "Universities must end this nonsense yesterday."

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Race is not righteousness — Jesus died for our sin, not our skin



For as often as the phrase “Christ is King” trends on social media, it seems like a growing number of self-professing Christians have forgotten that it was sin — not skin — that kept Jesus on the cross.

Millions of Americans gathered this past Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Apart from that ultimate sign of self-sacrifice, we would still be in bondage to sin and face the penalty for indulging it — spiritual death and eternal separation from God. That’s because, according to the Bible, we are all born in sin and remain spiritually dead unless we turn from our sin and place our hope and trust in Christ.

No argument reveals a smaller mind than the impulse to link sin to skin for ideological gain.

Messages circulating on X often sound wildly different, but many follow the same script. On any given day, you’ll find someone — often claiming to be Christian — warning that a specific group poses a unique threat to the American way of life.

Some wrap their claims in the pseudo-academic language of “race realism” and genetic determinism. Others frame it as cultural criticism. But the message stays the same: Those people over there are the real problem.

Years ago, I noticed this pattern in how some black progressives invoked slavery and Jim Crow to argue that “whiteness” itself is an inherently evil force driving racism.

Today, a growing number of white conservatives fire back with crime statistics, claiming black Americans are inherently violent.

Meanwhile, a rainbow coalition of agitators — including Hispanics and Asians — spends its time urging followers to “notice” Jewish control of everything from pornography to U.S. foreign policy.

Different faces, same poison.

Ethnic and political tribalism has convinced many Americans that moral decay is always someone else’s fault. It’s not our problem. It’s their problem.

They chase any story or video that reinforces their worldview and dismiss anything that challenges it. A white police officer involved in a fatal shooting of a black man becomes proof that policing itself is systemically racist. A black teenager who commits a crime becomes a symbol of supposed racial dysfunction — not an individual but a statistic.

Many in this mindset obsess over IQ scores and genetic theories. But no argument reveals a smaller mind than the impulse to link sin to skin for ideological gain.

Christ’s death on the cross should convict every one of us to examine our own hearts. The moment you start measuring your worth by someone else’s failure, you’re already losing the moral battle. Comparative righteousness is a foolish and dangerous game.

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 illustrates the danger of self-righteousness. Pharisees prided themselves on strict adherence to the law, so it’s no surprise that the one in Jesus’ story thanked God for his supposed moral superiority. He fasted, tithed, and avoided obvious sins. He was especially grateful not to be like the tax collector — a judgment that, on the surface, seemed justified.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Jesus shocked the crowd with the conclusion: It was the tax collector — not the outwardly religious Pharisee — who went home justified. He drove the point home with a final line that still cuts: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The world would look very different — better, even — if more people, especially Christians, followed the example of the tax collector instead of the Pharisee.

Every person, family, and community carries its own burdens. Certain sins may show up more often in some groups than others, but that only looks like moral deficiency when we stop measuring ourselves against God and start judging others as the standard.

That’s why I advocate an “inside-out” approach to social commentary. I focus first on the issues that are common, pressing, and personal. Telling hard truths is difficult enough. It’s even harder when the messenger comes off as an outsider taking shots rather than someone who cares enough to speak from within.

Conservatives have every right to criticize America’s cultural collapse — but they should think twice before using China’s Xi Jinping to deliver the message. And if even Vivek Ramaswamy can’t offer light criticism without backlash, maybe it’s not just the left that has a problem hearing the truth.

The inside-out approach beats the alternative. It forces us to confront our own flaws instead of obsessing over everyone else’s. The outside-in method puts the sins of others under a microscope, while hiding the mirror that would show our own.

That’s why I don’t understand black pastors in neighborhoods torn apart by gang violence who spend their sermons denouncing “white supremacy” or DEI. Those things may be worth discussing — but they’re not why kids are dying in their streets.

Likewise, a white pastor in Wyoming would do much more good addressing his state’s sky-high suicide rate — often involving firearms — than speculating on how rap music and absent fathers are ruining black teenagers in Chicago.

Nothing’s wrong with offering honest insights about what plagues other communities. Tribalism shouldn’t stop us from grieving or rejoicing with people who don’t look like us. But the problem comes when we frame both vice and virtue in ethnic terms.

The apostle Paul didn’t tailor his warnings about idolatry, greed, lust, or murder based on ethnicity. His message was universal because the human condition is universal.

That’s why Christians must always remember: Jesus died for our sin, not our skin.

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Progressive church boots woke pastor after parishioners complained they were lectured on 'whiteness,' LGBT causes, immigrants



A progressive pastor in North Carolina was recently removed from his very liberal church after parishioners complained that they were being lectured about "whiteness," LGBT causes, and illegal immigrants.

Ben Boswell had been a pastor at Myers Park Baptist Church, a progressive church in Charlotte. The church is located in the affluent neighborhood of Myers Park, which has a median household income of $193,672, and where nearly 91% of the population is white.

'I am tired of being indicted because I am white.'

The Myers Park Baptist Church is "opposed to all forms of injustice and oppression, and we are unafraid to plainly say who and what we are."

The church's website states that it has a mission to "welcome and affirm all persons without regard to race, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation or attraction, biological sex, age, economic status, physical or mental capacity."

The Sunday after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, Boswell delivered a sermon warning of the doom and gloom of Trump being elected.

According to NPR, Boswell likened the election of Trump to a "gathering dark of Hitler's rule."He claimed that Trump being president would lead to the "crucifixion" of immigrant families as well as transgender and nonbinary people.

"But our faith also teaches us … that every crucifixion needs a witness," Boswell told the congregation. "The fight is not over; it's just beginning."

However, Boswell was booted from the progressive church a few weeks later. The board of the Myers Park Baptist Church voted 17-3 to ask Boswell to resign.

During the board meeting, then-Deacon Allen Davis warned that removing Boswell would make it difficult to portray a progressive agenda.

"What will come out is that we've snatched the keys from the … minister who had been pushing us to confront whiteness, to challenge racial justice in our community," Davis said.

Davis and two other deacons resigned in protest of Boswell's removal.

Marcy McClanahan — then head of the church's board — said the main reason why Boswell needed to be removed was plunging attendance. Myers Park Baptist Church went from an average weekly attendance of around 350 when Boswell arrived in 2016 to about 150 last year.

McClanahan said, "Ben has been given every chance to change his words and actions to appeal to a broader audience but has not been successful in doing so."

Fellow DeaconRobert Dulin added, "We have got to put more butts in the seats, butts in the seats."

Some parishioners at the church complained that Boswell was always lecturing them about racial justice, transgender issues, and other progressive causes.

Dulin paraphrased what he had heard from those who quit the parish: "I am tired of being indicted because I am white. I am tired of being banged over the head every week about immigrants and LGBTQ, and I just want to come to church and be encouraged."

Church members compared Boswell's sermons to a "guilt trip."

Boswell admits that he pushed his congregation to confront its "whiteness." During an anti-racism seminar, the pastor called for a "whiteness audit" to "decolonize" the church's interior space. Boswell said the congregants demanded that he take down the Black Lives Matter signs at the church, but he refused.

One parishioner felt "betrayed" by the church over Boswell's dismissal. Bob Thomason, a former chairman of the board of deacons, noted that most, if not all, of the congregation supports social justice.

"But for some people, being able to focus on social justice … would be a welcome luxury because they have alcoholic spouses," Thomason said."They have children that are addicted. They have cancer. They have these personal needs."

NPR reported, "Boswell says the conflict at Myers Park is part of a much bigger national trend to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion programs."

Boswell proclaimed, "My feeling is that as a progressive congregation, as a progressive pastor, our job right now is not to back away, but to double down."

When asked if the church will continue to advance racial and social justice, McClanahan asserted, "One person's leaving does not change that path at all."

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Voters reject elitist narratives, embrace Trump’s economic vision



Journalists continue to struggle with Donald Trump’s decisive election victory — and they are failing miserably. They have constructed a caustic narrative around his win, relying on tired tropes. The Huffington Post, for instance, published the headline, “Trump Just Ran the Most Racist Campaign in Modern History — and Won.” NPR reporter Margaret Low declared, “Donald Trump has won the presidential election ... the first time a convicted felon has been elected president after a campaign of hateful rhetoric to Latinos.”

This coverage mirrors the tone used by outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Politico throughout the year leading up to the election, highlighting two significant problems.

The tactics that once effectively silenced opposition are losing their impact, signaling a major shift in the political landscape.

First, the media refuse to adapt. Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential victory, achieved despite nine years of media attacks, two impeachments, ongoing legal battles, disputed convictions, and even assassination attempts, underscores a new reality: Political insults are losing their effectiveness in shaping public opinion.

Historically, self-identified progressives have labeled adversaries as “racist” to rally public support, a tactic endorsed by senior communist organizer Eric Mann in his 2011 book, “Playbook for Progressives.” This strategy often succeeded because those accused would comply with demands to avoid association with such a charged term, even when their original position was reasonable or justified.

Trump, however, has consistently withstood these accusations and remained steadfast in pursuing his agenda. His resilience has encouraged others to stand by their principles, even as media critics brand them as bigoted or outdated.

The media should have realized this strategy’s declining effectiveness after Trump easily defeated 12 Republican challengers in the 2024 primaries and won 31 states in the general election. Yet they continue to rely on the race card, ignoring its diminishing influence.

Jimmy Kimmel’s tears

Second, they are out of touch. The chasm between media narratives and public sentiment became glaringly evident during and after the election. For example, former President Barack Obama faced backlash after attempting to chastise young black men for their lack of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris, attributing it to sexism. This viral moment sparked widespread criticism across the political spectrum, exposing a fundamental misreading of voters’ priorities, which extend far beyond identity politics.

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional reaction on election night — “It was a terrible night for women, children, the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who make this country go [...] and everyone who voted for him; you just don’t realize it yet” — highlighted the growing disconnect between some media figures and a large segment of the American public.

Journalists and pundits who continue to frame Trump’s victory as driven by racism and sexism often draw from critical race theory concepts taught in academia. These ideas include the notion of “whiteness” and the belief that American standards predominantly benefit those who align with “white culture.” This perspective enabled them to label Trump’s campaign as “the most racist in modern history” despite exit polls showing Trump gained support among black men, Latinos, Asians, women, and young voters between 2020 and 2024.

Instead of acknowledging that shifting demographics challenge their established narrative, some commentators intensified their rhetoric. A guest on Roland Martin’s show, for example, claimed, “These people are trying to fight their way into whiteness, and they are willing to sacrifice everything, including members of their own family, if they can grasp the ring.”

Statements like this, along with similar remarks from figures such as Jimmy Kimmel and Sunny Hostin — who accused women and minorities of voting against their own interests — reveal a troubling paternalism. These commentators fail to consider that individuals may be perfectly capable of determining their own best interests without input from media personalities.

Trust in media plummets

This disconnect highlights how many reporters and pundits see themselves as intellectuals with little to learn from the people they critique. They amplify voices that align with their narratives and criticize those that don’t, all while ignoring pressing concerns such as inflation, border security, and tax relief.

One major consequence of the media’s divisive rhetoric and reliance on identity politics has been a sharp decline in public trust in journalism. A 2023 Gallup poll revealed that only 34% of Americans had a "great deal" or "fair amount" of trust in mass media — a historic low.

This erosion of credibility has serious implications for our republican form of government, which depends on an informed citizenry. The 2024 election cycle worsened the issue, as many outlets doubled down on narratives disconnected from the realities of average Americans.

This growing credibility gap has fueled the rise of alternative media sources, some of which lack the rigorous fact-checking standards of traditional journalism. As a result, the media landscape has become more fragmented and polarized, making it harder for citizens to access objective, reliable information for their political decisions.

While much of the post-election analysis centered on identity politics and cultural issues, Trump’s economic messaging deserves closer attention. The years leading up to the 2024 election were marked by significant economic challenges, including persistent inflation, supply chain disruptions, and widespread concerns about job security due to automation and artificial intelligence.

Trump’s campaign successfully addressed these anxieties, particularly in Rust Belt states and rural areas that felt abandoned by globalization and technological advances. His promises of protectionist trade policies, infrastructure investment, and revitalized traditional manufacturing struck a chord with voters who believed the political establishment had prioritized coastal elites and multinational corporations over their needs.

This economic focus transcended racial and ethnic lines, boosting Trump’s support among minority voters. Meanwhile, many media outlets overlooked these concerns, choosing instead to focus on identity-based narratives. This oversight underscores the growing disconnect between coastal newsrooms and the economic realities experienced by much of the country.

Looking ahead, any serious analysis of American politics must confront these economic tensions and their role in reshaping traditional political alignments.

Will progressives wake up?

Trump’s political journey reflects the fable of "The Emperor’s New Clothes." Much like the child who dared to expose the emperor’s nakedness, Trump has laid bare the hollow rhetoric of elitist media and celebrity figures, who have long postured as moral and intellectual authorities.

Over the past nine years, Trump has consistently disproved claims that he threatens nonwhite Americans, a point underscored by his growing support from diverse demographics. Conservative leaders can learn from this by embracing and promoting American values instead of retreating in response to criticism.

As Democrats and progressives analyze their 2024 defeat and question their strategies, they often ignore a critical issue: the dismissive attitude many of their thought leaders display toward the middle class and self-made individuals. These groups form the backbone of America. By advocating for a vision that conflicts with the values and traditions of hardworking citizens, these leaders have relied on accusatory rhetoric to stifle dissent.

In the age of Trump, social media, and widespread access to information, Americans increasingly feel empowered to challenge these narratives. The tactics that once effectively silenced opposition are losing their impact, signaling a major shift in the political landscape.

Moving forward, the media and political leaders must adapt to this change. Instead of relying on tired accusations and divisive rhetoric, they must engage with the genuine concerns and values of the American people. Only by bridging this divide can they hope to regain relevance and rebuild trust in a rapidly evolving political environment.