stop digging, Erik

So Erik Loomis has responded-- or, really, "responded"-- to me as follows, in the comments:

I am not tenured, nor are most of the people at LGM.

As to the "substance" of the post, it's not worth a response. I will only say that the original post is specifically grounded in the context of the 2012 elections. If you think that voting for a political party that does not want to overturn the Voting Rights of 1965 is racist, then fine, I guess I'm a racist.

As should be clear, this is totally nonresponsive to my accusation, which is that Loomis's refusal to recognize the existence of nonwhite and women critics of Obama's drone program, as well as his repeated insistence that certain ideas can only be voiced by white men, amounts to racism. He's free to dispute that accusation. But saying that my argument is that it's racist to vote for the Democrats is a flat lie, and he knows it is. What's more, he still hasn't acknowledged that nonwhite people and women criticize Obama's drone program! He appears to be literally incapable of grappling with the fact that there are people who aren't white men who disagree with him. Which is precisely my point: he essentializes people of color and women as being inherently his political allies. He simply refuses to acknowledge the critics I've mentioned exist. If Dr. Loomis wants to actually respond to the substance of my post, he can. But I have a feeling he won't. Like a lot of people who fancy themselves to be Very Serious Political Operatives, as they work tirelessly to forbid left-wing discourse, he is content instead to evade, to mock, and to ignore. It's so much easier to hide among friends than to respond to actual criticism.

Oh, and he also can't read. I never said he had tenure.

Update: If this is really so complicated: I consider it offensive, and frankly racist, to ever say "only a person from this demographic could believe X." That's the definition of essentialism, and I think rather ugly. Now if Dr. Loomis was speaking in haste and regrets that comment, fine. Just retract it. Apologize for it. Because it's an ugly sentiment, and demonstrably untrue. People of color voted for Gary Johnson. Women voted for third party candidates. They might be small or very small in number. But they exist. And to insist that they don't exist is ugly, ugly, ugly.