PositiveNew YorkWhiteshift is a sprawling tome ... Kaufmann...is at pains to show that whites who identify with their group are not necessarily racist ... Ultimately, Kaufmann argues that the best thing would be to accept a moderate form of white identity politics as a more benign alternative to contemporary populism, which in his view is merely a sublimated form of ethno-nationalism. That can sound, written out, as a sort of brief for white nationalism-lite ... But Kaufmann has done something exceedingly rare among center-right thinkers, which is to write an intelligent, challenging, and in its own way, brave book about race and identity; one not meant to fire up partisans but to make an honest attempt to understand our present dilemmas and propose a solution. He won’t convince all readers, and reviewers more data-literate than I may be able to better evaluate the reams of surveys and statistics that Kaufmann cites in his favor. But at present, Whiteshift is the best diagnosis of populism the right has to offer, and presents compelling arguments that defenders of asymmetric multiculturalism should be prepared to answer.
