“If I have an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about the solution,” Albert Einstein is reported to have said. The importance of identifying the relevant question applies equally to political discourse. Many political interventions depend entirely on how the problem is framed in the first place.

In any debate, the side that gets to define the question enjoys a significant advantage over their opponents. There is often ample room for manipulation in posing the question. 

Thus, for example, the debate about illegal immigration is framed as a debate about “racism.” Framed that way, whoever defends the side designated as “racist” is always fighting with one hand tied behind his back.

As the New York Times frames it, the question in relation to immigration control is, “Can ICE stop people solely based on their race?” This question implies the obvious answer, which they proceed to give:

Targeting people for immigration enforcement based on race or ethnicity alone was forbidden by the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous decision 50 years ago. After all, it’s impossible to determine the immigration statuses of people simply by looking at them. So for decades, agents seeking to question people about their citizenship were supposed to rely on more than just appearance.

Targeting people for immigration enforcement based on race or ethnicity alone was forbidden by the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous decision 50 years ago. After all, it’s impossible to determine the immigration statuses of people simply by looking at them. So for decades, agents seeking to question people about their citizenship were supposed to rely on more than just appearance.

Progressives have the upper hand in many political debates precisely because they get to decide what the debate is “about.” This strategy gives progressives a walkover victory in most political debates, and society moves inexorably leftwards.

Further, they frame issues in emotional terms that are difficult for their opponents to dispute without provoking outrage. Most people’s reaction to such a question would instinctively be, “No, we should not arrest people simply for their race.” The answer is not wrong—the problem lies in the question itself. A better question might be, “Should a country have the right to defend its borders?”

A similar problem arises in historical inquiry. By framing all historical questions as questions about “racism,” progressives are virtually guaranteed to yield answers that justify any government interventions they seek to help end racism. This is a task to which the “scholarly consensus” has devoted itself in recent decades—framing American history as a history rooted in racism.

The answers offered by court historians to their own questions may indeed be the........

© Eurasia Review