Democrats Need To Move Beyond Identity Politics
Many Democrats
are in a reflective mood; they lost the White House this year, which would not
matter as much as it does, except they also failed to take back the Senate,
remain out of power in the House and are out of power in most states.
Donald Trump is
in office. It's not just another Republican candidate - people were so
disaffected with the liberal message that they were willing to vote for him.
What should Democrats
and liberals do now? Some Democrats answer nothing. Hillary Clinton, they say,
leads the popular vote by two million, and a shift of a few votes in a few
states would have won the election. However, there is a deeper problem; identity
liberalism.
Liberals have
appealed to African-Americans or women or the LGBT community but failed to
craft a strong, broad national message. There are many people saying this, even
many Democrats. Long before the votes were cast, Bernie Sanders argued the
Democrats lost the white working class by not speaking broadly to the country.
Turned out to be true and is at the root of identity liberalism.
What are
Democrats doing wrong?
Democrats have
simply lost the country. They have lost the capacity to speak to the vast
middle of America, an America that is, in large part, white, very religious and
not highly educated.
Some Democrat
out there, maybe many of them, are shouting hold on a minute; Hillary Clinton got
way more votes than Donald Trump - popular votes. What do you mean Democrats
have lost the country?
Simple. We have
31 Republican governors in this country. We have roughly the same number of
Republican legislatures. We have 24 states where Republicans run both. But
in terms of a liberal project that people feel they can sign on to, that feels
that it speaks to everyone in the country, that speaks to what we share and the
principles we hold, Republicans have developed a message for all of that, you
know? Ever since Reagan, they've been able to capture the message and
an understanding - or persuade people of a certain understanding of what the
nation is about and what's good for it.
So, what is
identity liberalism?
Identity
liberalism, as I understand it, is expressive rather than persuasive. It's
about recognition and self-definition. It's narcissistic. It's isolating. It
looks within. And it also makes two contradictory claims on people. It says,
on the one hand, you can never understand me because you are not exactly the
kind of person I've defined myself to be. And on the other hand, you
must recognize me and feel for me. Well, if you're so different that I'm
not able to get into your head and I'm not able to experience or sympathize
with what you experience, how can I care?
There were some
of the groups that liberals have appealed to in ways that are counterproductive?
Take one example; the
whole issue of bathrooms and gender - in this particular election, when the stakes were so
high, the fact that Democrats and liberals lost a lot of political capital on
this issue that frightened people. People were misinformed about certain
things, but it was really a question of where young people would be going to
the bathroom and where they would be in lockers. Is that really the issue we
want to be pushing leading up to a momentous election like this one? It's
that shortsightedness that comes from identity politics.
Just image some
liberals being rather angry about saying such a thing. These are the liberals
who don't want to win. These are the liberals who are in love with
noble defeats. In politics one must prefer a dirty victory to a noble
defeat. The president who did the most for black Americans in 20th century
history was Lyndon Johnson, and he got his hands dirty by dealing with Southern
senators, Southern congressmen, horse trading with them, cajoling them,
learning what not to talk about. And he got civil rights passed and Great
Society programs. That should be the model. Identity Liberals, get over
yourself!
You don’t have
to oppose transgender as a liberal, just not talking about them in the way that
people have been talking about them. That was the error committed by identity
politics.
An example of
the above in an interview of some voters in Raleigh, N.C., which is a generally
Democratic city, a young couple. They had two kids. They described themselves
as Christian. They opposed gay marriage. And were saying that even though they
didn't like Donald Trump, they were thinking of voting for him. And
one of the reasons was they felt that they were - their very views were making
them socially unacceptable. They were feeling a little alienated from the
Democrat party.
Organizations
were just flooded with emails of people just giving testimonies of their lives,
saying exactly this. One email from a white guy who works for some sort of
defense contractor, some lower-level job, served in the military. And he said I
served in the military with black and Latino soldiers. My supervisor is a young
black woman who's smart as a whip, and I admire her, and we get along great. I
belong to a bowling team with black and Latino coworkers. And when we get
together and we talk about politics, he said, we don't talk about Black Lives
Matters. We talk about what matters to our families. We talk about jobs, and we
talk about the fate of the country. That is America, and you can reach those
people. We felt the Democrats had abandoned us. We were not part of their
vision. I’m NOT a white supremacist!
When asked if
Identity Politics is right or wrong; even having to answer the question is
offensive, it shows the narrow-mindedness. The only response I would have is, I
rest my case.
