Democrats Need To Move Beyond Identity Politics

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.