My issue with Identity Politics in a nutshell
There's an meme going around that Identity Politics was the reason why Roy Moore lost in Alabama.
But let’s give credit where credit is due and admit that the real reason Democrat Doug Jones will be heading to Washington to represent the people of Alabama is identity politics.
Without a doubt, Doug Jones wouldn't have won without a strong turnout in the black community, but that's a far cry from a victory for Identity Politics. If all it took was blacks turning out then Alabama wouldn't be a red state.
The long and the short of it is that the African-American vote last week was essentially identical to what it was when Obama lost the state to Mitt Romney by 23 points (61 percent to 38 percent). The slightly greater proportion of the vote, the slightly higher level of support for the Democrat, was not enough to account for Jones’ 1.5-point margin of victory.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the racial ledger, while the white proportion of the vote slipped a bit from 68 percent in 2012 to 66 percent in 2017, there was a huge difference in the partisan divide.
In 2012, 15 percent of white Alabamians voted for Obama. In 2017, 30 percent of them voted for Jones.
It's shameful how nearly two-thirds of white women voted for a pedophile (and someone who thinks women shouldn't be allowed to vote), simply because he has an 'R' before his name. So obviously this wasn't a victory for gender identity.
However, that isn't the lesson to be learned here.
Over and over again the news media emphasizes the black women vote. But the real lesson here is that there simply isn't enough black women in this country to make a difference beyond the margins.
The lesson to be learned is that Democrats needs both the black vote AND the white vote. The Dems aren't going to win by pitting one identity against another.
“The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I’ve got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”
- Steve Bannon
Liberal's tight embrace of Identity Politics is bizarre for several reasons.
First and foremost, liberals are getting slaughtered by conservatives who are simply playing Identity Politics better than liberals.
Liberals not only refuse to see this obvious truth, but they also fail to learn from history.
The origins of identity politics in the late eighteenth century lie with the reactionary right. The original politics of identity was racism and nationalism, and it developed out of the counter-Enlightenment. These early critics of the Enlightenment opposed the idea of universal human values by stressing particularist values embodied in group identities. ‘There is no such thing as Man’, wrote the French arch-reactionary Joseph de Maistre in his polemic against the concept of the Rights of Man. ‘I have seen Frenchmen, Italians and Russians… As for Man, I have never come across him anywhere.’
Where reactionaries adopted a particularist outlook, radicals challenging inequality and oppression did so in the name of universal rights. They insisted that equal rights belonged to all and that there existed a set of values and institutions, under which all humans best flourished. It was a universalism that fuelled the great radical movements that have shaped the modern world – from the almost-forgotten but hugely important Haitian Revolution of 1791, to the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles of the twentieth century to the movement for women’s suffrage to the battles for gay rights.
That is my biggest issue with Identity Politics: Identity Politics is divisive by its nature. Identity Politics is the opposite of solidarity.
How can one fight for a universal right and still believe in Identity Politics? You can't.
Historically, progressive politics has nothing to do with Identity Politics.
Despite this class bias, traditional liberal if not real progressive politics was class-based. What was once called the Old Left drew some of its inspiration from socialist theories of class struggle. Politics was about social justice, the battle between rich and poor, and it involved labor unions, the working class, and workers. It was about fighting for economic equality and democracy, seeing political unity in the shared struggle of class. In contrast, the New Left was the politics of the 1960s. It was born in the student campus movement against the Vietnam War, and for civil rights. The New Left was less about class than about identity politics, and it had stronger middle class roots than did the Old Left. The Old Left and New Left both sought to transform American politics, yet their visions of what a revolution would look like and what would emerge were different. The Old Left saw political progress rooted in class struggle and transformation that would eventually achieve liberation for oppressed groups, the New Left focused directly on the liberation of groups because of their social identity.
The Old Left is accused of ignoring racism and sexism, but that's mostly untrue. If you look at any old socialist group, they were always on the bleeding edge of diversity.
Liberals using Identity Politics to advance social justice is using a square peg on a round hole. The whole idea of social progress requires a majority of society.
Instead convincing a majority of the population it is in their best interests for this progress, Identity Politics liberals try to cobble together coalitions, and then depending on sympathy/empathy for the rest.
How often in history has that ever worked?
Rarely. Democracy is about self-interests. It's supposed to work that way.
So when sympathy/empathy doesn't cut it, liberals turn to Plan B.
They turn elections into moral judgments on voters and their attitudes toward certain groups. Why did many white workers who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 switch to Trump in 2016? Did they suddenly turn racist? I don’t think so.
After this year’s elections, Sen. Kamala Harris of California proclaimed that “Democrats won incredible victories by embracing our diversity and rejecting the politics of hate.” Bah.
Again, those triumphs reflected strong candidates and an electorate that in fact didn’t seem to place much importance on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual identity. Must we assume, meanwhile, that all who voted otherwise were consumed with hate? Come on. That’s emotional extortion, and it turns voters off.
It's undeniable that the liberals use of Identity Politics to cast moral judgements is the driving force of the radical right today.
So why can't liberals see this? Because condemning identity politics threatens the importance of its peddlers. These people have become the Useful Idiots of what they hate.
Identity politics and the New Left helped kill class politics and the Old Left. It unwittingly cooperated with conservatism to kill progressive politics. It helped divert attention away from labor unions which pushed for economic security, it drove a wedge between white working class and people of color by making the latter the bearers of white privilege. Fostering leftist identity politics produced the counter-movement of identity politics of the right, along with the resurgence of White Supremacy.
Comments
I consider myself a Futuristic Liberal.
I have never embraced ID politics. I always figured that was just another corporate PR scam. Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Sexism?
One Identity Politics too far
There is no Left in the U.S.
The closest thing we ever had to a left-wing in the United States was the New Deal Coalition. These days, Democrats are just Reagan Republicans with rainbow flags and pussy hats.
If an actual left-wing/Socialist group ever did rise up to challenge the system, you can bet your ass that both factions of the Property Party will punch it down faster than you can say 'Occupy'.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
@The Aspie Corner You are exactly right,
You are exactly right, and it's an extant condition. Its name is Daily Kos, and stopping class struggle is its raison d'etre.
Low Information Voters
We need a whole new category of low Information voters for people who still can't see through the Identity Politics Kabuki Dance of the DNC. They consider themselves well informed and in many ways they are.
This phenomenon is the flip side of the same coin that makes viewers of Fox News less informed than people who do not watch news at all. The tribal blindness of Trump voters and Hillary voters is equally astonishing. Our last best hope may be the millennials who are not buying the DNC shit sandwich.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
If we ever get the chance.
I'm not sure if I qualify, but we Millennials will never have a say in anything so long as the Silents and Boomers still draw breath, especially where the judiciary is concerned.
Even worse, our kids are being brainwashed by right-wing religious nutbags who currently control education as well. You can thank this kind of crap, as well as 'New' Atheism, for the rise of the Salt-White.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
You're probably right
The "greatest generation" gave us Nixon, Reagan and Bush1. I thought they'd never give way. Clinton was just the blueprint for the new democrats, like Obama. They gave that Nobel to Obama before he even did anything. Bet they'd like it back.
Thing is this Millennial, Boomer, Silent generation thing is it's own IP, just another slice and dice to get us to resent each other. There were a lot of gray hairs for Sanders.
generational politics
is just another way to divide us against one another. Ageism is simply another form of stereotyping that does zero good to promote the best for all people. Our site here is named Caucus99%. The last time I looked, 99% includes all of us here at this site, including yours truly who happens to have been born in 1947.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@gulfgal98 Yes, the Third Way
Yes, the Third Way Dems have used ageism frequently to divide generations against each other while trying to gut programs like Social Security and Medicare and to promote budget deficit hysteria.
That said, it's so important to expand our grassroots and encourage more political participation by Millenials.
"If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, take their money and then vote against them you've got no business being in Congress."
@Betty Pinson Hello Betty
Hello Betty Pinson! The last comment I was allowed on Daily Kos was one in which I agreed with your statement that Neo-liberalism was the real problem faced in this country. A couple of them made jibberish statements and that was that.
Millennials
Back in 2012, I participated in Occupy Tallahassee. We had participants from all age groups including a large group from my own, but our leadership was from the millennials. And I was so impressed by their focus and their ideas.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
That may be true
It was millennial who embraced Bernie, and were slandered by the IP believers for it.
The Rights of Man?
I'm all over that:
[video::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHFIqOjeW7U]
[video::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG4iGP15Qts]
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Dang that's annoying!
When you changed the title from "problem" to "issue", I was still on the old essay. I did a refresh to show any new comments and received a page not found error and had to hunt for the essay. URLs should stay fixed, not change when the title changes.
Not your fault, I know. Great essay as usual.
Yeh, but I didn't want to sound like a whiner
There's an art to titles.
When the 99% see the real issue is economic & not IP labels
we will have real change. That scares the crap out of the 1%, DNC et. al.
The DNC consultants cash in big-time by fanning the hate engendered by IP "issues". I don't expect them to give up their cash-cow willingly.
Maybe another crushing loss in 2018 will bring change to the Dems. I sure hope so.
chuck utzman
TULSI 2020
I just posted something very similar
The way to make this work out for us in the end is to push forward on creating worker cooperatives in every field. This will not only allow us to reclaim our corrupted government from the ground up, but also have the added effect of unifying, empowering, and educating the populous to what truly maters.
Just imagine a world where there are no separate unions, but one great one of workers who also owned their companies all in the same boat. It would be the end of Capitalism as we know it because we would educate the public to the fact that we don't need CEOs or any other kind of middle man.
Uniting together is what they do not want.
This is at the heart of why our political elite are engaging in ID
The Democratic political elite do not want us to unite, because if we did their owners would lose power, and so would they.
This was in my morning paper today:
I got kicked out of diversity training.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Great read
And frankly, it doesn't surprise me given my experiences in the '16 campaign. Before that I would've thought that article was written by either an exception or an asshole. Nowadays I'm certain that the experiences related happen every where, every day.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
As I like to say,
the oligarchs have harnessed the power of identity politics. Their "leftists" followers believe in deregulated immigration and deregulated trade. They are actually more libertarian/anarchists than liberal and don't really understand the difference, because deregulated trade/immigration has been 'messaged' to fit into their identity narrative.
Mike Taylor
For me, the easy lure into
Identity can be stoked easily, I think mostly due to having family who barely hid their own racist tendencies. It's a hot button, and an emotional one. It is hard to let go of because of the feeling of having betrayed something I really believe in strongly - no fucking bigots - if I ignore it. But that's part of their game. They play on that. I'm trying to let go of some of that in my condemnation of my own family and damn that's hard. With what my family have voted FOR all these years now coming into ugly fruition, I'm furious at them all, living and dead. It's going to take a while for me to let go of that.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
According to modern definition, identity politics is
"political positions based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with which people identify. Identity politics includes the ways in which people's politics are shaped by aspects of their identity through loosely correlated social organizations. Examples include social organizations based on age, religion, social class or caste, culture, dialect, disability, education, ethnicity, language, nationality, sex, gender identity, generation, occupation, profession, race, political party affiliation, sexual orientation, settlement, urban and rural habitation, and veteran status. Not all members of any given group are involved in identity politics. Identity politics are used by minority and civil rights organizations to form a coalition with members of the majority." (Wikipedia)
I don't see a problem with people forming groups among themselves. Political parties themselves are a form of identity politics. There's nothing wrong with blacks fighting as a group for their rights, or Native Americans, or women or LGBT. That's how real change has happened anyway.
I think the real problem as described in this essay and comments is the use of identity politics by the democratic party and more specifically the DNC to divide and distract the public while they carry on their attack on the lower and middle classes, wage wars, etc., which prevents a coalition developing that could reform the democratic party. Of course the republican party and the oligarchy's corporate media also play the same game.
Relative to the general public, one question is do identity politics divide the public more than the duopoly political system itself. I think the biggest divider is the two party system, the king of identity politics, not the periodic focus on black rights, women's rights and LGBT rights.
Keep in mind that only 37% of the eligible Alabama voters actually voted in that election. So 2/3 of the white women in Alabama did not vote for Moore. Its was more like 20-25%.
That's the part the duopoly always glosses over
They, despite all statistics to the contrary
continue to see the world as Democratic and Republican. Then they paint their statistics in that way. They might also have said that 25% of the people were willing to vote for Moore over a Democrat and something like 45% of the people felt both parties were too awful to be bothered with. But that would mess with their narrative. Best to divide the world into "us vs. evil"
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
@Big Al Banding together with a
Banding together with a common goal by a group is fine. No one is a better advocate for you than yourself. But what happens when your self advocacy is based solely on blame of others? That the power of change, for you, comes solely by change in others. The Civil Rights movement became a blueprint for all seeking their due rights. The goal was to enforce, enact and clarify laws that would protect those rights. Identity politics seems to take the position of changing society through humiliation and shame instead of education. I normally would think "well, maybe",but humiliation and shame teaches it's own lesson. If you're older you look back since MLK and the Kennedys were killed the republicans have been relentless and successful in politiforming (like terraforming) America. I can't see how IP will alter that. It may become the core of the democratic party, but then you have a situation where you must cater narrowly to each group in the primaries, and somehow pivot to a message that includes all Americans without sounding phony. Didn't work in the last election.
Big Al
this was supposed to be it's own comment at the bottom. Sorry
Let's review.
While the nice identity politics people spent eight years mesmerized by "omigod first Black President!!!!!!!!!!!," the Democrats gave away 900 legislative seats to the Republicans. One can conclude from this that identity politics is some powerful stuff, though perhaps it's not just identity politics that has the Democrat faithful in a trance.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Democrats win by building coalitions, not by tearing them down,.
And unfortunately, given the IP as practiced by establishment democrats, tears down and tears up coalitions. A diary after Jones victory on TOP was basically race shaming white voters. But white voters were needed to beat Moore. Here my final calculated numbers:
Absolute vote for African American females = 1321587 * 0.17 * 0.98 = 220,176
Absolute vote for African American men = 1321587 * 0.11 * 0.93 = 135,198
Absolute vote for white men = 1321587 * 0.35 * 0.27 = 124,889
Absolute vote for white females = 1321587 * 0.31 * 0.35 = 143,392
(First is total vote all parties. Second percentage is how much of total vote was that demographic. And last number is percent of demographic that voted for Jones.)
If the white male vote for Jones goes from 27% to 22%, then Jones loses. This drop was in the same ballpark of Obama white male voters who were lost to Trump (actually less).
I followed the primaries on TOP, and when I read the pro-Hillary diaries, I was utter appalled by the vehement attacks on Bernie supporter as racist, and sexist, and more important than all of that, a unshakable belief that they could win the Oval Office without various segments of white voters--in particular white males. The coalition did not need absolute majorities but they needed enough.
IP the way it is practiced on places like TOP is electoral suicide.
Identity Politics is the
That is a classic!
Identity politics is something
I harped on over at the other place for a long time. Identity politics is something that the Democratic party has embraced whole heartedly because it allows them to avoid addressing the issues that affect us all, regardless of our own self identification as to race, gender, sexual orientation, social class or any other form of identification. It is lazy politics that allows the political class to pay lip service to those in certain identity groups while continuing to reap their own personal benefits from a corrupt system.
In the end, identity politics cheats the very classes that the party supposedly is trying to woo out of the real changes they need in their every day lives. In addition, identity politics has become a cudgel by which the PTB in the Democratic party use to beat the rest of us over our heads into a submissive guilt trip that ensures we stay within the ranks.
It worked for a long time until the ultimate identity politician, Barack Obama exposed himself as not a savior of those in the identity underclasses, but as a full throated supporter of the oligarchic class.
One of the reasons, Bernie Sanders is so popular is that his rhetoric is that of the 99%. It cut across the identity classes that have been used to keep us divided. Regardless of self identification, all people need to have a living wage income to be able to feed and house themselves and their families. All people need clean water, clean air, healthcare (as opposed to just expensive health insurance), access to a good education for themselves and their children, and a safe environment. These were the things that Bernie was preaching and it scared the oligarchy to death. Well, IMHO, the people are becoming "woke" and once they become red pilled, there is no turning back.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
That's it
" All people need clean water, clean air, healthcare (as opposed to just expensive health insurance), access to a good education for themselves and their children, and a safe environment. These were the things that Bernie was preaching and it scared the oligarchy to death." Add in a few more SS, fairness to workers and it's almost saying this is what Americans are entitled to as citizens. Hope it gives our politicians and the 1% (but I repeat myself) nightmares.
One bone to pick
It was never unwitting.
Most of the comments here already cover what I would have said. I agree with Big Al that coalitions built around identity are not inherently bad or unproductive. It's the (D) party's cynical and intentional use of identity politics to prevent a true progressive movement that's the problem.
I don't know how to change it, because so many people buy into it.
to begin,
the history is off—identity politics predates the late 18th Century.
But, as ever:
Again:
For instance, all of the humans with discernible brain activity—which unfortunately excludes some of the white people—understand that the ascension of The Hairball was a triumph of white identity politics. The Nazi Richard Spencer positively exults in it: "Donald Trump's movement, whether Kellyanne Conway wants to admit it or not, was fundamentally about identity for white people." There are now approximately eleventy-billion studies Proving that those who voted for The Hairball did so because he positioned himself as the Great White Father who would promote white identity over the dusky ”mud people.” He made their widdle white pee-pees get all stiff and shit. Most recently, it was confirmed that even white millennials who voted for The Hairball did so because they got little white woodys wallowing in his out, loud, proud, explicit, incessant racism.
The pathetic bedwetting of Brexit was another incontinent outpouring of white identity politics.
Jihad on identity politics as practiced by unwhite people is an emanation of white supremacy.
It is also neoliberal.
Blubbering about identity politics, as Anne Branigan points out, is a quintessential, quintessentially embarrassing, white-people thing—like "ironic tattoos, or Taylor Swift."
Cultural radicalism makes the hetero white man have a Scared, because it signals that the humans are not going to just sit there listening to massah monotonously thump his tub anymore.
But, you know, whatever. White on. Same as it ever was.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSuregWhlWk]
Yes indeed.
Nice to see you and thanks for that.
Seconded, on both counts.
I've missed you, hecate!
I agree to an extent
Yes, it has. And yes, Trump and the radical right are using it now.
And like I said in the essay, the radical right is wiping the floor with liberals because Identity Politics is made for reactionary forces, not progressive politics.
Universal justice is made for progressive forces.
Saying that "Group X deserves X" lends itself to Group Y asking "Why them, but not us?".
It's a setup for a reactionary.
OTOH, progressives win with causes like "We ALL deserve health care, a roof over our heads, freedom of speech, security in retirement, and food in our bellies."
Until liberals figure out this basic truth they will continue to struggle.
No, it doesn't.
But then "civil rights" != "skin color" either. And "working class" != "white people" as well.
This is "I have a chip on my shoulder" rhetoric.
Considering your choice of words, don't get it.
This reminds me of Bernie saying how some in the Democratic establishment would rather go down with the Titanic as long as they have first-class seats.
We are headed for the most unequal society in the entire world, a real crisis, and Identity Politics people are using all their energy to demand they get as many crumbs as every other peasant.
All that is missing is the bowing and scraping when the master's coach goes by.
This is it in a nutshell!
This one sentence hits the nail on the head! I hope everyone here thinks long and hard about this truism.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
You mean like those still hoping to reform the DNC
and who vote for the democratic party? As stated above, political parties themselves are a form of identity politics. The most dangerous kind of IP actually.
"Identity Politics people are using all their energy to demand they get as many crumbs as every other peasant."
Regarding progressives and liberals, they win what? Electing democratic party politicians?
"progressives win with causes like "We ALL deserve health care, a roof over our heads, freedom of speech, security in retirement, and food in our bellies."
Who else complains about identity politics other than old white people?
Re:
Answer: Young Socialists
The old saying goes, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately".
Identity Politics people prefer the latter.