How Identity Politics Sunk Liberalism

The Washington Times editorializes on election winners and losers. Excerpt:

The most deserving loser of all was one Brad Avakian, the Oregon official who fined a baker and his wife $135,000 for declining to bake a wedding cake for two lesbians, because it would violate their Christian beliefs to participate in a same-sex wedding. The bakers offered to find someone else to bake the cake. Paying the fine drove them out of business, and Mr. Avakian counted on the publicity to assure him a career in higher politics, and he ran for Oregon secretary of state. He was trounced by an opponent who was the first Republican to win a statewide race in Oregon in 14 years. Not even a doughnut hole for Mr. Avakian.

This week of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for that outcome.

On a wider note, an op-ed in the New York Times by Trump critic Mark Lilla calls out liberals’ obsession with identity politics and division over the common principles that bring us together as Americans. He writes:

Hillary Clinton…tended on the campaign trail to lose that large vision and slip into the rhetoric of diversity, calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, L.G.B.T. and women voters at every stop. This was a strategic mistake. If you are going to mention groups in America, you had better mention all of them. If you don’t, those left out will notice and feel excluded. Which, as the data show, was exactly what happened with the white working class and those with strong religious convictions. Fully two-thirds of white voters without college degrees voted for Donald Trump, as did over 80 percent of white evangelicals. …

We need a post-identity liberalism, and it should draw from the past successes of pre-identity liberalism. Such a liberalism would concentrate on widening its base by appealing to Americans as Americans and emphasizing the issues that affect a vast majority of them. It would speak to the nation as a nation of citizens who are in this together and must help one another. As for narrower issues that are highly charged symbolically and can drive potential allies away, especially those touching on sexuality and religion, such a liberalism would work quietly, sensitively and with a proper sense of scale. (To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms.)

It’s a nice idea, but I wouldn’t count on it happening.

14 Comments for “How Identity Politics Sunk Liberalism”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Hillary Clinton…tended on the campaign trail to lose that large vision and slip into the rhetoric of diversity, calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, L.G.B.T. and women voters at every stop. This was a strategic mistake.

    I noticed that too in the closing days of the campaign (she was trying to energize an unenergized base), and agree that it was poor strategy in a media environment in which every word is amplified and tweeted. Secretary Clinton is, as she has always been, a wonky, tone-deaf politician, issue-focused rather than vision-focused, and she did not have the political deftness to pull off an appeal to the base while sounding the trumpet for Americans as a whole. President Obama is the opposite, as was President Reagan. The presidency cannot be won without a selling a vision., and Secretary Clinton ran aground on those shores. She’s just the most recent example — President Clinton walloped President Bush I for the same reason.

    “Identity Liberalism” is a theory that has been around for at least two decades now, and Mark Lilla barely scratches the surface of the theory.

    The “Identity Liberalism” theory has a grain of truth to it, to be sure. The Democratic Party lost the South over desegregation, lost “Reagan Democrats” in droves over school busing and opposition to Vietnam, and continued losing working class whites over the party’s support of Hispanics, women’s rights, LGBTs, environment and clean energy issues, and so on. The Democratic Party has become a party of minorities and post-graduates for the most part, and that’s not a good thing.

    But it seems to me that the “Identity Liberalism” theory is too shallow and superficial to explain the Rise of Trump. The Republican Party was demolished in the process, more damaged, perhaps, in the long run than the Democratic Party. Trump mowed through the Republican Party’s “Reagan Coalition” like the Grim Reaper at Flanders Fields during the primaries, upending and sweeping aside the every element of the coalition. “Identity Liberalism” doesn’t explain what happened in the Republican Party.

    I’m not a political, economic or social theorist. Even I can see, though, that America is becoming a country without a middle class, and neither Democrats nor Republicans have offered anything close to a viable path to reverse that devolution. Both parties will have to change, and find a way to come up with a path to restoring the middle class to America. The old shibboleths, on both sides, have been found wanting, and the Rise of Trump, it seems to me, reflects that reality.

    Trump promised to “Make America Great Again”, harkening back to the 1950’s when the economy was strong and a blue collar working class was forged in the economic recovery after World War II. I think that, and the obvious fact that our political system no longer works well, if at all, in shaping policies, drove his victory (assuming that losing the popular vote by 2-3 million to an tone-deaf, wonky, extremely unpopular, woman* politician can be considered a victory).

    Trump, moving forward, will fail, because massive public works projects to temporarily stimulate the economy, coupled with protectionism, doesn’t address the core problem, any more than President Reagan’s stimulus programs and trickle-down economics solved the problem (a viable argument can be made that Reaganomics, in fact, accelerated the demise of the middle class rather than reversing the trend).

    But Trump’s election will reshape the Republican Party, in what direction isn’t yet clear, and the Democratic Party has eight years to reshape itself. Good may come out of it all yet.

    NOTE:
    * I added “woman” because I think that it is relevant, if not much spoken about. Women politicians have historically underperformed the polls by 2-3%, and I suspect that when all is said and done, Secretary Clinton’s performance in this election will confirm the pattern.

  2. posted by MDBuck on

    “America is becoming a country without a middle class, and neither Democrats nor Republicans have offered anything close to a viable path to reverse that devolution.”

    Welcome to reality, Tom. But, it’s not just on economic issues that both parties are utter, abject failures; it’s just about everything else, as well. And it definitely does go deeper than just “identity liberalism,” or “Trump slash-and-burn.” Both parties have become nothing but cheap, skanky whores to their own set of special interest groups.

    Sadly, we have become a nation that has NFL-ized politics, with people choosing their “teams” and considering the “opponent” (anyone who dares to disagree with them) as the “enemy.” Technology has done a fantastic job of accelerating this, as we can now get our “news” from the hallelujah chorus outlet (and, even worse, social media channel) of our choice, without having to confront unpleasant, reasoned counterarguments.

    Continuing on the technology theme, the one thing that really struck me from this election is how we have completely failed as a society to recognize that for the benefits of every technological advancement, there is an EQUAL number of detriments. It’s WAY past time we realize that instead of blindly embracing each new piece of technology like an easily dazzled toddler, we first identify and assess what the detriments of that new technology are, and – gasp! – develop the courage to say “maybe now is not the best time to unleash it.” Case in point: we are rapidly developing driverless vehicle technology. When this is perfected, what will happen to the thousands of truck drivers who will become jobless? Has anyone given any substantive thought to this now? Is anyone making plans?

    It’s this complete myopia (which is right at home on the coasts, where the elites give scant thought to how their laptops get charged, how their organic meat gets to their nearest Whole Foods, and how the loft apartments they dwell in were built) which gave us the results of this election.

    You’re getting warmer on your post-election analysis of Queen Hillary, but you have yet to make it all the way home – that she was the very queen of the hypocritical, coastal liberal elites who have nothing but utter disdain and contempt for those in “flyover country.” She was also a pathologically lying, horrifically incompetent, terminally corrupt political insider, who never met a slimy foreign oligarch or despot she wouldn’t take a buck from. She is the very crystallization of the Sinatra quote: “It’s amazing what a broad will do for a buck.”What shocks me still to this day is that practically every Dem I know basically said, “Yeah, I know she’s a crook, but she’s our crook.”

    What also took a complete beating in this election was political correctness. For years, people who disagree with us have not treated with respect, but have instead been pummeled as “racists,” “homophobes,” and worse. Yes, some are those things. But, many – most, I would argue – are simply good people who disagree with us. It’s just that the loudmouth extremists that get all the media oxygen. We’re at a crossroads. The country is horrifically divided, and would have been divided regardless of who won the election. We can either realize that there is a good chunk of people out there who disagree with us, and that we had better change our thinking and learn to at least listen to, and respect opposing viewpoints, or we can continue to Balkanize and treat half our neighbors as “deplorables.” And, look at what Balkanizing has done for the gay establishment. They steadfastly refuse to have any kind of substantive dialogue with our adversaries, and they are now basically shut out for at least two years. Sometimes, you have to, in the words of the fundamentalist Christian church, love the sinner, but hate the sin.

    IMO, the Libertarian philosophy of social tolerance and fiscal prudence is the best hope we have left for mending this country. I truly believe most Americans fall within this sphere. Is the Libertarian Party perfect? Absolutely not, as they will – refreshingly – be the first to admit. But, they seem courageously unafraid to listen to rational, well-thought arguments instead of clinging to dogma – right or wrong, dammit! – like a rabid pit bull. They are also not afraid of compromise. And until we realize that we are strongest as a nation when we embrace compromise, I sadly fear darker days are ahead.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Welcome to reality, Tom.

      DM, I’ve lived in reality for a long time. All my life, in fact.

      I come from a working class, farming family, served in Vietnam, used a combination of government (GI Bill) and private (a funded National Merit Scholarship for undergraduate, a National Honor Scholarship for law school) assistance to make it through college and law school. My brother and I were the first in our family to get an education beyond high school. I live in flyover country, and don’t think that there is a day between the time I was 16 to the day I retired that I didn’t work. Most of my friends are working class — farmers, machinists, tool and die makers, fork lift operators, hail damage repairmen, and so on. My brother likewise when he was alive, and my cousins as well.

      You’re getting warmer on your post-election analysis of Queen Hillary, but you have yet to make it all the way home – that she was the very queen of the hypocritical, coastal liberal elites who have nothing but utter disdain and contempt for those in “flyover country.”

      Snort. We don’t need more condescension in flyover country, DM. WE get more than our share as it is. Your comment reminds me of nothing so much as the FIBS who retire in Wisconsin and start telling us how we are clueless from the day they arrive. We blow them off.

      The Midwest has its own political traditions — Wisconsin’s Lafollette progressives, Minnesota’s DFL, the Grange throughout rural areas, Milwaukee’s long tradition of German Socialism (Milwaukee still had Socialist mayors when I was a teenager), a longstanding tradition of moderate conservatism (think Governor Dreyfuss, for example), and so on. Midwestern social, cultural and political traditions are, in general, sane and grounded, like Midwesterners as a whole. We are short on demagogues and long on civility. We’ve had aberrations, of course (Tail-Gunner Joe comes to mind) but the aberrations prove the rule, in my opinion.

      I come from that tradition of political civility and compromise, a tradition that has been under stress recently as the Republican Party in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa has been taken over by hard-core ideologues. My comments on IGF, in general, reflect that tradition, I hope. I try to deal in facts and ideas rather than personal attacks (what’s with “Queen Hillary”, for example?) and I value IGF (which I started participating in a dozen years ago) because, unlike most blogs, IGF seems to self-maintain that tradition of civility.

      IMO, the Libertarian philosophy of social tolerance and fiscal prudence is the best hope we have left for mending this country. I truly believe most Americans fall within this sphere.

      I agree that most Americans fall within the sphere of social tolerance and fiscal prudence, but I think that few Americans embrace the extreme positions evidenced by the Libertarian Party’s platform. Maybe it is just my Midwestern background, but I think that most Americans could be best described as “moderate”, believing in middle-ground positions.

      Is the Libertarian Party perfect? Absolutely not, as they will – refreshingly – be the first to admit. But, they seem courageously unafraid to listen to rational, well-thought arguments instead of clinging to dogma – right or wrong, dammit! – like a rabid pit bull. They are also not afraid of compromise.

      You could have fooled me. The Libertarians I’ve run across, although personally pleasant and intelligent enough, are rigidly doctrinaire for the most part, and often dismissive of anyone who doesn’t understand quite how wonderful their ideas are. You’ve obviously had a much different experience with them than I have. But then, you probably know more of them than I do. Libertarians run scarce in rural areas.

      And until we realize that we are strongest as a nation when we embrace compromise, I sadly fear darker days are ahead.

      I agree with both statements, wholeheartedly.

    • posted by TJ on

      Technology to replace human drivers in cars and trucks has been in development since the 1980s and (while the technology has improved) its still a long way off.

      Humans will probably still be needed as truck drivers and the like for security and safety reasons.

      The Libertarian party’s plan is to get rid of minimum wage, workers protections and other economic regulations (post 1798) and see what happens.

      Their jobs creation idea is to let the poor, unrmployed, elderly and disabled become drug dealers, hit men, pimps and prostitues.

  3. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    For those interested, there’s an interesting take on “The Identity Politics of Whiteness” in the NYT Magazine.

  4. posted by TJ on

    I am sure that PLENTY of theories will be put forth as to why Clinton lost, and why Trump won (baring in very unlikely think with the Electoral College voters).

    Some of them are going to be better then others, and lots of them will probably be slanted by people who want to feel smug and superior.

    I think that Hillary should have chosen a VP that had a Biden-like personality and the ability to speak directly to “swing voters” (often a polite way to referring to white, working class and middle class voters. who are not tied to either party). This is one of the reasons that Biden was on the Obama ticket.

    The fact that the Libertarian Party and the Green Party presidential nominees did fairly well in key states, was also a factor. It is worth noting that some of the alt-right-wing third parties (i.e. Constitution Party and the American Independent Party) ran much less involved campaigns this time around.

    Granted, the Prohibition Party has not run a serious, third party bid in a long while, but the Constitution Party ran Howard Philips (a big player in the far-right-Christian-right cause) and some major players in the past. This year it was Darrel Castle — who was temporarily dropped out of the race — and who was not really a big player (not like, say Philips or Alan Keyes).

  5. posted by Jorge on

    Yes, the NY Times article was an excellent read. I really must save it.

    As for the other one, I thought it danced on people’s graves a little too much in a dead serious tone for my taste.

    “The Washington Post and New York Times, which made themselves over as media arms of Hillary’s presidential campaign, debunked the long-held admonition never to pick a fight with the man who buys ink by the barrel.”

    Ouch.

    “Men and boys who yearn to use the ladies’ room (and vice versa) were losers. The U.S. Justice Department under Jeff Sessions, the U.S. attorney general-elect, will no longer be required to make latrine orderlies of its lawyers.”

    That’s okay, we’ll just pass ENDA this time. Best of both worlds.

    “The most deserving loser of all was one Brad Avakian…”

    I agree, but was it worth it? It’s too little satisfaction to me for just one toad to get swatted.

    This week of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for that outcome.

    (There we go again with people dancing on people’s graves with a dead serious delivery.)

    Secretary Clinton is, as she has always been, a wonky, tone-deaf politician, issue-focused rather than vision-focused, and she did not have the political deftness to pull off an appeal to the base while sounding the trumpet for Americans as a whole.

    What’s wrong with wonky and issue-focused? I think her real problem is she was too scared of the Bernie Sanders wave to speak her mind except when she was on the attack. Her attack of Donald Trump’s foreign policy was brilliant. Too bad he actually had enough substance behind it to get people to vote for him.

    Oh, well. At least Lindsey Graham has indicated he’s sharpening his knives. The Republicans aren’t that scared of Trump.

    …The Republican Party was demolished in the process, more damaged, perhaps, in the long run than the Democratic Party.

    It can regenerate. The bigger problem for the party is the third way Trump channeled taking root and enduring, displaying the Republican party’s other priorities. When Ross Perot had a big year in 1992 (which I keep hearing was rather significant), the sleeping giant went back to sleep again because the two parties remained in control. It’s quite different if the giant falls asleep within one of the two major parties.

    What shocks me still to this day is that practically every Dem I know basically said, “Yeah, I know she’s a crook, but she’s our crook.”

    I have a hard time understanding your point of view here. She was not just the Democrats’ crook. She was our country’s crook. Can you say the same about Donald Trump? (He’s definitely my crook, but I think Elizabeth Warren’s nasty smelly feet comment gives him some sharp competition among the ladies.)

  6. posted by Lori Heine on

    Big-government social conservatism is actually identity politics. “We’re Christians…WAAAAAAH!”

    There’s something sort of karmic about it.

    Like any identity-political gripe-group, a large part of their mentality involves exclusion of those not pure enough. Thus are Christians who don’t agree with them (such as LGBT or LGBT-affirming straights) not “real” Christians in their book.

    It never ceases to amaze me that each side in the culture war hates the other for the very traits it possesses, in abundance, itself. There’s a whole lot of projecting going on here. Both sides are narrow-minded, ignorant, thin-skinned, intolerant and fanatically zealous. And nearly all involved are crybullies.

    For these reasons, along with many others, I’ve come to detest them both.

    • posted by Jorge on

      Big-government social conservatism is actually identity politics. “We’re Christians…WAAAAAAH!”…

      …Like any identity-political gripe-group, a large part of their mentality involves exclusion of those not pure enough.

      Reversing the analogy makes for a great insight.

      Both sides are narrow-minded, ignorant, thin-skinned, intolerant and fanatically zealous. And nearly all involved are crybullies.

      I am having terrific discord with someone I get along very well with. I can no longer discuss politics with him, it seems–that’s a bit hit.

      He is narrow-minded, ignorant, (I’m not sure about thin-skinned), intolerant and fanatically zealous. He’s also one of the wisest people I know.

  7. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Tom: Secretary Clinton is, as she has always been, a wonky, tone-deaf politician, issue-focused rather than vision-focused, and she did not have the political deftness to pull off an appeal to the base while sounding the trumpet for Americans as a whole.

    Jorge: What’s wrong with wonky and issue-focused?

    Nothing. Both President Clinton and President Obama are wonky and issue-focused. Wonky and issue-focused are good things in a President.

    My point is that wonky and issue-focused alone are not enough to connect with and/or inspire the American people and win elections. A strong candidate has to have to have good political campaign skills and a vision to sell to the American people. Better campaign political skills and a clearer, more positive vision to sell are primary reasons why Bill Clinton cleaned George H.W. Bush’s clock, and why Barrack Obama cleaned John McCain’s.

    Either Bill Clinton (in his prime, not in his dottage) or Barrack Obama could have taken Hillary Clinton’s “Stronger Together” campaign theme and turned it into music touching the mystic chords of memory embedded in the American soul. Hillary Clinton, who has always been tone deaf to politics, could not and did not.

    Could the Democrats won the election with a better candidate? Absolutely. As poor a candidate as Secretary Clinton was, she won the popular vote by a margin that looks like it will settle in somewhere between 2-3 million votes, but lost the election because she narrowly (about 1%) lost several key swing states, including my own. I can’t know for sure, of course, but I don’t think that would have happened with a better candidate. I think that Joe Biden, for example, would have left Trump in the ditch.

    But let’s not lose focus. My focus on the elements of a successful campaign/campaigner should not distract from my larger point.

    We are in the midst of a sea change in our technological/industrial/economic environment, and working men and women are losing out in the process. Young people today can no longer do what young people in my generation could — find blue collar work that pays well enough to raise a family, buy a home, educate the children, save for retirement and live in relative economic security. Wages (in real dollars) have been falling for a generation. Stress-related health issues (cardiac, diabetes, obesity and addiction) have resulted in a decline in longevity among working class whites. Income disparity has increased dramatically, as has the concentration of economic activity/wealth in urban areas. Our middle class is disappearing, out of reach for an increasing percentage of our population.

    Neither Republicans nor Democrats (nor the Libertarians for that matter), are addressing the issues — globalization, robotics, and so on — underlying these changes in a way that might provide a way out for working class Americans. Instead, each of the parties are locked into the past, fighting old battles that no longer make any sense, don’t address the problems, and certainly won’t make a difference.

  8. posted by TJ on

    Trump’s pandering to white supremacists (I.e. David Duke and company) has the potential to come back to bite him (and the rest of the natiion

  9. posted by TJ on

    The far right certainly has its identity politics – which they have now openly joined with white supremacists.

    The Party of Lincoln has made it’s bed with the KKK (a group formed to kill Republicans as well as black Americans)

  10. posted by Jorge on

    We are in the midst of a sea change in our technological/industrial/economic environment, and working men and women are losing out in the process. Young people today can no longer do what young people in my generation could — find blue collar work that pays well enough to raise a family, buy a home, educate the children, save for retirement and live in relative economic security.

    *Blink-blink-blink.*

    Thus children and parents alike become objectified into love objects. To be cherished at a tyrannical cost in the present, only long enough for the children to make their own babies. The contrast is horrifying.

    I think I’ll stick my head in the sand and say I think everything will be fine. Oh, look, it’s a Bible! God will save me. But only if I exhaust myself saving the world. Because I stuck my head in the sand for escape, I’m not falling for the snake oil salesmen who say they are the answer. I’m the answer.

    Question: Can Donald Trump and the Republicans in the House and Senate govern the country without policy wonks?

    If not, then we should consider using the powers of reason and planning to conquer God and politics. Rarely will the champions of this path be the leaders, but that is not necessary. One does not need to have the most power to have decisive power. There, everything can be reduced to my usual philosophy.

  11. posted by Losers: The Culture Warriors - IGF Culture Watch on

    […] was a bad year for culture-war zealots. As noted below, prosecutor Brad Avakian, persecutor of people whose faith isn’t secular-progressivism of the […]

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