The November 23, 2016 Thread
Ignore the PC backlash. Democratic politics have to be “identity politics”: https://t.co/BgfdqjiJhC via @slate
— Harold Pollack (@haroldpollack) November 23, 2016
I hate the term “identity politics.” It is a made up word by privileged white conservatives that privileged white liberals mindlessly parrot because Bernie Sanders mindlessly parroted the term because Bernie Sanders wants to solely focus all political discussion on an economic message to the exclusion of a rights message. But since the term is here to stay, when you see the term “identity politics,” read it to mean “a politics that combats efforts to deny people fundamental rights because of their identities.” Because that is what we Democrats and liberals and progressives do.
Remember, we Democrats, we liberals, and we Progressives are supposed to be fighting for the equality, rights and opportunities of ALL OUR CITIZENS. Not just the white ones. Not just the straight ones. Not just the male ones. And guess what, when one party, the Republican Party, actively commits to ending the rights and opportunities of African Americans, Latinos, Gays and Lesbians and women, then “Identity Politics” becomes the mission of our lives. It is a monstrous betrayal for privileged white liberals and progressives, some of whom read and write comments on this blog, to demand we abandon African Americans, women, Latinos, and gays and lesbians just because we lost the white working class vote in one fucking election, or just because some racist whites say so, or just because one Senator wants the party to focus solely on economics and not rights. To these traitors I say a hearty fuck you, and get the fuck out. Join your racist Republican white friends and relatives.
We, as Democrats, liberals and progressives, will do both. We will fight for an economic message that wins back the white working class and we will protect and advance the rights of minorities.
And with that, Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
President @BarackObama admits to getting “kind of choked up” as he presents @TheEllenShow with the Presidential #MedalofFreedom pic.twitter.com/2tuRPxZXhf
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) November 22, 2016
“Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis has emerged as President-elect Donald Trump’s leading candidate to be defense secretary, people familiar with the transition said Tuesday, but the choice would require Congress to pass a special law clearing the way for a recently retired military officer to take the Pentagon’s top civilian post,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The law would be required because the former top officer has been out of the military only 3½ years. U.S. laws designed to ensure civilian control over the military require a time period of seven years.”
Meanwhile, Trump has picked South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) to become his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the Charleston Post and Courier has learned. “The move, expected Wednesday, continues the steep political rise of the daughter of Indian immigrants that started six years ago when the Bamberg native was elected as South Carolina’s first female and minority governor.” Washington Post: “If confirmed, Haley would be replaced by South Carolina’s Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster, a top Trump ally. His ascension is seen inside of Trump’s inner circle as a welcome consequence of her departure, the person said — a way to promote them both.”
At CPJ fundraiser, stark warnings about preserving press freedom. Here's my story from the Waldorf Astoria ballroom: https://t.co/Uyy33b3eig
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 23, 2016
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC that President-elect Donald Trump will not pursue any investigations into Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server and the Clinton Foundation. Said Conway: “I think when the president-elect, who’s also the head of your party now, Joe, tells you before he’s even inaugurated he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges it sends a very strong message, tone, and content to the members… If Donald Trump can help her heal then, perhaps, that’s a good thing.”
It is not the President’s decision to prosecute and not prosecute anyone, especially when the FBI has already investigated a person and found absolutely no evidence of any crime being committed whatsoever. If Trump were to decide to prosecute Hillary absent any evidence, it would be a violation of the Constitution, impeachable, and worth starting violent revolution over.
.@mashagessen shares her lessons from living in Vladimir Putin's Russia #inners https://t.co/1JmRfDPYlv
— All In w/Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) November 23, 2016
President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has admitted to the IRS that it violated a legal prohibition against “self-dealing,” which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families, the Washington Post reports. “Such violations can carry penalties including excise taxes, and the charity leaders can be required to repay money that the charity spent on their behalf.”
Truthful, not neutral. pic.twitter.com/gJgNwFyvWf
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) October 13, 2016
Ezra Klein: “More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump. More Americans voted for Democratic Senate candidates than for Republican Senate candidates. And while we don’t have final numbers yet, it looks likely that more Americans will have voted for House Democrats than for House Republicans.”
“So why aren’t Democrats acting like it? Why aren’t they trying to force Republicans, the media, and the emergent Trump White House to act like it?”
“This is not an argument that the election was rigged, nor that Trump’s win is somehow illegitimate. The president is chosen by the Electoral College. The Senate is built to favor small states. Gerrymandering is legal. America does not decide national elections by simply tallying up votes. But the will of the voters still matters, or at least it should.”
8. This visualization of HRC counties vs. DT counties, by GDP, is stunning. https://t.co/9nR7dAVFnS pic.twitter.com/6kBkb3WRtK
— Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) November 22, 2016
“So much for the latest draft Joe Biden effort — the vice president won’t be a candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee,” Politico reports. “The prospect of Biden leading the official party apparatus had been drawing interest in Washington and beyond over the past week. Other candidates have begun to step forward, but several party leaders — most recently, former DNC chair and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell — had begun motioning for the vice president to do the job.”
Speaking at the Times today, Trump may have just flatly and openly admitted to a conflict of interest: https://t.co/TchcAPc44m
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) November 22, 2016
“Republicans warned for years that Obamacare would blow up the nation’s individual insurance market. Instead, their own rush to repeal the health care law may be what triggers that death spiral,” Politico reports. “GOP lawmakers say they plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act as soon as President-elect Donald Trump takes office, including a transition period of a year or two before it takes effect… But repealing the law without a replacement is likely to spook health insurers, who might bolt from the markets prematurely to avoid losses as some people stop paying their premiums, while other people rush to have expensive medical procedures before losing coverage.”
“Insurers would have little incentive to stick around without knowing what to expect at the end of the transition. And that could spell chaos for consumers.”
Me on how at this point, it would be pretty easy to impeach Donald Trump—if Congress wanted to. https://t.co/f8rTYDy6Rc
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 22, 2016
Jonathan Chait: “Donald Trump’s presidential campaign bludgeoned modern norms about the acceptability of racism. The candidate proposed a religious test for immigrants, and called a federal judge unfit on the grounds of his heritage. Trump could have decided to put the racial demagoguery of the campaign behind him, and it could have been remembered as a divisive ploy to win that did not define his administration, like George Bush’s manipulation of white racial panic to defeat Michael Dukakis in 1988. But Trump, perhaps predictably, is making a different choice. His early staffing choices are redefining the boundaries of acceptable racial discourse in Republican politics.”
Good @pkcapitol piece on Pelosi attempts to mollify Democrats as her leadership is challenged. Hill Dems got probs https://t.co/67DP9ZumDz
— jennifer steinhauer (@jestei) November 22, 2016
James Hohmann: “Trump and the congressional Republicans who have chosen to make their bed with him are responsible for what happens from now on. There is now no one to blame if they can’t pass budgets, avoid shutdowns, deal with sequestration, replace Obamacare, destroy ISIS or reverse the continuing loss of manufacturing jobs. If climate change gets worse, it’s on them. If Syria continues its downward spiral, it’s on them. If more countries acquire nuclear weapons, it’s on them. It may be totally unfair, but that’s the way our system works.”
“This is a rude awakening that faces every president, regardless of party, but it will be especially acute for someone who has demonstrated a preternatural unwillingness to take personal responsibility for anything.”
Identity politics means “Vote for me because I am a _____ .”
Its companion is “If you don’t vote for the _____ you are a _____ – hater.”
I love the term identity politics, because it so gets under the skin of its practitioners and defenders. And it does so because it perfectly skewers them and they have no rejoinder except to hate the term.
I think there is a pretty good chance Trump will be impeached by Republicans. They’d rather have Pence than Trump. I fear Pence more than Trump. Trump is secular with some socially liberal leanings. Pence is a religious zealot and culture warrior.
Another idiot comment from DD! “a politics that combats efforts to deny people fundamental rights because of their identities.”
This is truly, your small minded meaning. “It is a made up word by privileged white conservatives”
Do some research, first!!
I’m not a Trump fan, but I’m not on the far left spewing hatred, as you are doing with some of your articles. Go back in your minion hole!
enjoy trump, del dem. this is exactly the kind of sanctimony that cost dems the election. if the identity-politics crew can’t get 100 percent of what it wants right now it is willing to let everybody go under, including the people you think you’re helping.
Identity Politics destroys affirmative action and all that we have fought for over the past 60 years. This allows individuals who “feel” a certain way or think they are a certain thing to take advantage of what other people are owed due to historical cultural oppression.
No one should be ashamed of who they are/were born. It’s our media and our system of cultural norms which have tried to put people in categories and boxes, and when someone doesn’t feel like they fit into that category or box, they try to find the category or box they feel like they should belong to. Instead of increasing the amount of categories or boxes people fall into, why not just get rid of the categories and boxes all together and treat everyone as an individual and not try to fit everyone into a cultural/media prescribed box?
The best reason to wish Trump much success is Mike Pence. On the other hand, if Trump is successful and chooses not to run for a second term, we are faced with Mike Pence as the logical successor. A Catch 22!
If you recall the past, W won in 2000 because of white indifference (that’s how Gore lost Tennessee), just as Hillary did this time. After eight (shudder) years of his incompetence — six, really, because Dems did well in the ’06 midterms — people sort of got the message and turned out to elect Obama.
For all his faults, Obama kept the ship on course, and people again started to think that government competence is a given, and they didn’t get a great feeling from Hillary and stayed home on election day.
I don’t think it will take six years this time to figure out that Republicans have a lot of slogans and no idea how to govern effectively.
Identity politics: Hypothetically, if the US pursues a policy that results in one or more large factories being built in Ohio or Michigan (or even in the South) – is that a pro-white economic policy?
Yeah, like I said, all you privileged white assholes who would throw your black, gay, latino and female allies over board just because the fight got too hard, you all can go fuck yourselves. You all are free to leave Delaware Liberal today and don’t ever come back.
And remember, Hillary won the election. From Chris Bowers at Daily Kos:
We did not lose because Democrats fight too much for women and minorities and the poor white racists are upset and need to be coddled. We lost because of Comey.
“he email stuff was the main driver.”
Yes, and in 2004 the swiftboat lies were the main driver. And in 2020 some other crock of lies will be the main driver. Dems need something strong enough to attract fickle voters over that kind of noise.
Whenever Del Dem writes something critical of the democratic wing of the Democratic Party, just remember to read the torrid and vicious criticism of El Som’s spot-on post “The Epic Fail of the Clinton Campaign” (written 4 days before election day):
http://delawareliberal.net//2016/11/04/the-epic-fail-of-the-clinton-campaign/
Deldem is a Democratic tribalist through and through. When DelDem, Pandora, Ben and the other Democrats like them start listening to and stop dismissing criticisms of liberals that they label as “purists,” then maybe Democrats will start to win elections again.
The Democratic establishment has shown over and over again that they can’t win by nominating flawed candidates and hoping to win by practicing identity politics.
Remember this next time:
“Look, I’m as progressive as anybody, okay? But people in the heartland thought the Democratic Party cared more about where someone else went to the restroom than whether they had a good-paying job. ‘Stronger together’ doesn’t get anyone a job.”
— Mahoning County, Ohio Democratic Party David Betras, quoted by the Washington Post.
“all you privileged white assholes who would throw your black, gay, latino and female allies over board … are free to leave Delaware Liberal today and don’t ever come back.”
I don’t know of any debate among Dems on this site or elsewhere about trading civil rights for some kind of mythical “pro-white” jobs policy. To even imply that there is such a trade-off is complete BS.
Just about every Dem is on the right side of social issues, but many are on the wrong side of economic issues. The debate among Dems is how to strengthen the economic message and policy to recapture the regions and demographics that used to be Democratic. Trading civil rights for economic or political gains is not and never was on the table, despite the smears from identity politicians.
The real problem, of course, with puck’s gleeful dismissal of “Identity Politics” is that there are wide swaths of America whose economic interests are at stake when white people start a discriminatory regime against those they think are threatening them . That is the point of protecting the rights of all and white people feeling some economic strain are quick to blame that on the other people who look like they jumped ahead of them.
Basically, if puck can get his economic security back without sacrificing mine, that is OK. But that is certainly not his project nor the project of the white folks who decided that their grievances were more important that real economic development.
“Basically, if puck can get his economic security back without sacrificing mine, that is OK. ”
It’s more than OK; it is the path to success for Democrats.
And I’m not exactly a surrogate for rust belt factory workers, but whatever.
“all you privileged white assholes who would throw your black, gay, latino and female allies over board just because the fight got too hard, you all can go fuck yourselves.”
At my age, that will never work. I’m not one of those spry old folks.
Anyway, simmer down, Jethro. If I were selfish about my privilege I’d be a Republican instead of trying to give myself a higher tax rate.
Here are some facts nobody here seems to keep in mind: The white share of the electorate is shrinking, but still stands at 69%. Democrats, even with most of the black vote and 3/4ths of the rest of the minority vote, therefore needed more white voters than the 37% Hillary got.
Like it or not, equality for the groups you list does NOT motivate anyone outside the faithful to vote for Democrats. We just performed the experiment, and it appears that stronger bonds among the country’s various identity groups appeals to 37% of the white electorate. It might be different if it drove turnout by that core constituency, but Hillary underperformed Obama by a point or two with almost all those groups, even Latinos.
To put it another way I am the strongest white supporter of BLM I know, but even I realize that Hillary was smart not to run by calling for equal rights during police contact, even though I consider it a foundational issue that affects anyone who has contact with the police. But white America couldn’t cope with that; it would have one of its frequent panic attacks. It would have been like Willie Horton-ing herself.
Cassandra, you yourself acknowledged that campaigns use different messages in different locales (tho I have seen nothing to indicate she used more economy-centered ads in the Rust Belt; see the Mahoning Valley progressive’s quote above, which comes from an article I linked a week ago).
I really don’t think this is a problem without a solution. Unlike the conservatives, whose “principles” contradict themselves at every turn, the economic and social justice messages actually complement each other. We’re arguing about emphasis, not direction.
And here’s a possibility neither of us has addressed: Perhaps her team simply failed to produce persuasive-enough messages on either subject.
I think that’s what prompted El Som’s pre-election post. We liberal white guys are like canaries in the coal mine. If something strikes liberal whites as puerile, what do you think the reception will be among conservative whites?
It’s more than OK; it is the path to success for Democrats.
That is *definitively* not what you are advocating here. You can have on all you want about how untrue that is. But me and a bunch of black, brown, female and LGBTQ folks have daily reminders of how untrue that is.
You are entitled to your scurrilous opinion but you have no evidence to back it up.
Civil and equal rights for all Americans should be a given for any Democratic candidate. IMHO, dismantling the New Jim Crow and ending mass incarceration of black men is essential and one of the biggest issues of the today.
However, sadly, neither of these are positions that are going to win a national election.
If the Democrats can’t develop a new more-inclusive and hopeful message that can win a national election against the Republicans, then Democrats lose and we get neither social nor economic justice.
See Mondale, Gore, Clinton, Carter, Kerry.
See also Tim Kaine’s and Debbie Wasername’s records as DNC chairs.
Oh, and more bad news, but it will probably make DD happy:
The same person who fired Howard Dean and hired Tim Kaine and Debbie Wasserman Schultz now wants to choose the next DNC Chair:
“Struggling to respond to Donald Trump’s victory, a group of shellshocked Democrats moved swiftly to endorse Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, hoping that he would be a fresh face for a party with a depleted bench,” the New York Times reports.
“But after steadily adding endorsements from leading Democrats in his bid to take over the party, Mr. Ellison is encountering resistance from a formidable corner: the White House.”
“In a sign of the discord gripping the party, President Obama’s loyalists, uneasy with the progressive Mr. Ellison, have begun casting about for an alternative.”
A little late for Obama to take up party building, isn’t it?
You are entitled to your scurrilous opinion but you have no evidence to back it up.
I have a life time of this “Trust Me” shit to back it up. You’ll understand that I’m not going to buy it from you or anyone.
I didn’t know anything about Tim Ryan until this week but I am cautiously liking what I’ve heard from him so far for DNC chair. Is there any reason to have reservations about him?
He isn’t running for DNC Chair.
Right, my brain fart. Speaker then. What reservations should I have about Tim Ryan for Speaker?
@cassandra: You’re not wrong, but the problem is that if you break up the electorate simply into ethnic categories, whites hold an overwhelming majority. I merely ask you to consider the number of times the people of this or any country have done the right thing for a minority group because it was the right thing to do. Given that poor track record, I don’t see the wisdom in advocating for social justice AS A CAMPAIGN PLATFORM. Campaigns aren’t the same as governing. You don’t talk about the controversial subjects until you’re elected.
Angela Merkel’s pro-immigrant policy is causing the same kind of uproar in Germany. These tribal loyalties arise from a place closer to the brain stem than the prefrontal cortex. I nevertheless fail to see how lashing out at the racism of whites helps convert them into Democratic voters.
A couple of general thoughts in the wake of the election:
We on the left, or maybe it’s just me, tend to think of the business-oriented branch of the Republican Party — the people with the money, that is, rather than the base — as a somewhat monolithic entity.
It’s not. Corporate America backs the left’s social agenda. Corporations must appeal to a broad audience, and can’t afford to alienate any sizable segment of the population. This becomes especially important when they take their brands global, and will become increasingly important because birth rates are negative in both in Europe and white America. Catering to the white people of the world is a losing game for them.
Look at the politically prominent right-wingers, though, and you see not corporations but individually-controlled businesses, from the Kochs to Sheldon Adelson to Richard Mellon Scaife, the Chic-Fil-A people, even Mitt Romney, for that matter … and for every name you know there are dozens you don’t. You’ll notice, too, that businesses that once produced noxious right-wingers when held mostly within a family — the Du Ponts, the Waltons — tempered their hard-right positions when they needed Wall Street support.
In a sense, then, we have here a fight between elephants — corporate capital, which is immense, vs. private capital, which is much smaller but concentrates itself in relatively few hands. For them, it’s a fight for survival against global forces, and this is their last chance to resist.
As the Swahili proverb has it, when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.
We have our new education secretary. I hope Kevin is still happy about Common Core, because that’s not the only thing going out the window:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-betsy-devos-education_us_5835dbc1e4b01ba68ac3ec1e
but the problem is that if you break up the electorate simply into ethnic categories, whites hold an overwhelming majority.
They don’t always vote in overwhelming majorities. But the impetus behind not paying attention to “Identity Politics” is basically asking Dems to dismantle their Big Tent. And since Dems are not exactly single issue voters, you are asking for Dems to supress their own vote.
Not at all. Asking them to remember the sometimes-elephants in the tent. It’s not about not paying attention to social justice, or even not favoring it over economic justice (which is the correct category for the gender wage gap, IMO, but it gets tagged a women’s issue instead).
We must realize and remember that if Democrats don’t win office in the first place, it doesn’t much matter what we stand for, or in which order. This isn’t about anybody abandoning any of our principles. I completely reject the mocking suggestion made the other day that our message be “a little bit racist.” Instead, we should realize that these white people in dying areas are reacting to the fact that they are, in fact, no longer privileged. Blacks, gays, Latinos, liberated women — they long ago learned to live categorized not just as “other,” but as “lesser.” Turns out that white people don’t like being treated that way any better than anyone else. They just whine louder because they’re less used to it.
So from your perspective, did you think the messaging and outreach to the core groups was adequate? If so, why wasn’t their turnout better? What did blacks and Latinos want to hear that they didn’t?
Messaging gets fairly atomized in a modern campaign and what I heard (not all of it) made sense to me. Still from what I read it looks like the grassroots effort was lacking — certainly the effort for HRC in Delaware looked pretty weak to me. I thought that meant they were working harder in places like PA, but I don’t know. What I do know, is that for both Obama campaigns, there was outreach to Delaware to get out and knock doors in other states. I didn’t see that outreach.
But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I do think that you have to consider that Barack Obama was not running and his inspiration was definitely missing. Then I think that the longstanding effort to make government look ineffective and useless is taking its toll. When there is a specific effort by the GOP to stop government from working and a fairly ineffective effort by Dems to fight back on that, the folks who most need a working government can be demoralized. One thing I did not think of was that continuing Barack Obama’s legacy would mean continuing the gridlock and why vote for that?
Hillary had the highest negatives of any major party nominee ever. Too bad all of her super delegates and supporters did not consider that when they voted for her in the primaries. Then, despite all of her vaunted experience, she ran a lackluster and uninspiring campaign.
And in the end, even with huge financial and organizational advantages and winning the popular vote, she couldn’t even defeat Donald Trump. It was selfish of her to run at her age and with all her negatives, and now while she retires to live with her millions of dollars, we all have to pay the price for her selfishness.
Donald Trump had the highest negatives and yes, how dare she run when she was not just perfect. Never mind that none of her competitors had to be perfect, but how dare this woman run when she was not the perfect candidate.
🙄
“It was selfish of her to run at her age…”
So anyone 69 or older shouldn’t run?
Pandora, yes, the presidency is one of the hardest jobs in the world, and somebody who is going to be almost 80 after two terms should not be running, male or female. We don’t need to experience another demented president like Reagan.
She had her chance in 2008, but the Clintons refused to step aside and so now we have Donald Trump as President-elect.
And it isn’t a matter of being perfect, Cassandra. If we want to keep losing, let’s just keep nominating Mondales, Kerrys, Clintons and Gores. For all the laments here about the Delaware Way, you should be able to recognize now that there is a national “Democrat Way,” that almost always nominates the DNC favorite and ends up losing.
Obama is an exceptional political talent as an individual, but he has been a disaster as the political leader of the Democrats by every measure – congress, senate, governorships, and state legislatures. Hillary Clinton was just the latest disaster. Maybe eventually the Democrats will figure out that the “Democratic Way” isn’t working.
But it may be too late for that.
you should be able to recognize now that there is a national “Democrat Way,” that almost always nominates the DNC favorite and ends up losing.
The way that this works is for a candidate to get more votes than the DNC favorite. Barack Obama did. Bill Clinton was not the DNC favorite in 1992 (I doubt there was one). The DNC is way less of a factor that those of you who need a boogeyman to help you come to terms with the fact that your candidates can’t EVER get enough votes to get across the nomination finish line. The lagniappe here is that you also get to work in your expectation that Clinton needed to be the perfect candidate.
Let’s face it, the problem was that she was the ONLY candidate; Sanders only ran because nobody else except Martin “Mr. Charisma” O’Malley was willing. There is no national Democratic next generation, because the Clintons have been blocking the sun for 20-odd years. Now the tallest tree in the forest has fallen, and we’ll see which of the young saplings grow to fill the space.
I *still* like O’Malley. He has a thoroughly progressive message when no one else had it. His biggest problem is going to be baggage from governing Baltimore. Plus he as a great Irish band.
lagniappe
saw o’malley at o’friel’s several times.
I think O’Malley is still polling at 1%. He’s the ultimate proof that voters choose people, not programs.