What Is Identity Politics And How Do We Defeat It?
Past Proves Future. We only need to look at where the radical left is to see where it is going. In recent years the radical left has taken over the Democrat Party. It is their own fault, too.
The Democrat has been a party of coalitions for most of it’s existence. In the 1930’s it was the New Deal Coalition. Now it is identity politics, the party of victims and vengeance.
The New Deal coalition was the alignment of interest groups and voting blocs in the United Statesthat supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until the late 1960s. It made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D. Eisenhower, a pro-New Deal Republican, in 1952 and 1956. Franklin D. Roosevelt forged a coalition that included the Democratic state party organizations, city machines, labor unions, blue collar workers, minorities (racial, ethnic, sexual and religious), farmers, white Southerners, people on relief, and intellectuals.[1] The coalition began to fall apart with the bitter factionalism during the 1968 election, but it remains the model that party activists seek to replicate.
There was an aura of noble cause about that coalition, whether conservatives choose to admit it or not. It was a coalition of the oppressed and under represented, the poor and those who suffered racial and sexual discrimination, mixed with unions that started, at least, to improve unsafe working conditions in mines and factories. My father was the son of an Appalachian coal miner. Grandad lost his leg in the mines. Dad and his brothers were all named after “Good Democrat Presidents”. Two of his brothers died from black lung and a third was crippled by it. My great uncle was murdered for trying to organize unions in the coal fields. He was ran over and dragged for miles, for organizing workers for fair pay in dollars instead of company script, and safe working conditions. The Democrat Party achieved power from the votes of such men. It was, for a very long time, the party of populism, and undeniably the blue collar party, self styled defender of the working man.
But within those coalitions were also leftist sympathizers, and the seeds of identity politics. The Democrat convention of ‘68 fractured the party, sending it on a leftist trajectory, and Republican President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal gave those on the far left their opportunity. Democrats picked up 49 seats in the house, adding such left leaning luminaries as Chris Dodd, Paul Tsongas, Norm Mineta, Tom Harkin and Max Baucus. In the senate many more moderate dems lost primaries to fresher, younger, more liberal faces. John Glenn, Gary Hart and Patrick Leahy, all came into power. In ‘76 Jim Sasser, Howard Metzenbaum, Pat Moynihan, Dennis Deconcini and Paul Sarbanes joined the upper chamber. Of note, Bill Clinton lost his congressional race in ‘74, and Hillary got her start as a member of the investigation team of the impeachment committee, she was fired for her lack of ethics and not given a letter of recommendation.
The left clawed back, doubled down, and identity politics became their strategy. In the past the patched together a coalition based on blue collar ethos, In more modern times they base their future on identity and victim status. In the past America consisted of the poor, the rich and the middle class, with Dems successfully courting the votes of the poor and middle class.
No more.
Now they promise “justice” to small, fragmented and often opposing groups, hoping they can make them angry enough at conservatives to vote Dem instead. They wait hungrily, not to bring justice, but rather retribution on their enemies. Identity politics is modern day facism.
In short they believe that they can form a coalition of voters, who perceive themselves as victims, based on identity. Identity may include race, sexual orientation, religion, sex, immigration status and so on. They promise them justice, but their “social justice” is not the elevation of the group from the oppression they have suffered, but the disenfranchisement and punishment of the offended groups perceived oppressors. The Democrat party is now the party of anyone who sees themselves as the victim and the offended, the enemy of any person who dares cause offense, and any constitutional rights they may have.
If you are black the left assumes that is your sole identity, that all you are is wrapped up in the color of your skin, and if you perceive caucasian’s or the police to be your enemy they become the enemy of the modern Democrat party. If you are a black woman, even better!
If you are lgbt, equality and non-discrimination is not enough, the Christian baker who refuses to make your wedding cake based on their religious beliefs must be sued out of existence! Where is equality for the Christian business owner’s beliefs? Why is his or hers faith worth less than your sexuality?
Make no mistake, equality is not the aim of the left, it is the weaponization of greivences against those who are not a part of their coalition of victims. If you dare disagree with their agenda, they call you a racist, bigoted, homophobe.
If you say illegal immigration is wrong you are a racist and bigot. If you dare say that you shouldn’t be able to use whatever bathroom you like based on whatever sexual orientation you identify with at that moment, then you are a homophobe. We have all seen it. Many of us recognize it for what it is.
The left lost in 2016 in large part because America is tired of victim politics, and has since doubled down on their mantra, namely, if you are not for us you are against us. If you are against them, or perceived as the cause of victim status whether true or not, they will try to force you into submission, to cower you into silence, the punish and intimidate you into going along with them, because the cost of simply saying you disagree is too high to bear.
The modern left is the party of bullies. They are ideologically bankrupted, name callers. Anyone who dares stand against them is far behind the times, deplorable, flyover trash! The Dems are no longer the party of the working man, they are the party of racist ideals, achieving they goals by attaching stigma and intimidation. And we, too often, shrink away, not wanting the red letter of racism and bigotry attached to our good names, knowing we are right, but afraid to argue.
We must stand. We must not allow them to suppress the voice of reason buried deep within the voice of the American mainstream. And do not forget, we are the mainstream. When they call you a bigot, ask them, “Is that all you have, name calling because you are out of ideas?” Ask them, “Why are you so scared of anyone that disagrees with you? What kind of bully are you?” The sting of the left’s insults have lost their force because they have over used them. The king has no clothes. Who wants to stand up, point, and laugh?
For God’s sake stand. Don’t skulk away because they stick a negative label on you. Remember the election of 2016? The polling didn’t give President Trump a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.
But he did.
Why? People lied to friends and pollsters about their vote because they didn’t want to be called a bigoted, racist, homophobe...a deplorable human being, if they dared agree with the MAGA message. They didn’t dare express support for Trump, but many times after the election when they came out of the Trump closet they found out their friends and neighbors voted just as they had.
Deep down they did agreed with Trump. They agreed that our identity wasn’t black, or white, or gay or strait, or anything else but American. The Republican Party finally, against their will, nominated someone who actually said what the majority of Americans were thinking and the people dared vote him into office. We won because their are more of us than there are of them. Now we need to act like it. We are the majority.
We will stand to help and elevate the oppressed, but we will not stand for becoming disenfranchised because we aren’t part of the left’s little clique. We will stand up, and with our hearts and words we will fight back! We are winning, and we need to act like it!
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