In a speech at the Center for American Progress this week, sore loser Stacey Abrams, who still does not concede that she lost the race against Brian Kemp for Georgia’s governorship, said that Democrats should not be afraid or embarrassed to be the party of identity politics. In fact, she said, that ideology was responsible for the party’s 2018 midterm election victories.
“The notion of identity politics has been peddled for the last 10 years,” she said, “and it’s been used as a dog whistle to say we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the voices coming into progress. I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are and exactly how we won.”
Actually, we agree with part of that statement. Identity politics is ALL the Democratic Party of 2019 is about, and yes, it was probably responsible for some of the seats they picked up last November. It was also largely responsible for their crushing loss in 2016. Because the moment one side decides to run on a platform that says whites, Christians, straight people, and men are the enemy, guess where all the whites, Christians, straight people, and men run off to? Take a look at the 2016 demographic breakdown and see for yourself.
The majority of voters (so far, anyway) can see through the hypocrisy of identity politics. How can the KKK or the Aryan Nation be an evil organization if the Women’s March or the Nation of Islam is A-OK? How can you be a “proud black woman” but they’ll throw you in PC jail if you claim to be a proud white woman? How can you specifically go out there and say that “whiteness” is an evil that must be eradicated? The rules of this game make no sense. They are bereft of logic, and they are void of anything close to a coherent worldview. It is, at the end of the day, no different than racism.
What’s perhaps even worse than that is that this identity politics philosophy reduces an individual human being down to nothing more than a collection of traits. You’re a woman, you have to vote this way. You’re black, you have to vote for this candidate. You’re Hispanic, how could you even think of supporting Donald Trump? There’s no room for individuality under the left’s philosophy of collective identity. If you are born with this specific collection of traits, than you MUST think and act and vote like everyone else with those traits. If you don’t, you’re a traitor to the cause.
Alas, this barren worldview appeals to a lot of people. It can be used as an excuse for so many things. Oh, I’m not successful because I’m black. I can’t get a fair shake because I’m gay. Just as powerfully, it gives you a built-in sense of belonging, and a built-in enemy to oppose. Don’t underestimate how alluring that combination can be for people who feel lost and alone.
All of this might be fine and well if it weren’t rapidly destroying our country. How can we overcome divisions when those divisions are built right in to our skin cells? They aren’t, of course. It’s just an illusion. These are just labels at the end of the day. But as long as Democrats keep seeing success from identity politics, they’re going to keep emphasizing the “reality” of those labels – thus keeping us divided and angry indefinitely.
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