Author Topic: White Identity Politics Gave Us Trump. But Did the Left Give Us White Identity Politics?  (Read 916 times)

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Offline EasyAce

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By Robby Soave
http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/29/white-identity-politics-gave-us-trump-bu/print

Quote
Sen. Bernie Sanders recently criticized the Democratic Party's slavish devotion to an overly-simplistic form of race-and-
gender-based identity politics.

"It is not good enough for someone to say, 'I'm a woman! Vote for me!' No, that's not good enough," said Sanders. "What we
need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies."

In response, Quentin James—former head of Ready for Hillary's outreach efforts to people of color—had this to say, "I like U.S.
Senator Bernie Sanders but his comments regarding identity politics suggest he may be a white supremacist, too."

Sanders. A white supremacist. For daring to suggest that the most obvious sort of race-and-gender tribalism was not a winning
strategy for the left.

This baseless accusation is emblematic of a specific problem for Democrats who, having successfully galvanized certain segments
of the population into identity-based political coalitions, lost the presidential election because the people outside this group—
working-class whites—formed a coalition of their own. The Democratic Party has itself to blame, of course: you can't cheer for
white men to go extinct
and then be surprised when they desert your candidate. Or, as Spiked magazine's Brendan O'Neill put it,
liberals essentially did the following:

Quote
Brendan O'Neill
last Wednesday
"You are a white man. Your whiteness defines you. Everything you think is
because you're white, everything you say is because you're white. Don't try
to be post-white. Don't try to be colourblind. Don't say you are 'over race'.
You're white, own it and deal with it."

"Really? Oh. Okay. I identify as white."

"FASCIST!"

His point is we shouldn't be surprised to see people vote in keeping with the ill-defined interests of their designated identity
group: that's the game the Lena Dunham Left has been playing with increasing fervency for years.

But identity politics—and the backlash they inspired in the form of Trump—are not just a problem for the left: they concern us
all. That's because the idea that one's interests are tied to one's tribal affiliation is anathema to the libertarian worldview. In fact,
there's nothing less libertarian than the tribe—and the more tribal our politics become, the less respectful of individual liberty
they will be.

As an example, Trump's victory is now calling attention to the plight of the supposed "forgotten man"—the struggling white
working class. These people have formed a race-and-income-based voting bloc, and they support Trump because he says he
supports them. Trump wants to bring back jobs from overseas, punish corporations that screw over workers, and halt immigration
as a means of decreasing labor competition.

But just because a set of policies are good for the tribe—and it's dubious whether the previously mentioned policies even satisfy
that criteria—does not mean they are good for society, or enhance individual rights. Indeed, halting immigration would be both
economically ruinous and a major human rights violation against immigrants, whether or not it makes the white working class
happy. And of course, the white working class isn't a sentient being with rights of its own: it's an expression of a collective. Its
members have rights, but those are human rights, not white-working-class rights.

And that's the curse of identity politics: in subjugating individual rights, they also undermine social welfare. Instead of asking
whether a given policy makes sense, tribalists only ask whether a given policy is good for the tribe to which they belong—for
women, or for the white working class, or for Muslims, and so on. In that way, identity politics put the ostensible good of the
group before the good of the individual and the good of society as a whole.

Nothing good will come of this. To defend individual liberty and promote human prosperity in the era of Trump, libertarians must
fight the insidious notion that the point of politics is to back the tribe's champion.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline Free Vulcan

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Ya think?

The left has been carving out aggrieved minorities for decades, after they realized that squashing their constitutional rights wasn't going to work. Or, in the case of the LGBTQSNAFUBAR community, making up new rights as they go along. Or just general man hating like the feminists do.

Now they're trying to flood immigrants into this country to add to that. They thought they could beat that ever redder national map with their islands of illegals, separatists, and victims. Those not in the club wised up to their schemes.
The Republic is lost.

HonestJohn

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This is the same logic as the one who says that a murderer didn't pick up a gun and kill someone...

...that it was "society's" fault for creating a person that would, one day, pick up a gun and kill someone.

Both have no concept of personal responsibility.

Offline truth_seeker

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Blacks vote over 90% democrat year in and year out.

Eventually there had to develop a backlash; particularly when whites, even those with average IQs, and non-college grads, thought about it for awhile.

They remembered their ancestors fought and died, to give those blacks equal opportunity.

They paid into taxes, only to see 75% of blacks born out of wedlock. And to see them drop out of school and collect welfare or go to jail.

And the white working class guy notices every form has race categories. He eventually realizes checking the "white" box is an indicator he gets nothing.

I have an associate at work. Big white guy. French surname. Former cop. Guess what? He was born in Uruguay and got a preference entering the police career field, for being "Hispanic."

He told us the story, to illustrate how ridiculous it is.

Donald Trump did not eff up the country. Politicians and administrators in government did.

When I served in the US /army 45 years ago, it was getting started. Preference for promotions to less blacks.

During my corporate career, it continued with firms under pressure to hire, promote less qualified minorities.

Welcome to the real world now. Watch with amusement as the democrats try to figure out how to regain that demographic.

Gleeful Republicans ought to be damn careful, lest they lose them, by implying these voters are "less than" for lack of education or income.



 

"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline TomSea

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Blacks vote over 90% democrat year in and year out.

Eventually there had to develop a backlash; particularly when whites, even those with average IQs, and non-college grads, thought about it for awhile.

They remembered their ancestors fought and died, to give those blacks equal opportunity.

They paid into taxes, only to see 75% of blacks born out of wedlock. And to see them drop out of school and collect welfare or go to jail.

And the white working class guy notices every form has race categories. He eventually realizes checking the "white" box is an indicator he gets nothing.

I have an associate at work. Big white guy. French surname. Former cop. Guess what? He was born in Uruguay and got a preference entering the police career field, for being "Hispanic."

He told us the story, to illustrate how ridiculous it is.

Donald Trump did not eff up the country. Politicians and administrators in government did.

When I served in the US /army 45 years ago, it was getting started. Preference for promotions to less blacks.

During my corporate career, it continued with firms under pressure to hire, promote less qualified minorities.

Welcome to the real world now. Watch with amusement as the democrats try to figure out how to regain that demographic.

Gleeful Republicans ought to be damn careful, lest they lose them, by implying these voters are "less than" for lack of education or income.

Agree; also, one acquaintance conjectured that some folks are just being called racist all the time, that ends the argument.

Except there was a response to that. To vote.

It makes sense to me.

The Democrats identity politics seems to be hurting them greatly at the state and local level and the cities, their stronghold, are not getting better.

Offline Fishrrman

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Posted by me, back on 7/15/2014:
http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,143361.msg584031.html#msg584031
==============================
Re: Limbaugh: Dems Want Hillary in ’16 so They Can Decry All Criticism as Sexist
« Reply #6 on: Today at 09:31:47 PM »
Andy wrote above:
[[ At the root of all "identity politics" is the idea that human value is defined not by ability, knowledge or effort, but by immutable physical characteristics. 5000 years of human civilization and intellectual progress are being immolated in a fire of willful ignorance and fear. ]]

Andy, I take exception to this, and welcome your rebuttal. You're a much smarter guy than me, so my arguments should be easy to shoot down.

If there is to be any hope for conservatives and traditionalists in America, it is through something which either may resemble (or may actually outright be) "identity politics". That is to say, the remaining majority (yes, still a majority, that's what the current border invasion is designed to destroy) of Euro-Americans must be drawn together to counter the anti-American behavior of the non-Euros pouring in. And to also counter the objectives of those leftists who encourage the invasion.

The "5,000 years of ... intellectual progress" you speak of above were the result largely of one group of people, all of whom shared similar "physical characteristics".

Western civilization -- the pinnacle of "ability, knowledge [and] effort" (again, your words) -- sprung from those people. That's why we call it "Western" civilization in the first place.

Can there be any question why those of the left in power are trying to -destroy- much of the foundation of that civilization, by re-educating the young to loathe and hate the "old white men" who created it, and by removing their names from the books of history?

To all those who would reply that such an argument is ridiculous, I again offer the behavior of Euro-Americans in the deep south, where overwhelming majorities of whites vote Republican.

It wasn't always this way -- fifty years ago they didn't call it the "solid South" for nuthin'. Solid democrats, that is.

But that certainly changed. Call it racis' if you wish, but the reason that whites now vote the way they do in the southern states is because they know that their survival (by "survival" I mean their only chance to counter "black rule") depends upon them "identifying" themselves -as a group- (Euro), and then voting to preserve and protect the interests of that group.

If they didn't, they would fall victim to state and local governments that would be dominated by blacks and democrats. Kind of like Reconstruction all over again, only with the left crackin' the whips this time.

Southern whites engage in "identity politics" out of self-preservation.

If it works there (regionally), it can work elsewhere -- in other regions, and possibly on a national level as well.

I have no problems with "black identity politics", or "Hispanic identity politics", or what-have-you. To them, this is normal behavior, and it's not going to change any time soon. There is only ONE group of Americans that continues to insist that they're "above" such behavior. Look at where that's gettin' us.

While writing this piece, I was thinking about something I had read earlier today, a quote that I remembered the gist of, but not the author.

Here it is, out of an op-ed by Patrick J. Buchanan posted elsewhere this evening:
[[ In Federalist No. 2, John Jay wrote, "Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs ..." ]]

This is what "identity" is about.

The fight that's going on now for America is existential. It requires that lines be drawn, sides be taken, and "identities" established.

The other side knows this.
When will -we- learn ???

Offline TomSea

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Oh, boy, let's listen to what the libertarians say with their 3% of the vote.

Offline EasyAce

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Oh, boy, let's listen to what the libertarians say with their 3% of the vote.

You seem to forget that not all libertarians are registered Libertarian Party voters---and, that by no
means did all libertarians vote for Gary Johnson/William Weld. (I didn't: aside from giving up my
Libertarian Party registration over a decade ago and registering since as an independent, I didn't see
what was all so libertarian about what amounted to a pair of Rockefeller Republican types at the top
of their ticket. Just two more reasons to vote "None of These Candidates" on election day.)


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.