Lots of people are talking about this article by Peter Beinart on the new new left:
Maybe Bill de Blasio got lucky. Maybe he only won because he cut a sweet ad featuring his biracial son. Or because his rivals were either spectacularly boring, spectacularly pathological, or running for Michael Bloomberg’s fourth term. But I don’t think so. The deeper you look, the stronger the evidence that de Blasio’s victory is an omen of what may become the defining story of America’s next political era: the challenge, to both parties, from the left. It’s a challenge Hillary Clinton should start worrying about now.
I’d like to believe this but I don’t. Yes, income inequality did drive the anti-Bloomberg movement, but income inequality in New York City is laughably extreme. Nationally, the leftward tilt of millennials is, in my opinion, as much cultural as economic. It’s true that Hillary 2016 should fear Elizabeth Warren more than Evan Bayh or Harold Ford, but do any of you see Warren besting Hillary in a primary? I don’t (though I’d personally vote for Warren in a primary).
It’s great that Peter Beinart, who used to punch hippies at the New Republic, is now cheering them on at the Daily Beast, but I agree with Atrios that it’s probably more because of professional circumstances than anything else:
I don’t have a fully fleshed out thesis here, but I do think there’s been a big change over the past few years in the tone from the New York chattering classes, as the bright (not so) young writers are beginning to recognize that shit is fucked up and bullshit for them, too, as their dreams of owning a place with a dishwasher in NYC recede and that house in the Hamptons that all of their senior colleagues own is a couple of lines below “unicorn pegasus” on the list of things they’re likely to possess one day.
As the evil internets suck the money out of journalism, some things will change for the better, some for the worse. It’s a shame that local newspapers will go out of business and national ones will become the personal property of Galtians. But it’s good that national journalists will be too poor to identify with the overclass.
Betty Cracker
Good point.
cleek
sure.
Clinton offers hawkish, centrist, watered-down, DC-centric, Democratism.
and who the fuck wants that ?
Splitting Image
The biggest change I hope to see in the coming years is the demise of the cable news industry.
Second biggest might be the collapse of the “Religious Right”, already underway.
I’m actually beginning to wonder if the TV news business is already starting to shrink. We all moan about the incompetence and laziness of most of the bobbleheads. I think you could make an argument that this is because “Final Placement Syndrome” is starting to take root. Nobody is ambitious anymore and trying to move on to better things, because the audience they have is starting to thin out and will not be replaced, so there will be no “better things” to go to.
Jewish Steel
Domine, Salvum Fac Villago!
Okay, maybe not yet.
Redshirt
We need more muckraking and less bootlicking.
Botsplainer
@Splitting Image:
I’m wondering if Sky and BBC succeed because they appear to include human interest stuff and sports, and fewer pundit discussions?
Jewish Steel
@Splitting Image: Why will the cable news industry snuff it? It’s been limping along with small audiences its whole life, if I am not mistaken.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
That may improve the quality of the journalism, given the shift in perspective. And the rest of it is already a done deal, so perhaps this is the best we’re gonna get.
the Conster
Who really watches the half hour evening news for news, or reads USA Today outside of hotels and airports? What does Brian Williams or Diane Sawyer do that earns them that kind of cash for 24 minutes of headline recitals? That money could be way better spent.
askew
Warren won’t be able to beat Clinton, but O’Malley might be able to. He’s racking up a ton of progressive accomplishments that will appeal to the base, he is charismatic and has the “cool” factor that Clinton certainly doesn’t have. I could see him appealing to the Obama coalition of minorities and young voters and setting up a re-do of 2008.
SiubhanDuinne
@Redshirt:
It doesn’t mean anything. I just like screwing around with compound words.
Ben Franklin
That is a convoluted theory, but it hails from a necessary point of contention in politics; a split in the vote. That much of the story could well be true in 2016…
BIDEN
Good God, whut a world.
Omnes Omnibus
Who are these “[l]ots of people” of whom you speak?
The Dangerman
How about both of them on the ticket (I presume Hillary at the top or Warren will have to have her food checked regularly)?
Also, some football picks:
1) Bama crushes A&M;
2) Bruins over Huskers in a squeaker;
This Bruin will gladly flip the crushing and squeaking, but I just don’t see A&M being in the game.
MattF
I think you’re being a teensy bit ungenerous to Beinart. I’d guess that the consequences of his recent deviationism on Israel have had consequences-in-turn for his thinking on other subjects.
Omnes Omnibus
Random thought: Is there any reason Elizabeth Warren can’t be allowed to stay in the Senate and do some good there?
@MattF: Beinart used up a lot of his benefit of the doubt about 10-11 years ago.
Davis X. Machina
@Jewish Steel: Rich men will always want, and be able to pay for, megaphones, just to get the megaphones. Those megaphones weren’t always the cash-cornucopias they became in the era of broadcast licenses, too.
The Grahams originally got the Washington Post when it was in bankruptcy.
Jebediah
@Omnes Omnibus:
A crazy idea to which I subscribe.
Rook
Warren may not beat Hillary in the primary, but it sure as hell would make Hillary move more to the left. And that would be a good thing.
Sly
De Blasio was the friggin’ campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s Senate run in 2000. Prior to that, he was the regional HUD director in NY/NJ for Bill Clinton. It’s perfectly within reason that both the Clintons will stump for De Blasio in the mayoral general election.
Which isn’t to say that De Blasio is some sort of stealth conservative, as is regularly (and wrongly) said about both Bill and Hillary Clinton. It’s just that they are all operating or operated within entirely different constituencies, and one of those constituencies offers a better chance for a liberal candidate. That’s all there is to it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jebediah: Damn you for quoting me before I fixed the typo.
Jewish Steel
@Davis X. Machina:
Never pick a fight with someone who buys bandwidth by the barrel
Bill E Pilgrim
Great, another barber thread.
Is that related to “dressing on the right?”
I can never remember if that’s a method for ordering salad, or something else.
Come to think of it, all too many politicians dress on the left but part on the right, as it were.
Fuzzy
Why do the east coast pundits continue to believe that trends start next to the Atlantic when the rest of us know almost all new political adventures move in from the Pacific just like the weather. Hang on to this NYC and DC influence and you will just become another Kristol.
Wag
@cleek:
I do
But only when the alternative is Bush/Romney/Cruz fascism.
Cassidy
Let me know when “the left” does more than piss and moan on blogs because certain dusky politicians don’t take their nice, white advice from the suburbs. Maybe then I’ll be a little more concerned about challenges from “the left”.
beltane
@MattF: Beinert’s recent piece in the NYBR regarding the American Jewish community and Israel is something that would have been unthinkable even a couple of years ago. I don’t see how going out on a limb like that can be considered an opportunistic career move.
martha
@cleek: agreed. I can see it as clearly as I saw Obama beating her in 2008 long before the firebaggers did. An old saying in my house, which we apply to our particular profession, works here: there’s the old world thinkers and the new world thinkers. Hillary is old world. Elizabeth is not.
different-church-lady
I mean, yeah, the journalists will be poor too, but they’re not the ones who are the problem we’re discussing.
SiubhanDuinne
@askew:
He is also only 50, so he’d be, what, 54 in January 2017. Not to be ageist or, in the case of Clinton and Warren, sexist, but age really does matter. Biden’s 70 now, and the women will be close to that age by inauguration day. We’ve all seen how a term or two in the White House ages a president, every president. The job can’t help but take a huge toll on any incumbent, no matter how fit or smart. Obviously I would vote for any of these against any Republican, but I would much prefer a younger candidate. I’ll have to look more closely at O’Malley.
raven
Ahem, football please.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Meh, the Wisconsin game isn’t until 9:30 tonight.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Cassidy: Does more… like win a primary in NYC?
A well-known suburb of New Jersey.
Good target for the “nice white” part too, missed on all counts.
martha
@Omnes Omnibus: I completely agree, BTW. I just wish some of her smarts, passion, and fire would rub off on Tammy, who I find mostly useless.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Lyle Lovett picked em! Ha, then he says Johnny Football has been in handcuffs the first two games!
Regnad Kcin
@Bill E Pilgrim: dood… “shotgun sings the song”
google it (youngs, god i’m old)
Ben Franklin
OT; OMG. Putin keeps pokin’ his finger in the eye of USG.
Russia going to ‘Fairness Doctrine’ McCain’s rebuttal to Rootin’ tootin’ Putin.
Omnes Omnibus
@martha: FWIW Tammy may be doing the more typical freshman keep your head down until you learn the ropes thing.
Ridnik Chrome
It’s been kind of lost in all the talk about de Blasio, but here in Queens Melinda Katz beat Peter Vallone in the Borough President primary, and did so by running a pretty explicitly progressive campaign and attacking Vallone for his conservatism. I voted for Katz, though I am a little suspicious of her; my union declined to endorse either candidate, though Katz did get the nod from the SEIU.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I much prefer this scenario to having her run for POTUS.
martha
@raven: At least we’re rid of “Bulemia” as Mr. M. calls Brett Bielema. Ugh.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Regnad Kcin: I was making a joke.
In DougJ’s case, you can pretty much assume that the title is song-related in all cases.
I’m probably older than you are, but that’s just a guess.
Mr Stagger Lee
Frankly I think the Democrats biggest fear should be the growing cynicism and apathy, unless things start getting better on the job front, and economics for the 99% (Where are the Democrats in the struggles of the fast-food workers organizing?) in the next three years, many people will stay home and watch TV, and the elections will be about who can limp the most people to the polls. It is bad when you have one party doesn’t give a shit and is honest about it, and the other is ?????
MattF
@beltane: Maybe you misunderstood what I was saying– I’m in vehement agreement with you about that.
raven
@Bill E Pilgrim: mobile
martha
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re probably right but I thought she was such a mediocre Representative that I still haven’t gotten over it. I’m glad she beat Tommy, of course, but still.
hoodie
@Sly: Exactly. This is contrived bullshit.
nellcote
Nationally, the leftward tilt of millennials is,
===
Not seeing the march toward libertarianism as a positive step.
different-church-lady
@Ben Franklin: So 18 hours ago…
askew
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, the age thing bothers me as well. I think Hillary/Warren/Biden are too old and I don’t like the contrast of a young Rubio/Cruz vs. an old Hillary/Warren/Biden. I also don’t think Hillary can inspire the younger voters to turnout in 2016. If they stay home, that could hurt us across the board.
O’Malley has signed DREAM Act, gun control laws, gay marriage, repealed death penalty, etc. This article lays out his negatives and some of his positives (I think they undersell his positives). He is planning on tackling increasing the minimum wage in the next legislative session.
Ben Franklin
@different-church-lady:
I know 18 hours is a lifetime for a news junkie, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be outraged that Russia is taking us to the rhetorical spanking shed again.
trollhattan
Test
what I was saying before so rudely comment-eated by WP was I don’t think NYC politics tells us anything but how weird NYC politics is. OTOH per Fox, it’s all Chicago-style so get ready for President Rahm.
askew
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s the lame Hillary strategy. It’s also being used by Al Franken who has been useless in his first term. I am more of a fan of the Obama approach – use your star power to move legislation. Gillibrand and Warren seem to be following that strategy to my delight. None of the Republican first-term stars are wasting their star power keeping their heads down. Like them or not, Paul, Rubio and Cruz are pushing legislation and getting media attention on their causes.
MikeJ
@beltane:
Are you talking about his piece from 2010? That is a few years ago now.
Johnnybuck
@Sly:
Same as it ever was
MattF
@askew: Here in Maryland, were going to get some O’Malley/Perry flavored entertainment soon:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/texas-governor-is-all-hat-and-no-cattle-omalley-tells-democratic-crowd-in-md/2013/09/12/3afddf16-1c21-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html
MattF
@MikeJ: No, this in the current issue:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep/26/american-jewish-cocoon/
Baud
@hoodie:
Yep.
MikeJ
@MattF: Thanks, I’m already behind in my reading, now I have to get on that.
different-church-lady
@Ben Franklin: So much outrage. How do you find the time?
Johnnybuck
@askew: Dull, boring convention speech. not ready for prime time. No star-power.
Corner Stone
@martha:
What does this even mean?
Corner Stone
@Mr Stagger Lee:
My guess? Sitting safely at home watching HGTV and scared to death.
scav
@askew: Pushing legislation and getting media attention, sure, put is that star-power reported unleashed on all-sides in DC actually getting anything enacted? Sending dickpics gets media attention too and there are all sorts of nin-viable legislation that can be pushed like cubic zirconia on informertial. The bully sparkle isn’t all one needs.
pseudonymous in nc
@the Conster:
Old people, mostly. But that’s still 21 million people in total.
@Omnes Omnibus:
No reason other than the modern precedent that the Senate is not a place where you can stick around and actually do useful things these days.
T.Scheisskopf
Friend of mine used to work for UPI. Said that one of the reasons he left was that all these young writers wer coming along who thought they were John Galt and were just working for the next job. Self-serving and largely reprehensible.
Children of The Reagan Era, you see.
Baud
@pseudonymous in nc:
Maybe she can change that.
Jeremy
@Mr Stagger Lee: Well the same people got upset when Democrats came out in favor of the Occupy movement. They were told to stay out.
Also it’s better when a movement is a true grassroots movement. Look I’m not saying the democrats are perfect but the dems in Washington can’t do anything as long as the republicans control the house. If you want to see Democrats coming up with solutions and implementing them look at states like California. A state with a increase in union membership, highest minimum wage in the country, investments in health care, and education, etc. Check out blue States like Maryland.
Corner Stone
@askew:
I’m interested to see examples of legislation Senator Obama used his star power to move.
Thanks in advance.
Corner Stone
@Jeremy:
Like who?
Jeremy
Also if anyone thinks that increasing economic equality is going to be done in one election or a few years then you are delusional. This is going to take many years, and people are going to have to stop complaining and get serious about the issues this country faces. Whining about Democrats does not create change. Start electing people who have solutions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@askew: Al Franken was barely elected in a huge Democratic wave year, and had some pretty sketchy numbers at home in his first couple years– he wasn’t looking for gold stars from Vice Principal Broder like Hillary. I don’t know about Baldwin (fucking Wisconsin: Scott Walker and Tammy Baldwin? From Russ Feingold to Ron Johnson?), but Gillibrand and Warren are on much surer ground as incumbents than Franken. Cruz and Paul, it seems to me, can do what they want at least for the next cycle. Rubio seems to me to be in a much weaker position. My crystal ball sucks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in a very few years Marco Rubio is selling reverse mortgages on TV
Jeremy
@Corner Stone: Rep John Lewis. He was booed of the stage during an Occupy Atlanta event.
Ben Franklin
@Jeremy:
Start electing people who have solutions.
Like who?
Chris
@Cassidy:
Thank you for using scare quotes when referring to the white suburban too-cool-for-Obama demographic that way. I really don’t know when these guys became considered the voice of “the left” in any sense of the word, and given how eagerly they’re prone to hopping into bed with libertarians who overtly want to undo an entire century of economic and racial progress, I’d say it’s a hell of a misnomer. Not much there but budding professional Beltway centrists.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
TELCOMS …wait.
weaselone
@Jeremy:
Increasing economic equality is unlikely to be done at all given that the electorate has the memory of a gnat and the intelligence of a jar of mayonnaise. Despite all the Republican’s nuttery, the WSJ/NBC poll indicates that Republicans lead Democrats on the handling of the economy, foreign policy and the deficit.
Corner Stone
@Jeremy: I watched the video of that interaction and I disagree with your conclusion.
gbear
@askew: In regards to your ignorance about Al Franken’s record: Fuck you.
Crashman06
I’d be careful before we all start celebrating the liberal next generation as our saviors. Speaking as a millennial, and this is just anecdotal of course, while we tend to be leftward leaning culturally, a worrying number of my peers have great sympathy the Randian economic message.
mai naem(mobile)
Lots of good stuff in this thread. I`ve been wondering about journos doing this for years after what Kaplans done along with Gannett,GE\NBC,Tribune Newspapers,Newsweek etc.etc. Even if its not happening to you personally, it has to worry you when your colleagues and college classmates are getting laid off.
I love warren but I honestly think she would be destroyed by the GOP in the general because she comes across as shrill. Also I think she can do more good in the senate. She’s going to be moving up in seniority because there are so many dems retiring. My guess is that Murray or Gillibrand will be below schumer in leadership and then warren would be in the next bunch. I also think Gillibrand has WH goals. I would like to see Hickenlooper,Schweitzer or some other western governor run against or with Clinton. Dean has also said he may run.
Jeremy
@Ben Franklin: I’m not going to provide a list but Elizabeth Warren, Martin O’Malley among many are great examples. Look at the local elected officials in California, Washington State, Oregon, Maryland, Colorado, etc.
Davis X. Machina
@mai naem(mobile):
Hard to envision that working out well.
Cassidy
@Chris: Just my personal opinion, the real left is the ones out there busting their ass to make things happen (ex: Kay). People like a few of our jackassed FPer’s and the BJ Emoprog Brigade aren’t “the left”. They’re just whiny dipshits.
Davis X. Machina
@Crashman06: This is my impression, as a teacher for donkey’s years. My recent grads are by the standards of five, even more so by the standards of fifteen years ago “left”, even far left culturally, but not so much right as crab-bucket, economically. Zero-sum. No strong notion of none of us getting ahead unless all of us are getting ahead.
People are so consumed by money and job worries to even notice too much people outside their immediate circle, however much they may worry about the circle (climate, environment, etc,) itself.
Jeremy
@weaselone: Please ! The same NBC WSJ poll that got the margin of the 2012 election wrong. I could care less about stupid push polls that change at any given time.
Chris
@Crashman06:
I tend to agree, although I think that sympathy comes from resignation rather than conviction. I think there are a lot fewer of us who actually believe the whole “if only you’re nice enough to the rich, money and opportunity will trickle down like rain and YOU, TOO will be rich!” snake-oil Reagan was peddling…
… but quite a few more for whom the negative aspect of the message has sunk in. “Economics is a force of nature. You can’t stop it. The government can’t help you. The unions can’t help you. They all have nasty ulterior motives of their own too, remember, so you can’t trust them. And even if you could, anything you and they do to try and make society more fair is only going to backfire and hurt you more in the end. Just make your peace with the system. Some scraps have to drop from the table eventually, don’t they?”
(Then again, since “my peers” skew white and middle class – the demographic that tends to produce a lot of the folks I was just complaining about – I’d be curious to know how much of this is true in working class and especially nonwhite demographics).
Alex S.
I consider myself to be a millenial. I turned 18 in 2000 (so I came of age at the turn of the millenium). I was maybe a year or two too young to feel the impact of Kurt Cobain’s suicide (Generation X personified, in my opinion). I am looking forward to the future because I think my generation will make it right – but then I guess, every generation thinks so. Millenials can’t be easily manipulated. They (We?) are tech- and media-savvy. Cultural issues don’t matter that much. The Clinton government was a golden age and the Bush II government was a disaster. Obama was/is…I don’t actually know. He succeeded so far in not alienating idealistic young voters too much (except for the NSA scandal – which is a bigger deal than I initially thought), so the Democratic Party can continue to ride on a demographic wave. Organized labor will probably continue to lose influence, maybe because young white millenials have never seen how it can work. The labor movement should look to hispanics to survive. Millenials want to influence the system directly, there is a bigger tendency to directly impact legislation (made possible by social media). I think millenials have less stomach for old democratic special interest negotiations. Millenials are very pacifistic (which I tend to oppose from the right, actually). It’s the trifecta of fail from the Bush government: Iraq War – Katrina – Financial Crisis that shape their beliefs. Government should play a role, it should be done by technocrats: Larry Summers vs Janet Yellen? Yellen all the way. The weakness of the millenials is consumerism. The intrusion of privacy from corporations is not THAT bad as long as it increases the utility of consumption. I think there will be a conflict if millenials have to experience that “consolation consumption”, i.e. there is no shortage of small things to buy to enjoy short-term satisfaction, cannot replace long-term security (affordable housing, the freedom of leisure and relaxation, cheap education, social security).
gene108
@Davis X. Machina:
I think the ghosts of a strong distrust in what government can do from the Watergate/Vietnam/Reagan eras could’ve gone away with the Clinton Presidency, but Bubba had to stick his dick where it didn’t belong and then this country compounds it by having Bush, Jr. as President for eight years.
The trust in government needed to do shit like the interstate highway system, the TVA, or have any sort of functioning social safety net has been eroded pretty badly over the course of two generations.
I don’t see younger folks, in their early 20’s, with any strong trust in the good things government can do as a collective agency. With stuff like the NSA scandal, I don’t think the establishment Democrats are really in a position to win them over to having faith in the government.
PG
@cleek:
The people with the Big Money in the Democratic party, sadly. And more than a few rank-and-file Democrats (like my Mom) just want to see Hillary win, and that has nothing to do with policy.
karen
@Davis X. Machina:
Dean is a libertarian isn’t he? Or at least, not the great liberal people think he is. But he never claimed to be liberal did he?
But making liberal the litmus test to be a Democrat isn’t fair and is quite detrimental. What makes one Democrat liberal in one state would make them Conservative in another. Sometimes I feel that people who live in big blue states like NY and California either don’t realize or don’t care that in the Midwest and the South sometimes a Conservadem is the best you’re going to get.
That being said, I live in Maryland and would love it if Martin O’Malley ran for President. But I don’t think he’d have a chance of winning the primary.
PG
@Chris: Here are just some anecdotes from a late 40something….
I grew up with Watergate and stagflation, and I was in college during the Reagan years. Hated Reagan from the day he was elected til the day he left office. There were a bunch of us during that time that did (so take all those generational assumptions with a grain of salt). To hear that Reagan had a lot of support among “the youth” was fingernails on a chalkboard.
But it’s not like it was really untrue. At the university I went to (a large member of NY’s SUNY system), the majority of guys I knew supported Reagan, though their political knowledge and commitment was quite small. Rather, they were the children of the Great American Middle Class that had prospered under Democratic/progressive policies, got theirs, and moved out to the suburbs. Now they saw the Democratic party as the home of “special interests” (aka anything but white suburban middle class) that were going to tax and take their money when they all were going to become successful upper middle class professionals. There was also the jingoistic factor (this was the Cold War) and that Reagan was good on TV.
A part of this here-comes-the-new-Left meme, whether it is by supposed generational attitudes or demographics, is as much day dreaming and sheer hope as it is credible theory. If you’re an informed liberal observer (and why would you be here if you weren’t?), cold hard analysis tells you that progressive politicos and policies have an impossible uphill battle in the face of Citizens United, the old Right Wing Propaganda Machine (from Fox to AM radio), voter suppression, and the nutjob makeup of too much of the US electorate. But here comes the calvary! We’ll be saved by too many Hispanics in Texas and ornery kids. Never mind that there’s nothing preventing either a significant Hispanic influx into the GOP (via the church) in the near future, or that today’s Occupy 20something devolves into tomorrow’s Alex Jones pinhead.
The silver lining is that this generation, having taking it on the chin, is less apt to fall for the BS that too many in mine did. Just as seeing Vietnam wind down colored my worldview, seeing Iraq and Afghanistan whither will color theirs. And having LIVED through the 2008 crash and resulting Great Depression, I’d wager they are less susceptible to trickle down bullshit and the other get-rich schemes spun out of the right. However, getting them out of “nobody can change anything so I’m going to just sit on Facebook/YouTube/Twitter” funk is another challenge.
Regnad Kcin
@Bill E Pilgrim: ah. apologies. shoulda had my snarkometer on.
Drexciya
Beinart purports to be discussing Millennials, but the only concerns and developments he seems to associate with Millennial political growth are the ones that track most closely with the developments of white, middle/upper class Millennials. It’s telling that, despite off-handedly noting that 40% of Millennials are racial and/or ethnic minorities, he presents a deracialized vision of Millennial politics. While that’s to be expected given the writer and the publication he’s writing for, it’s unwise to overlook how that deracialization operates in the context of a racially charged and openly racist reality that contradicts the postracial fantasies Boomers, GenXers and many white Millennials.
This is the era that confirmed for the falsely optimistic, the racially complacent and the racialized within the Millennial cohort that racism exists, that racism is powerful and that racism – regardless of their education, economic status, individualized affection for white people or cognizance – will effect them. I’m a victim of that revelation. I don’t know how you can track, quantify or discuss the political growth of that age group and make such a significant dynamic absent in your analysis. I don’t know how you can admit that almost half of Millennials are minorities and make your vision of aspiring Millennial political expression look like this.
There’s another face to Millennial politics that takes a different dimension when you understand that income inequality is neither new or outside of the political imagination of POC Millennials. It’s the face that was radicalized by xenophobia-laced pronouncements arguing for Papers, Please-style legislation, for deporting them and their parents, and for prohibiting them from meaningfully existing in certain states. It’s the face that was radicalized first by how America symbolically and substantively played out the truth of Malcolm X’s joke about black men with Ph.D.’s upon Obama’s election, it was affirmed when a black woman/activist was fired based on the general acceptance of a racist lie and it was radicalized once more by the unpunished shooting of an unarmed black child. It’s the face that sees me and my kin amongst the disproportionate victims of stop and frisk, the disproportionate amount of people shot by the police, the disproportionate amount of people affected by the recession, ushered into toxic mortgages and foreclosed on, the disproportionate number of people sent to prison at disproportionate rates on frivolous charges and the disproportionate amount of people who get executed in this country. It’s my face. Where is it in this article?
And there’s another, lurking concern. I’ve spoken before about the threat that libertarianism holds for leftist/liberal politics, and let me restate that and add another observation: the people most likely to rally around and inflate that threat; the people most likely to look askance when a neoconfederate racist incidentally says “the right things” about drug legalization, war and “privacy” – as defined through the lens of tech-paranoia instead of, say, stop and frisk, no-knock warrants, pat downs, searches and imprisonment – are white Millennials. These are the people who will see utility in making an alliance with those who view nullification as a valid strategy, who see the civil rights act as unconstitutional and who accept forced transvaginal ultrasounds as a valid exercise of states rights.
I fear that the lack of racial and historical awareness amongst white Millennials has encouraged an incomplete picture of our problems just as surely as it’s created a false understanding of our solutions. And I fear that older people’s unbelievable and somewhat ignorant optimism about the social awareness of Millennials will encourage the legitimacy of that solution. If these white Millennials are the people we’re willing to hold up as the face of new liberal politics, then I suggest looking to Silicon Valley and Reddit to get a clearer picture of what that could possibly mean. It’s what you get when you take the actual Democratic loyalists out of your generational picture and replace it with the privileged, libertarian-leaning concerns of cafeteria leftists.
Chris
@PG:
I’d already figured most of what you said (especially re your generation being the children of the New Deal policies). I don’t really disagree with most of it, except this –
Yes, there is. The Republican voter base has just demonstrated over the last four years or so that they are not willing to put up with any of the kind of outreach towards Hispanics that Bush and Rove did during the 2000s, which is why you’ve seen their gains reversed and then some. Hispanics have noticed this and acted accordingly. (As we noted here at the time, even Asians – supposedly the “model minority,” and not one that Republicans put a lot of effort into trashing the way they do Hispanics, blacks, and Muslims – have noticed the white racist undercurrent and moved into the other party). And I don’t think that memory will be quick to fade, no matter what their bishops try to tell them.
Hispanics are in the same position now that “ethnic white” Catholics were in one hundred years ago. Yes, of course it’s possible that they would ultimately end up on the conservative side along with Republican WASPs (and as we know, that ultimately happened). But first the WASPs were going to have to step back from all the nativist and anti-Catholic fanaticism they displayed in, say, the 1928 presidential campaign – and even then it was going to take some time for the “ethnics” to actually come over.
So whether or not the GOP can make inroads into the Hispanic vote is entirely in the hands of the conservative base – and since right now, they appear revolted by the very idea, it’ll be a while before that happens.
TL/DR: I think there’s good reason for the Democrats’ faith that Hispanics will be their demographic for some time to come.
Mind you, this doesn’t invalidate any of your other points, and I agree that the Hispanic vote isn’t a silver bullet “cavalry.” Gerrymandering and vote suppression (plus the already huge bias in the system in favor of rural, low-population red states) will do a hell of a lot to mitigate the effect of the Hispanic vote, and things like Citizens United and the influence the 1% will continue to wield through Republicans (even if they do end up in the minority) and Blue Dogs will do even more to stifle any populist reforms even if we do get that majority. Uphill battle, indeed.
Davis X. Machina
@karen: Dean has zero chance at a nomination, and the possibility to badly split the Party, that part of it that does more than show up at the polls, that is.
That’s a dangerous combination.
Donut
I apologize if someone has already asked this question and Doug has addressed it, but this opinion is based on what, exactly?
Did you read the entire piece, Doug? Beinert cites actual studies backing up his points. You’re citing … Yourself.
Science!
Donut
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m a Tammy supporter from way back in the day living in her district in Madison, so I feel comfortable saying IMO this is spot on. She is too smart to blow it and stir up too much too quick. I also don’t see her doing national media on a regular basis, nor trying to draw too much attention to herself. That said, she’s broken ground just fucking showing up in the joint. Recognize and respect for that is kinda important, again IMO.
Donut
@Drexciya:
You raise completely valid and thoughtful points. All I have time at tje moment to say in response are two things:
1. Try not to extrapolate too much about your millenial peers from what you see on Reddit or coming from Silicon Valley. Relying on the Internet to give you an accurate cross section of what people really think, and more importantly, how they will vote is not a safe bet.
2. Pretty soon, it’s not going to matter much what privileged white suburbanites think. People of color and especially of Latin descent are about to dominate, and that alone will bring substantial change.
Shit will still be all fucked up and I’m not saying the white establishment will be crumbling with ease any time soon, but pretty soon “white people” as a voting bloc will be a distinct minority. Hell, that bloc barely exists as a predictable voting bloc right now. The super-fucked-up-ed-ness going on in the GOP right now is part of this unraveling, and it’s painful, but it’s going on.
Tom Betz
@cleek: I suspect (would hope, anyway) that Hillary’s time at State may have moderated her hawkishness to a great degree. As to the rest of your misgivings, who (besides Warren, who would be money-slimed beyond measure should she venture the Presidency in 2016) among the top shelf of Democrats does not share those characteristics?
jayackroyd
I got Tim Noah at VS on Thursday. This will be discussed
PG
@Chris: I actually agree with you. The GOP base has done us a world of favors in being so nativist. Just as Proposition 187 from 1994 is the gift that keeps giving here in CA.
This is why I said what I said. The GOP “establishment” (think Karl Rove) isn’t as stupid as the base. They’ve known for a while that demographics are going to kill them, and it’s actually been entertaining to watch them twist around trying to adapt to the 21st century while still appealing to the base. For the moment they’re flat-footed. But that won’t last forever.
In reality, I think, the only thing that is keeping the highly religious segment of the Hispanic population from joining their white counterparts in the GOP is the overt racism. Over the course of the next 20 years (my near future) that will simply go away as those old hateful white racists die off. The GOP establishment simply isn’t as stupid as not to replace them with Hispanics who are religious,rural, “family oriented”, and perhaps small business types. In other words, the typical conservative base- just not Anglo Saxon. It makes too much sense not to happen.
And that’s a facet of the coming majority- Hispanics. Like us gringos, they will be too large and too diverse to match sweeping categorizations. They will be rural and urban. They will be new immigrants and ones whose families have been here for 100s of years. They will be radical on the left and right. I like the sound of the emerging majority being firmly in the Democratic camp by the default of the GOP’s base’s racism, but I know the reality is going to play out differently. (And get ready for all those MSM stories where they “discover” clusters of conservative Hispanics joining the GOP, like “Hispanics Not Firmly In Dem Camp” and “Latinos Abandoning Democrats?”. I can imagine them on Politico and Yahoo already.)
Davis X. Machina
Twitter just now:
GovHowardDean: “@ThePlumLineGS: RT I agree with this. @PeterBeinart http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/12/the-rise-of-the-new-new-left.html”