If I read one fucking more thinkpiece, blog post, semi-literate tweet, or facebook forward blaming whatever the fuck “identity politics” is for Democrats losing the election I am going to lose completely and totally lose my shit and climb a fucking bell tower. I don’t even know what people mean when they say identity politics anymore. So let me ask you:
Is it identity politics when you cater to white supremacists, the Klan, and neo-nazis to win an election?
Is it identity politics when you say white lives matter or blue lives matter?
Is it identity politics when you cheer building a wall to keep out rapey Mexicans?
Is it identity politics when you intentionally close voting districts in minority areas to suppress the vote?
Is it identity politics when you pass bills saying you can legally discriminate against the LGBT community?
Is it identity politics when you threaten a cop for wearing a hijab or try to rip the hijab off people in public?
Is it identity politics when you call for a ban on Muslims and claim that a government list of Muslims is a good idea?
Is it identity politics when your healthcare bills do nothing for women’s health but hand out Viagra like skittles?
Is it identity politics when children of color are disciplined more frequently and severely than white schoolchildren?
Is it identity politics when your #1 priority is passing bills telling what women can and can’t do regarding their reproductive health decisions?
Is it identity politics when the justice system systematically incarcerates minorities or when cities set up nuisance policing policies in minority communities?
Is it identity politics to insist that everyone say Merry Christmas?
Is it identity politics when you cheer stop and frisk in minority communities?
Is it identity politics when you claim “coastal elites” aren’t real Americans and that the heartland is where the “real people” live?
Is it identity politics to pay women less than men (and women of color even less)?
Is it identity politics to totally lose your fucking shit over a black Santa Claus or a black Jedi or boycott Rogue One because WHO FUCKING KNOWS THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING NUTS?
No. Of course not. What you mean when you say “identity politics” is you mean all those groups you want to systematically oppress try to stand up and defend themselves and it hurts your feelings because you can’t have your way. In politics, it’s called COALITION BUILDING.
I left the GOP because of their identity politics. I couldn’t sleep at night being aligned with warmongerers, homophobes, christianists, climate deniers, flat earthers, racists, xenophobes, and every garden variety bigot under the sun. The Republicans are the real party of identity politics- it’s all about stroking the few, the white, the privileged, and that’s all they have. They don’t actually have policy proposals or ideas, unless “Fuck ’em let them starve,” “Fuck ’em they don’t need health care,” “Fuck it, let’s bomb them,” “Fuck it, let’s put them in jail,” “Fuck it, the bible says so,” or “Fuck it, let’s burn it all down” count as policies and ideas.
There’s also a fundamental difference in the reason for these two differing versions of “identity politics.” The Republican version is artificial, designed to maintain supremacy and the status quo and to keep the stranglehold of dominance over the evil “other.” Democratic identity politics is an organic emergence of the downtrodden and abused, gathering together to gain a voice and to stop the depredation, degradation, abuse, indignity, and physical, social, and economic violence being inflicted on them every single day. One identity serves to create and maintain injustice. The other identities are fighting the former. I know which group I am in.
So no. Democrats don’t need to massage the feelings of a bunch of racist dolts in Kansas who suffer from “economic anxiety” (pro-tip, morons- stop fucking voting for Brownback). Democrats need to embrace their identity politics, and they don’t need to cower, they need to be louder, and inyour face, and out there every single day fighting for what is right.
The end, motherfuckers.
JMG
Well said! Wish I could be as eloquent when I’m completely pissed off. I just sputter.
Mary G
Preach.
gogol's wife
Amen.
“Warmongerers, homophobes, christianists, climate deniers, flat earthers, racists, xenophobes, and every garden variety bigot under the sun.” Our new cabinet!
Betty Cracker
A-fucking-men.
Humboldtblue
Hillary Clinton has nearly 3 million reasons why Democratic policies and identity politics work pretty damn well.
schrodinger's cat
Typo alert:
Hijab wearing coop? To provide shade to Betty Cracker’s chickens?
Other than that, word.
Roger Moore
Righteous rant, Mr. Cole. What I will say is that complaints about “identity politics” will continue to dominate until white men recognize that white male is an identity. As long as it’s considered the default and everything else is an inferior deviation, white men will continue to blatantly discriminate against everyone else while complaining about identity politics.
SenyorDave
This was from GLAAD, I had forgotten about some of Ben Carson’s completely asinine stances:
This week, President-elect Trump announced that Carson is his nominee to head up the Department of Housing and Urban Development, meaning he’d have direct oversight of housing nondiscrimination rules and policies. Because LGBTQ people aren’t a protected class under the Civil Rights Act, we depend on those rules and policies to keep us safe.
But Ben Carson says that being LGBTQ is the same as pedophilia or bestiality. He says being gay is a choice and that those who fought for marriage equality are “directly attacking the relationship between God and his people.”
Roger Moore
@gogol’s wife:
Our upcoming cabinet is a great example of Cleek’s Law in action. For every post where Trump doesn’t have some strong existing prejudice, he’s just appointing whomever he thinks will piss the Democrats off the most. The Democrats like the EPA? Well, he’ll appoint somebody who’s constantly sued them. They believe in a $15/hour minimum wage? Well, he’ll appoint somebody who’s been fighting against it tooth an nail. And so on.
JustRuss
Righteous. If the alternative to identity politics is pandering to cruel assholes, hmm, what to do?
Kryptik
“Identity Politics” are nothing more than the politics of saying “we get to have a say too”. Which is the exact thing the assholes against “identity politics” say about that much vaunted WWC group we’re supposed to chase after at all exclusion to others now.
You can’t end identity politics because it IS politics. Saying you’ll end it is saying some identities don’t deserve to have a day. It is, as you say, telling folks to “shut the fuck up” for having the “wrong” identity.
Major Major Major Major
@Humboldtblue: but, in an all too appropriate bit of symbolism, they’re from the wrong kind of people.
schrodinger's cat
Presidential system is nuts and so is having 50 different sets of election rules for 50 states.
slag
Bring it. Glad someone else is laying down the f bomb at least as much as I am these days.
That GIF. I’ve been feeling that GIF down into my bones lately.
Emma
Preach, brother Cole.
I haven’t been commenting as much because every time one of our favorite trolls starts telling me how Democrats have to “move past identity politics” I hear “we have to back off protecting people of color, women, and LGBTQ folk so white people will love us again” I go full-blast Battle Doctor.
Emma
Why don’t I have permission to edit my own comment?
geg6
OT, but it really is frightening to have a giant Michelle Malkin head in the banner ad up top. Jesus.
Thornton Hall
Been saying this for years. Literally.
http://thorntonhalldesign.com/philosophy/2016/11/23/two-years-ago-i-said-what-everyone-is-now-saying-about-identity-politics
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: it makes sense to hear that, given that it’s what they’re saying.
sunny raines
all politics is identity politics – period.
The only time people vote someone not exactly like them is when there is no one running that is exactly like them. So then they vote for the one most like them.
3Jane Tessier-Ashpool (a/k/a Lorinda Pike)
Righteous rant there, John. Call it what it is. “Our side” has done the “be nice” thing. We’ve hidden behind convoluted syntax and semantics for too long. Sometimes I think general intelligence and a basic need to be civil gets in our way. Translate the RW crap for what it REALLY MEANS.
I’m ready to storm the barricades.
Mike E
@geg6: click that head til it ‘splodes! (it’s 4 moar b-j revenue:)
Belafon
It is identity politics when a black man is not given a job he’s qualified for. It’s identity politics when a woman is not given a leadership position because the men decide women can’t handle it. But it’s not the black man or white woman engaging in identity politics, it’s the people with power.
And they hate being called out on it.
El Caganer
Democrats don’t practice ‘identity politics.’; Unless you believe that a policy of inclusion and a belief that everybody gets a seat at the table is ‘identity politics.’ The only identity there is ‘human being.’
sunny raines
@Emma: agreed. This push by some on the left to cater to the racist, sexist, homophobe, xenophobes of the WWC is the stupidest thing possible. If they did that then they’d be republicans eschewing all minorities and disadvantaged for the privileged whites.
And that includes Bernie Sanders should STFU about the WWC. Democrats need to be first and foremost the party of social justice. Then they can be the party of economic justice. And guess what, unlike the bankrupt message of the republicans, there is exactly zero conflict between social justice and economic justice. Only ignorant racists and bigots see them as conflicting.
quakerinabasement
@Kryptik: That’s right. “Identity politics” is a term conservatives use to try to turn a positive–inclusion of underrepresented segments of the population–into a perceived negative. It’s a subtle variant of the more blatant people-who-call-us-racist-are-the-real-racists ploy.
FEMA Camp Counselor
God bless you for this one. Sick of all the opportunistic knifing of the marginalized by “allies.”
Nicole
Thank you.
A right wing ex of mine earnestly tried to explain to me in the days after the election how really he’s not a bigot; he voted for Trump because of this reason or that reason or whatever blah blah blah. And the days since then he’s posted an angry screed about how he’s going to say merry Christmas to people no matter what religion they are, and a video of some college coach bitching about how participation trophies are ruining our children. And all I want to say to this guy is: dude, you are a white heterosexual male. Your whole life is a participation trophy.
rikyrah
Bravo.
Truly, bravo.
SiubhanDuinne
Astronaut and former Senator John Glenn has died, age 95.
I know that’s a good long life, but he was one of the heroes of my youth and I’m sad to know that he has passed away.
RIP, Colonel Glenn. FOADIAF, 2016.
Kristin D
This is so perfect.
Also, every guy who thinks telling people to go to their “safe space” or calls a safety pin a “diaper pin” is the height of witty banter is the same guy who cries with extreme butthurt over any perceived slight of white men. No one is wussier than they are.
chopper
@SiubhanDuinne:
man, fuck this fuckin year.
Amaranthine RBG
Those who do not learn the lessons of history …
kindness
@Nicole: If your ex really pisses you off just put up a post on facebook saying he has an even smaller dick than Trump. And post a pic of a single vienna sausage. That will get him going.
LAC
@rikyrah: I almost got up and clapped, but remembered that I was in my office. Amen amen!! I was done with seeing posts after posts by fucking NR and other fucking trolls claiming to speak for our side. This is exactly what was needed. Thank you, John Cole.
And 2016, go fuck yourself
Fair Economist
Cole gives great rant. Anybody got a cigarette?
Thoroughly Pizzled
I love you, John Cole. I’m glad you’re with us.
SuzieC
Amen, Amen, Amen.
Aleta
Their primary religious belief is a dead serious “any means to get what we want.”
Lies and the repetition of simple misleading phrases are normal in their business and politics. Probably the least violent of their tools.
They honestly don’t believe anything that leads to winning is wrong. Standards that would punish their actions (civil rights law, the EPA, people who shape public opinion) must be destroyed or gagged.
clay
A-freaking-men! The one thing that all Democrats have in common is that we want to give a voice to those who lack the power to (metaphorically) speak on their own. That could be political power: those who fight for civil rights and expanded voting rights. Or it could be economic power: those in the Warren/Sanders branch of the party. Or it could be social power: those who fight for acceptance of LGBT and immigrants.
But none of these branches are independent — all of these issues twine together. We need the Democrats to represent ALL parts of this coalition. The fight for economic justice IS the fight for civil rights IS the fight for marriage equality IS the fight for environmental protection IS the fight for unions IS the fight for…… These are the roots of the Democratic party; they all nourish it and help it flourish.
If someone wants to focus on one issue over another, that’s fine! We all have our strengths and our gifts. But if someone wants to focus on one issue to the exclusion of the others, then NO. You are not a Democrat. Period.
Keith G
@SiubhanDuinne: John Glenn is dead. I was one of the elementary school kids who in the early 60s could not get enough of our astronaut corps. As an older (hs) student I attended a local political meeting to show support for Glenn as he ran for the Senate for the first time. And as a student at Ohio State, I finally got to meet the Senator. He was a good guy speak with – so very kind. He never once made me doubt my admiration of him.
Poopyman
Not terribly OT, via Reuters:
Partisan Cheese
I don’t think the idea is to abandon identity politics, its more that Democrats cling to identity politics because they have given up on economic politics. They failed to criminally prosecute any bankers responsible for the 2008 crash, they quickly disowned themselves from the OWS movement. They fill up their cabinet with the same wall street bankers and bigwigs, continue to fundraise heavily from them. So that they are hard to distinguish from Republicans economically, cause they all get their guys from the same swamp.
So for Democrats, they believe that any minority lesbian should get a chance to be a banker, but that’s it. Do not criticize or rock the boat on the massive economic problems that are currently in place, they only need minor tweaks. Democrats used to have a compelling economic platform for the working class, for lower class people. Third way politics eliminated that. Now all they have to differentiate themselves is identity politics. That doesn’t win elections anymore, doesn’t motivate people with enthusiasm anymore, because its sort of superficial, compared to 1% owning the majority of wealth. That is what people are trying to say. You can have both, but right now, Democrats only have identity.
Patricia Kayden
John, thank you for another barn burning post! Amen to everything you said.
People pushing this “Dems need to end identity politics” nonsense need to be called out and asked exactly what they mean. Do they mean that Democrats should abandon their coalition of minority voters (93% of Black women who voted broke for Secretary Clinton)? Or stop pushing back against homophobia? Or speaking out against Islamophobia? Or fighting back when Republicans try to ban abortions and birth control?
Should Democrats shut up about injustices and civil rights abuses to please these damn people? If that’s how they feel, they should say it and stop this nonsense when the man who just won the last election is nothing but into identity politics — White Supremacist identity politics, to be exact.
slag
@Nicole:
Yes yes yes yes yes. Fuck that guy. What an ignorant ass.
clay
@Poopyman: This is some terrific username/comment synergy right here.
More to the point, this Pope continues to be awesome.
Jordan Rules
Can’t say it enough so I’m glad we got Cole to say it loud and proud!
Righteous.
Major Major Major Major
@Partisan Cheese:
I was going to write about how I’m going to ignore you forever now but then I saw your username and remembered that I already have you on my troll filter. So this is a hearty fuck you from the browser where that isn’t installed!
Go fuck yourself! ?
SiubhanDuinne
@Keith G:
I heard him speak at some governors’ conference, probably a good 20 years ago now. Shook his hand afterwards, had only enough time to tell him briefly how much I had always admired him. (Because probably nobody else he had ever met in his entire life had said anything that original to him.)
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Partisan Cheese: What has Wall Street gotten from the Democrats lately, short of imprisonment or getting purged from the party? Dodd-Frank exists. We are NOT beholden to Wall Street.
Immanentize
Dear John,
Absofuckinlutely
BGinCHI
JC, if you ever buy another house that needs fixing up, I hope it’s right after Palin wins an election.
Poopyman
@clay:
Ah, enjoy it while you can. The cat whose nickname I appropriated has been going downhill for the past month, and last night we found out his right kidney is a mass of tumors and the adjacent lymph node is the size of a golf ball. His time is near, and when he goes I’ll retire the name.
And fuck 2016.
Patricia Kayden
@Partisan Cheese:
And Trump is not part of the 1% owning the majority of wealth? **rolls eyes**
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@schrodinger’s cat:” Hijab wearing coop”
Fist bumping terrorist chickens!
eclare
As others have said, preach.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne: I actually had a John Glenn costume when I was a little boy. One Halloween, I went trick or treating as John Glenn. The next year, I put a cut-out box on top of it all and went trick or treating as John Glenn on TV.
then, when I was working in D.C. in 1983, I got to meet him when he was a Senator. A very gracious guy. He even laughed at my costume story….
clay
@Partisan Cheese:
That’s fucking bullshit. The existence of the Consumer Protection Agency alone puts a lie to that claim. Obama saved the auto industry. Obamacare is as much about economics as it is about health. Hillary was going to raise taxes on the rich. She had a detailed jobs plan. And so on, and so forth.
No one is saying that the Dems couldn’t be better on this issue. But to say they’ve been completely absent on it is egregiously false. Hillary ran on the most progressive platform of my lifetime. But Bernie attacked her from the left, which gave Trump an opening.
Yeah, sure. Hillary spoke to Goldman Sachs. Trump is hiring GM executives. So hard to distinguish.
Patricia Kayden
@Poopyman: Pope Francis really has a way with words, doesn’t he? Well said.
Chris
Likewise.
Righteous rant, Cole. Thanks.
hovercraft
See this is why I came here.
Thank you John for this righteous rant.
All I have to add is AMEN.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
THANK you!
And Christ, I suppose I can see the argument for different systems in state and local elections, but for the federal election, yes, the rules should absolutely be the same all over.
Patricia Kayden
@Nicole: What does he think people are going to do when he barks “Merry Christmas” at them, regardless of their religious affiliation? Does he think they’re going to meltdown the way Rightwingers do when they don’t get what they want?
Naw. Our side isn’t full of douches. We don’t care about that kind of nonsense. I grew up in a very multicultural city in Ontario and I don’t recall ever using the term “Happy Holiday”. I also don’t recall anyone getting angry even if they weren’t of the Christian persuasion. Too bad Rightwingers project their anger on other people instead of seeing reality.
gene108
@Partisan Cheese:
The argument economic populism is all we need fails to account for the fact all these “economically anxious” people keep voting for Republicans, who totally in bed with Wall Street and big business to a level unmatched by Democrats at their worst.
Obama saved the US auto industry. But that was not “populist” enough. Go figure.
hovercraft
@gogol’s wife:
I wish you were exaggerating.
The picks are getting exponentially worse every day. Like “peak wingnut”, there is not actual bottom to this barrel of deplorables.
clay
@Poopyman: Ah, Jeez, I’m so sorry. When our cat stopped going to the bathroom, we rushed her to the vet. It turned out, her kidneys had completely shut down. We had to put her down that very day.
So bless you and bless your feline friend. The end can be rough, so just love him as long as you can.
clay
@Patricia Kayden:
Wellllllllllllll…… Not the same kind of douches, certainly.
SatanicPanic
John Cole you are a beautiful man
Major Major Major Major
@clay: I was about to say.
SenyorDave
What does he think people are going to do when he barks “Merry Christmas” at them, regardless of their religious affiliation?
I just say and a very happy Chanukah to you. Sometimes I pronounce the Ch just to screw with them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
That’s a lovely story! Thanks.
Just realized that, with John Glenn’s passing, all seven “original astronauts” are gone. End of an era, truly.
Mary G
@Poopyman: I’m sorry. That is so hard. You gave Poopyhead a good life.
SatanicPanic
@Partisan Cheese: Is there really a way to prosecute those people? I’m not convinced.
delphinium
Amen!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I would like to think that most racists were motivated by fear like my realitives (they see themselves as Slavs as an ethnic minority competting with other minority’s for jobs) but that Rouge One boycott; that’s just what happens to guys who touch themselves while watching to many Leni Riefenstahl films.
Kay
Let’s focus on AA and Latino working class and if white working class don’t come along then we’ll know it wasn’t economic policy :)
Makes sense to me! There’s tons of working class people who aren’t white.
Also, here’s a little know fact. Alert Chris Matthews:
artem1s
John Glenn was one of the first male politicians I knew of who was unconditionally pro-choice. He was also one of the first Democrats I remember the Nixon/Raygun gang smearing so he wouldn’t be a threat as a Presidential candidate. They hung the Keating scandal around his neck the same way they hammered the Clintons on everyfuckingthing. Glenn was quite possibly the most actual, moral persons who held high office in this country. His devotion to Annie was legendary. And he is quite probably the only human being who could have claimed a ‘right’ to take a ride on the space shuttle. He is a true hero in every traditional sense of the word. Fuck 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Ov0cDPZy8
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden: Dayumnn, pope brings the virtual shithammer to the fight. I’m certain he’s especially appalled at being a disinformation target WRT the “Pope Endorses Trump” story. Coprophagia had to have a lot of the assembled horde reaching for their googles.
hovercraft
@SenyorDave:
These fuckin people, the awfulness of the shitgibbon meant that the full odiousness of the entire field wasn’t given the attention they deserved, and now because the head is so vile, these people seem tolerable. Only whiny liberals are complaining about these inspired selections. Remember Carson says he was a democrat until he was swayed to switch parties because of abortion, gay rights and Bill Clinton’s peccadillos. Someone should ask him about the shitgibbons record with women.
Oh I’m sorry am I being divisive again?
Chris
@sunny raines:
What Bernie & co. need to acknowledge that Democrats won the white working class (as I-forget-who posted several times yesterday reminding us that white voters earning under $50,000 a year broke for the Democrats), and that wealthier whites who voted for Trump are the ones who happily threw it under the bus in order to screw the women, the blacks, the immigrants, the Muslims, and the people who live on the coasts. (And, if we’re being honest, to screw the white working class as well. They don’t like “the poors” much more than “the blacks”).
You can’t meaningfully advocate for low income whites or claim to understand them when you won’t even acknowledge who they’re voting for, much less why they’re voting.
Calouste
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s not going to change until America stops the constitution worship and admits that the bunch of semi-educated slaveholders that wrote the stinky compromise were not the reincarnations of Plato, and that the constitution itself wasn’t written on the back of the stone tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain. Which should have been obvious in about 1804, and if not then, then definitely in 1860. But that mythology is not going to die before the United States itself.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: A friend on Twitter posted that Glenn waited to die until today as to not interfere with the remembrances for yesterday.
MomSense
YES!!! Hell yes, John Cole! It needed to be said and you said it so well.
Keith G
Rants are easy. We can unplug a rant easier that we can plan to win. Lets plan to win.
I hate the term ‘identity politics’. It is a marketing sinkhole. Use it and we are already a step behind. But the goals of what is seen as the politics of identity are good and necessary goals. For decades, conservative have spent most of their energy dividing the working people of this country. The Democrats need to, and during this time have a strong opportunity to, push back. Democrats need to communicate beyond the rhetoric of identity while continuing to fight for the needs of it. In the near future, all of the time-clock working class (and many in the strata above them) will be substantially hurt by what is about to happen. And for many the devastation will be nearly cataclysmic.
So the trick – the necessity – will be to build on the commonalities. Remember, any 8th grade boy can rant, but to build a successful political coalition from disparate parts takes a good bit of genius and a lot of fucking work.
trollhattan
@artem1s:
Alan Shepard was my personal favorite of the Mercury seven but Glenn was genuinely heroic in more facets than I can count, including bringing his damaged capsule and himself back to earth in one piece. Some introduction to manned orbital space flight!
Enjoy your eternity sir, you’ve earned every bit.
trollhattan
@hovercraft:
In less than a day Carson went from “He can run HUD because he grew up in public housing” to “He can run HUD because he lived in a house in the city, and also, too found his luggage.” Fucking hell, these guys are turning us into Freedonia before our very eyes, and they’re not even in office.
geg6
@Keith G:
I feel much the same way. I was very small during the Gemini shots and was just mesmerized by the space program. I understood a lot more about the Apollo program just because I was in school by then, but it was those first space shots I watched as a pre-schooler that really made me into the space geek I still am today.
Aleta
@Poopyman:
Wow. It’s weird to feel like cheering a pope.
@Poopyman: I’m sorry to hear that. Wishing him comfortableness.
Kay
Okey doke, here’s a “rust belt voter” on why she voted for Trump:
I mean COME ON. She doesn’t even see them AS AMERICANS.
It’s not like the world ends if we admit this was part of it! I’m extremely sympathetic to a “working class agenda” but I’m not walking around with blinders on. It isn’t either/or. It never was.
Mary G
Jon Ralston writes a great story about Harry Reid on his blog:
Thank you for everything, Harry.
Partisan Cheese
@Major Major Major Major: Good, classy comeback with personal attacks. Ignore those who disagree with your limited viewpoint. Only stick to those that reinforce how you think about things. Sorry to pierce your bubble.
Keith G
@Chris:
Ah jeeeze…..Yes it was a win, but the margins of that win were lower than before (why was that?) and obviously too low to deliver the electoral vote to Hillary. So saying that Democrats won the white working class is like pissing down your leg while on a cold hike: The warmth may feel nice for a moment, then the cold reality comes home in spades.
Patricia Kayden
@Keith G: Why are you assuming that Democrats haven’t built a successful political coalition from disparate parts? They have. That’s how President Obama got elected twice. We didn’t win this time because of voter suppression, Comey, media going after Clinton and for Trump, etc.
Democrats aren’t perfect but they certainly are a party composed of diverse peoples when it comes to race, religion and sexuality. We need to figure out how to expand that tent without abandoning our loyal base. No one is going to convince me that Republicans won in November because they have a “successful political coalition from disparate parts” when they mostly attract White, heterosexual Christianists to their fold.
Mnemosyne
You rock, John G Cole. I am happy every day that you woke up and joined the right side. ❤️
Now I’ll go back and read the comments.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Listening to Hillary address the Senate. Before she started her tribute to Harry Reid, she gave a lovely, if brief, eulogy for Glenn. Very gracious and appropriate.
Partisan Cheese
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Dodd-Frank is certainly no Glass-Steagal. Check out imprisonment rates for bankers in the 80’s after the savings and loans crisis, under Reagan, no less. Compare to now, no question. You think that the second worst financial crisis in American history would have required a massive overhaul. Nope, just some baby nick and tucks.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: So we’re supposed to appeal to people who don’t view minorities as “everyday Americans”? Really? Naw. Let Republicans have the “everyday Americans” (aka White people).
Gravenstone
@Partisan Cheese: The next time you make a positive contribution to this blog will be your very first.
Brachiator
@artem1s:
I did not know that. Makes me admire him all the more.
RIP
notoriousJRT
This is why I love you, John Cole.
Patricia Kayden
@trollhattan: Now you’ve forced me to look up Freedonia. You dang elitists and your fancy talking! Sheesh.
geg6
@Kay:
Tell it, Kay. That quote could have come from any one of my neighbors.
Partisan Cheese
@Patricia Kayden: Trump is 1%, but Clinton was hardly the opposite.
slag
@Patricia Kayden: I use nothing but ‘Happy Holidays’ now thanks to their stupid war on Christmas (TM). If nothing else, it’s just one more way to communicate, “I’m not one of THEM”.
I also run around apologizing all the time for everything. I’d easily rather be seen as an apologist surrender monkey than as a Republican. Statistics alone should probably put me above suspicion, but you can’t be too careful about this stuff.
Mnemosyne
@sunny raines:
I’ve actually heard some of them argue that we have to do it because Republicans are suppressing our voters, so we have to find new voters. Those people who are being blocked from exercising their right to vote? I guess they get to go fuck themselves until white people decide they’re worthy of attention.
gogol's wife
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Yeah. We have all the good ones. That has to mean something, doesn’t it? doesn’t it?
Kay
If any of you are powerful and influential thought leaders please alert the Democratic Party that they have to start NOW, today, working on getting people up to speed with these laws in MI, WI and NC (at least). It takes a really long time. It’s literally door to door. They can’t start in June of 2018.
This should be Job One. It’s all bullshit if they lose because their supporters can’t vote.
MI, WI and NC first. It’s only three states and organizers make about 35k. They need to hire them now. They need like 30 paid staff in urban areas. They just need one per county in rural areas. They could do this starting today with half a million dollars in one target state. I’d start in NC because they just won a close race and they’ll be fired up. Democrats have the money. Stop buying ads and hire actual human beings who live in these states and pay them a living wage.
Chris
@Keith G:
Of course it was too low to deliver the election, but it seems puzzling to put this much debate around a demographic that Hillary Clinton actually won, much less to argue, as Bernie does, that the Democratic Party “can’t talk” to them. In an election this close, a ton of things could’ve made a difference. “Winning the white working class, but even more bigly!” is one hypothetical that could’ve helped, but so are lots of other things.
Brachiator
@Chris:
The idea is to win the whole election, not pat yourself on the back for how well you did here and there.
And it is misdirection to try to make Sanders the focus of ire. You need to find out what Sanders’ voters wanted, and make sure that you are appealing to them.
Miss Bianca
@Partisan Cheese: Yeah, damn that elitist Franklin Delano Rooselvelt, amirite? I mean, no one with any money at all deseves to be called a Democrat. They’re obviously phonies, phonies and hypocrites, every last one of them.
Partisan Cheese
@clay: Tell me why so many people think that both parties are similar, both corrupt. It’s cause they are getting their money from the same people. The transfer of wealth to the 1% over the past 30 years was a combined effort by both Democrats and Republicans. Saying consumer protection agency does not hide the fact that the massive income inequality that is being experienced right now, both parties bear responsibility.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: Great advice, Kay. It’s disheartening when laws like these are passed but we can’t just roll over and die. There has got to be a way to effectively pushback and your advice is a key step in the right direction.
lizzie
This is beautiful. Thank you.
Partisan Cheese
@SatanicPanic: If the Democrats went as hard on trying to prosecute Wall Street bankers as Republicans did on Clinton’s emails, Democrats would have likely won the election.
Chris
@Emma:
Great. We’re driving away good commenters so the trolls can keep their soapboxes.
SatanicPanic
@Kay: THIS. Priority #1 is getting everyone an ID.
Patricia Kayden
@Partisan Cheese: Trump’s presidency (for however long it lasts) is going to be much more damaging and harmful to working class folks than Secretary Clinton’s presidency could ever be. We are already seeing how things are going to be given who he is appointing in key cabinet positions. Just wait until he and his fellow Repubs start shredding the safety net and entitlement programs. Then you can talk to me about Republicans supposedly being more attractive to those worried about the political/economic domination of the 1%.
Partisan Cheese
@Gravenstone: Ooh, burn man! Love the empty personal attacks rather than any substantive criticism. No, your posts are never positive!
Poopyman
@Patricia Kayden: “Look up” Freedonia? Hell, you’d better watch the whole thing. We’re gonna be quoting major parts of that flick throughout the next 4 years.
Mnemosyne
@Partisan Cheese:
Trump inherited millions from his daddy. Clinton did not.
Let me guess, you were one of the Berniebros who gathered outside George Clooney’s house to boo his fundraiser for Hillary, because all rich people are the same.
But this explains why Trump won: he successfully convinced idiots like you that he and Hillary were exactly the same, so why not vote for him?
Chris
@Brachiator:
Jesus fucking Christ. I’m not the one obsessing over how well we did or didn’t do in that one particular demographic. The entire national conversation in general, and Bernie Sanders in particular, are doing so. And if they’re doing so in terms that seem to be completely ignoring how they actually voted, you’ll forgive me if I trouble the narrative by pointing that out.
As for Sanders being the focus of my ire, he’ll be on the list (nowhere near the top of it) as long as he stays in the news uttering stupid things.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
That mythology isn’t something that just happened; it’s deliberately perpetuated by people who like the current constitutional order because it favors them.
eemom
I had this same explosion a week or so ago. I particularly got sick of white men mansplaining to me how Clinton and the Democratic party ignored, dissed, and just totally fucked up with those good, decent, salt of the earth folk, MOST of whom, I am assured, don’t have a racist bone in their bodies.
But what I’m sickest of all of is being told I shouldn’t call a fucking moron who voted to fuck himself over a fucking moron who voted to fuck himself over. People who voted for donald trump are gonna lecture me — or ANYONE — about being rude and insulting?? REALLY???
Anyway, whatever. I hate everything.
Archon
@Partisan Cheese:
I don’t understand your comment.
amygdala
Thanks, I needed that.
Mary G
@Kay: This is the best comment I’ve read since before the election.
Partisan Cheese
@Miss Bianca: I am not saying elites cannot make policy that helps the other classes. I am saying that Bill Clinton in the 90’s made a call to go centrist with third way politics, distance themselves from unions and other progressive groups, while embracing Wall Street. And since then have completely diluted their economic argument, their major economic differences. Hence, they try to create contrast through identity politics. Not that hard to comprehend. Do not need to drop identity, just need to add more economic.
Mnemosyne
@Partisan Cheese:
Because they’re idiots who’ve been propagandized to think that by the right-wing media.
The funniest part is that you’re spouting the same talking points that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do, and you think those thoughts are original to you.
Face it: you got conned. The people who told you that the Republicans and the Democrats are the same lied to you. Now you’re desperate to cling to that lie, because otherwise you’ll have to admit that you got conned. You would have done better by trying to win a game of three-card monte. At least you would only have lost a little money.
MomSense
@Kay:
Jesus, Michigan really needs to replace all the voting machines that didn’t work! 5 out of 9 machines didn’t work. That has to be the most dangerously incompetent state in the union right now. The people of Flint still don’t have potable water.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Point taken. I’ll stop feeding the troll now.
Roger Moore
@Partisan Cheese:
No, it’s because the people who believe it are getting the news from people who want them to believe that the two parties are the same. People who actually look at what the parties say and do know better. People who keep spreading the lie that the two parties are the same are doing the Republicans’ work for them.
Mart
@Roger Moore: What you get when you elect a rich old man who gets all his news from Fox and Alex Jones. Gotta punch him some hippies. Hehe.
Kathy
Excellent. Thank you. We need to keep thinking and doing and fighting. Spot on about “identity politics.”
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, I wasn’t aiming that at you. Sorry if you got that impression. I mostly avoid feeding the trolls, but I also think “don’t feed the trolls” is the practical equivalent of preaching abstinence-only education: might be a nice idea, but human nature simply doesn’t work that way. Basic troll control is a thing – this blog simply refuses to practice it.
Keith G
@Patricia Kayden:
Obama was a black swan (can I say that?). Who and what and how he was/is….will not be duplicated.
And ya know….he really didn’t spend energy early on cementing that enthusiasm into a partisan skeletal system. The Obama coalition were citizens who reveled in the stardust of this fantastic man, but who were left to drift away into the ether. So now there is a building project to be accomplished.
Pretty much what I said in the original post.
Partisan Cheese
@Patricia Kayden: Trumps presidency will be a disaster. I agree. And it will be impossible to win over his supporters, even those who vote against their own economic interests. But only half the country voted, and Dems should think about trying to win over some of those people who didn’t vote, unfortunately, if they are going to win again. And a more populist, but sincere economic policy is what will get those ‘Both are the same, both are corrupt, I am not going to vote in protest’ people motivated to vote next time. And, sorry to say, but Sanders drew those types of people out. And no, it doesn’t need to be him in charge, but he was on to something with the ability to draw in new voters. Democrats need to find a way to add that. And its both, not either/or.
Bill Arnold
A fine rant. Thank you John Cole.
Coalition building is important, yes, but for the next several years, obstruction (and etc) will be important too, and this level of rant (11 and beyond!) is … motivating.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
It always amuses me how much people think they’re being Independent Thinkers by repeating memes that’re conventional wisdom at every media outlet.
philpm
Hey John, can you send me a framed print of this?
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
You should see my fancy thinkin’ shoes! I may start calling Trump Rufus T. Firefly, even if three-fourths (at least) won’t get the reference.
Partisan Cheese
@Mnemosyne: There you go, great substantial argument. Calling names, making personal assumptions, then boasting that you are fighting the troll while using classic troll behavior. Talking about economics, must be a Bernie bro. Don’t you see how that shitty hostility will not gain new members to the Democratic tent? Instead of inane name calling, can you figure out a way to argue on merits? Otherwise, you are closer to having the same tactics that Trump uses.
clay
@Partisan Cheese:
Because they’re myopic or dumb or they have a self-interest in promoting this lie (e.g., your Steins or Naders).
You say they’re the same but compare the numbers under Clinton vs. Bush vs. Obama. The taxes for the upper crust are higher under the Democrats, and the working class did much better off under Clinton and Obama than they did under (either) Bush. As good as we want? No. As good as may be expected with hostile Congresses? Maybe.
As for corruption, again, compare the numbers. Whatever happens with Democrats is small-ball to the amount of looting and wealth-transfer that happens under Republicans. It’s like comparing someone who rolls through a stop sign to someone who has a drunk-driving hit-and-run. Sure, they both violated traffic laws, but if you say “Both sides are bad drivers!”, then you’re being an idiot.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
The problem is that policing “trolls” because they express unpopular opinions risks letting the blog degenerate into an echo chamber where only the approved POV is allowed.
EBT
@Chris: This times a thousand. If you aren’t going to put effort in to taking out the trash don’t have a place where people can say things. That is just the truth of it.
Kristin D
@Patricia Kayden:
So much this. Everyone who talks about doing away with “identity politics” seems to be saying that the base can take a seat and shut up, while we change policies and apparatus to solely appeal to a tiny portion of white men. How is that going to be successful?
Jeffro
To me this isn’t worth arguing about, not at all. We’re Democrats: unlike the evil (Republicans), selfish (air quote “Libertarians”), misguided (Greens), or truly stupid (people who don’t vote)…we can ‘walk and chew gum’.
Celebrate diversity? Check
Look out for the 99%? Check
Help the country move from fossil fuels to renewable energy? Cheeeck.
We don’t need to run on one message or the other; we should run as the smart party that looks out for you (in all your you-ness) and not just powerful, rich elites.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
This. Oddly, they’re often the same guys who repeat racist and sexist jokes that would have been stale 50 years ago and claim they’re being “edgy!”
And no worries on the troll thing. I tend to overfeed them, so it’s good to have reminders that it would be more productive to hit myself in the head with a hammer than try to reason with someone who actually thinks Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ran on the same economic platform, presumably because his reading comprehension skills are subpar at best.
Partisan Cheese
@Mnemosyne: I never said that I personally believed that both parties are the same, but thanks for jumping to that general conclusion, troll fighter. I said in order to get those people who think like that to not think like that anymore, Democrats need to distinguish themselves, and in terms of economics, they have distinguished themselves nearly enough. But yeah, keep on making personal assumptions, it’s a great argumentative tactic. Again, one used consistently by Trump.
Miss Bianca
@Partisan Cheese: Um…who’s talking about Bill Clinton? Oh, that’s right – Hillary Clinton’s platform MUST be an extension of BILL Clinton’s platform, because husbands and wives are the same person and also Clinton!
So, don’t look at the actual platform, don’t listen to what the candidate is saying, don’t look at the candidate’s actual record, just assert that “everyone knows” both parties are the parties of the 1%, and the Democrats don’t have enough about economics in their plans.
Look, you complain when people call you an idiot and then you keep spouting idiotish, context-free nonsense.
Mnemosyne
@Partisan Cheese:
Sorry, but Trump voters decided that me and mine are second-class citizens by virtue of our birth. Only an asshole like you thinks I should apologize to them for thinking I deserve to have equal rights with straight white men.
Patricia Kayden
@Partisan Cheese:
Yes they do. How? That’s the question. They have to be able to expand their tent without abandoning “identity politics” or acting as if “identity politics” is a bad thing.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Chris: this +1,000,000
Chris
@Roger Moore:
There are happy mediums. LGM manages to take out the trash without suppressing lively debates; so did Sadly, No! back when it was a thing; I don’t follow any other political blogs, but it can’t just be those two.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
And then it whines when people point out that it’s spouting nonsense talking points.
hovercraft
@eemom:
This.
Everyone keeps telling me that the shitgibbon is popular because it tells it like it is, that the “economically anxious” are sick and tired of all our politically correct ways. So why the hell are we now suddenly supposed to tip toe around these dumbass motherfuckers? They claim to like straight talk, so I’ll give it them, they are stupid gullible morons, who deserve all that’s coming to them.
Don’t shoot your foot off on purpose and expect us not to say it serves you right that you no longer have a foot.
Ian
@Partisan Cheese:
Ever hear of grandfathering? Or retro-active punishment? Lets imagine, for a second, the trial we come to when purity pony Obama brings those mean bankers to court for. We get to the judge, the uber prog lawyer goes “those bankers broke our new rules from this 2010 bill back in 08 or 09!” And the judge goes bam! Case dismissed, ex-post facto.
Were there bankers who broke actual laws in 2007-08? Absolutely. And you should be outraged at the people in charge at the time, The Bush crime syndicate and their friends in the DOJ.
The Obama should lock up the bankers is about as legally sound as “Lock the bitch up!” It ignores the courts, prosecution, role of presidency in deciding who is prosecuted (hint-should be none), rules, law, and just about every other legal norm.
Partisan Cheese
@clay: Again, I can tell the difference, but I am not the one who needs to be convinced. And where that thinking comes from is, under Democrats or Republicans, incomes have stagnated, transfer of wealth continues at a high clip, bankers continue to run roughshod over the economy, treasury cabinet is still filled with those who looted the treasury. If you are into politics, you can spot the differences, but if you are not, then it looks like sprite vs diet sprite.
And the hostility on here to reflect on this, to refuse to admit that there are things that could be worked on, or tweaked, will not grow the coalition. And Democrats will continue losing if that is the attitude. No one is saying abandon identity, haha that is impossible. Just get more economic, and that will, in turn also help identity politics.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
And then it rubs the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose. #TrollBeGone
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Because they’re the only ones allowed to complain about their feelings.
I can’t remember who it was, but I laughed sardonically when someone pointed out on Twitter that the people who complain about “safe spaces” are the same ones who are so fearful about everything that they bring their guns to their suburban grocery store.
They have to be at the center of the universe at all times, and if they’re not, well, we get what we saw on 11/9.
gogol's wife
@Poopyman:
I got the code and two pair of plans
schrodinger's cat
@Calouste: I don’t get the Founding Fathers fetish. Its like a religious cult.
EBT
@Partisan Cheese: The hostility here is just. I am sorry that your answer to the problem of voter suppression is to sway the people who did the suppressing, but that is just a goddamn go choke on a bowl of salted dog dick stupid level of stupid. Legitimizing the cheating pieces of shit encourages them.
Partisan Cheese
@Mnemosyne: Your reading comprehension is terrible. Never said apologize to Trump supporters. Wow, love how I have to argue you on things I never said. Hyperbole much? Oh yeah, you are the troll killer. Ever hear of logical fallacy? You are all over the place with that. Please misread me though and say how I am saying the exact same thing as Hannity, or some other bullshit hyperbole. Hopefully some day you will be able to get over yourself being a poor traumatized victim, and can actually be somewhat constructive in the conversation again. Your hostility to other progressives because you believe they are fucking idiots or Bernie bros, is anti-productive, well unless you want to keep the party small.
Keith G
Also, because of the clustering of dependable democratic voters in areas and states that are already blue, the Dems need to market for more rural voters and voters who are not in blue areas and not used to the older blue messaging. We need that for the next presidential election, but we also need it for the state and local elections. Whatever the Democrats have been doing has not been enough and if one were to exclude the black swan event of the Obama presidency, the Democratic Party is and has been in the shitter.
Partisan Cheese
@Miss Bianca: I said Democrats changed their policies to third way in the 90s, and have continued to use that strategy. Never said Hilary must be an extension of Bill, just that Democrats have adopted third way tactics since the 90s.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes. I agree completely, and have used that analogy before. The constitution is a bible, the founding fathers are its prophets, and any deviation or addition to it (“innovation,” the fundamentalists in several religions call this) is heresy. That really is how a staggering amount of the population thinks.
Partisan Cheese
@Ian: Tell me how then, did tons of bankers get criminally prosecuted in the 80’s over the savings and loans crisis? That crisis was small potatoes compared to 2008. No one was saying then how retributive justice was the worst thing ever.
hovercraft
@Chris: @Mnemosyne:
The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
Major Major Major Major
For those who were curious, trolling and responses to trolls now accounts for just over 20% of this thread.
Mnemosyne
@Partisan Cheese:
Republicans started changing the laws once they took control of Congress in 1994, and then they went hog-wild changing them after W got “elected.” The laws that got the S&L criminals prosecuted are no longer the same, thanks in part to people like John McCain, who narrowly escaped prosecution himself.
I’m sorry you were apparently in a coma during those years and are now having to rely on summaries by idiots who claim that everything is Bill Clinton’s fault to piece together what happened. But Republicans changed the laws and then convinced morons like you that it was all Bill Clinton’s fault.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Argh. Okay, I have to leave for a meeting soon anyway. I will try to stop.
But you gotta admit, the moronic comparison of the S&L scandal and the 2008 meltdown with no acknowledgement of the intervening events was a high, fast one right across the middle of the plate.
Kristin D
@Mnemosyne: Nothing annoys me more than, “you’ll never get us to come to your side if you keep criticizing us!” which has been repeated ad nauseum since the primaries. They want to hold the whole country hostage (whether “they” is Trump voters or Bernie people who vote third party) because someone hurt their fee fees.
gorram
@Partisan Cheese:
What policies (proposed or actual) are you thinking of as “identity politics” here? Because what this reads to a lot of people I suspect is as you saying that economic inequality outranks racism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, and abilism. Among other things, that fails to account for how much those systems of oppression aren’t just “social” or “about identity” – but economic in intent, deed, and effect.
Davis X. Machina
Damn skippy. Come to it, worst case, etc, etc, there are things that are worse to lose than elections — like your goddamn soul.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
Refresher course:
Pesky god damn facts
Kay
@SatanicPanic:
It’s 2 birds with 1 stone too because it’s organizing. It has to be LOCAL and they have to be PAID. So you would hire black people who live in rural North Carolina and pay them to reach their neighbors. Same in Milwaukee. Or Flint. Or white rural people in western Michigan.
They’ll then know where all those voters are and when a candidate comes along they can go back and see them again. That’s a local constant presence for 35k a year. It bugs me because it’s so much cheaper than buying ads in swing states and it makes so much sense. I feel like Democrats don’t do it because of the Consultant Class. They’re gobbling up all the donations and they make so much! You could do voter protection/Party building in the whole state of North Carolina for one 500k consultant contract. There’s a reason it doesn’t happen. Someone is protecting turf or a paycheck.
You could hire a part time organizer here, a retiree or community college student, for 10k a year. A part time contract job. That person would LITERALLY know every Democrat in the county after a year. They spend a BILLION dollars on Presidential elections. They have the money.
trollhattan
@Chris:
Their version of the founding fathers. You know, the ones whose simple, true and godly beliefs can be summarized on the side panel of a cereal box. Never mind each would have been mortified at this entire crew of happy hijackers.
Chris
@trollhattan:
Well, yes, just as it’s “their” version of Moses, or Jesus, or Mohammed, and the God they’re related to. This is always how fundamentalism works.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Was that the only piece of banking legislation passed between 2000 and 2008?
I know people love to focus like a laser on the repeal of Glass-Steagall, but it’s more complicated than that one piece of legislation. That’s why “reinstate Glass-Steagall!” is a stupid, empty slogan — there’s a lot of additional legislation passed since then that means it can’t just be “reinstated.”
Major Major Major Major
@Keith G: Didn’t St. Bernard vote for that?
@Kristin D: “You’ll never get us to come to your side, work with your neoliberal sellout party, and vote for that warmongering bitch if you aren’t nicer!”
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Gutting the New Deal banking legislation began in Reagan’s time. AFAIK, Nixon was Keynesian (sp?)
Kristin D
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, exactly. They’re a lot like Trump voters in that way.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Here’s the New York Times from 2008.
I would have also linked you to Politifact rating Bill Clinton’s statement that the repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with the 2008 meltdown as “mostly true,” but there’s a truly obnoxious takeover ad that blocked half the screen on my phone, so I can’t entirely vouch for it. Google for it at your own risk.
LAC
@Chris: I agree. It would be nice to come here and not see the same group of fucknuts fucknutting up the space. There are blogs where there is a consensus and people are coming in with ideas and the troll smell is barely noticeable.
Nashville_fan
This may be the best f#@$#g post I have ever read on the internet.
Like ever.
*Standing ovation from my black, female a$$*
Kay
What if we proceeded as if political advertising on tv was banned. Just take that off the table. How much money and possibilities does that free up?
Cut the cord. They hate us anyway. They fucking coordinated in savaging Clinton and they gave Trump hundreds of millions in exposure. They launched his campaign with a blatantly racist birther campaign! Before that they launched the Tea Party! These people are not your friends- they’re not even “neutrals”. STOP paying them hundreds of millions in advertising revenue. That leaves a ton of resources just sitting around and then we can talk about organizing. You all donate. Insist on the money going to regular people instead of multi-millionaires.
Chris
@Chris:
@Chris:
Addendum to this: I say this as someone who admires the founding fathers much more than not, at least in context, but then I’m weird like this: I think it should be possible to teach honestly that the founding fathers were racist, sexist, elitist assholes who thought only rich white men should be allowed to vote, and still fully recognize that this was a big improvement over the alternative of racist, sexist, elitist assholes who thought not even rich white men should be allowed to vote. And the same, onwards through history, as the franchise gets progressively broader. Also that most of the basic principles were good, and that they didn’t live up to them, and it’s okay, 200 years later, to recognize that “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” should probably apply to more than the people TJ thought they should.
But then again I’m also a person who happily voted for Hillary Clinton with no regrets even though I took issue with some of her past decisions, and who acknowledges that there will only ever be imperfect choices and imperfect politicians. So, not what the “constitutional originalists” with their manichean worldview are looking for.
Kay
@Chris:
I was and am proud of her for not triangulating and not compromising.
Bill Clinton would have done it :)
danielx
This, times a thousand.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Word, sister friend. Every Democrat should get this through their thick skull, the media is not your friend. Not NYT, not PBS, not NPR.
Kay
@Chris:
I love the assumption behind the punditry too. That she must be incompetent for not throwing black people under the bus. It is UNIMAGINABLE that the she-devil actually believes what she said.
They’re horrible.
They would have ADMIRED her for ultra-savvy if she had done it so it must have been a tactical error :)
gorram
@Kay: Agreed on your last point, but one quibble – she didn’t quite say that she doesn’t see people of color as excluded from Americans, just “everyday Americans.” It’s still racist, but of a different flavor, where White is normalizing and normalized. That’s what I think a lot of the less vocal support for Trump was about – shoring up those sorts of associations from the anxiety many White people feel over the idea that “White” and “American” could become less and less strongly associated with each other. (ie “Taking our country back”)
I think when talking with or among fellow working class White people, we have to do two things at once now. We have to counter that anxiety, by pointing out that it’s really not fair to treat Americanness, at least of the type that’s possible to let be regular, normal, etc, as White people’s exclusive domain. It’s important for that not to turn into arguing that it’s better for them on a purely racial basis, because I think that’s catering to White expectations that diversity serve our interests – it quite literally shouldn’t be about us. On the other hand though, I think what we can talk about as beneficial is the broader economic platform of the Democrats/left, which is beneficial to them and comes part and parcel with anti-racism politics at least on the national scene. It’s just important to not let that become exclusively about the White parts of the working class.
So it’s a little stick (“No, this is reasonable and fair whether you call it identity politics or political correctness or whatever”) and a little bit carrot (“Voting for us is voting for a more secure working class”).
SatanicPanic
@Kay: I wonder if there’s some way to yank this out of the hands of the consultant class. $10K in a year sounds like money I could raise. Literally we’ve been putting together organizing groups here and I feel like we could somehow come up with that. Because part of the problem of being in a blue state is figuring out what we can do to make a difference when we already have things pretty locked down here. Maybe we could sponsor an organizer. hmmm.
SuzieC
http://www.ohio.com/news/politics/state/trump-paints-parts-of-summit-county-ohio-red-1.726831
Partisan Cheese is making sense. Like Michael Moore said, I live here in the rust belt (Ohio) and I talk to the people. As the attached article details, Trump flipped counties that had voted D for decades. Old manufacturing counties like Ashtabula,Trumbull, Jefferson, Stark, and Lorain all flipped and went red. Why? They didn’t suddenly turn racist. They voted for Obama twice. I talked to a guy from Lorain County, whose family members worked in the steel and shipbuilding industries there, now gone. Nothing has replaced them. This guy is a longtime strong Dem activist but his family members voted Trump. They thought he offered a glimmer of hope. We need to offer more than a glimmer of hope. And keep our traditional Dem values of inclusiveness and social justice.
Stacy
What I don’t get is why is it bad to say Happy Holidays when Bing Crosby’s song,”Happy Holiday”, is one of the most iconic American Christmas songs ever?
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Stop paying them tens of millions of dollars in political ads. Bernie Sanders was the worst! He raises millions of dollars from small donors and then spends it ALL on tv ads. It was like this massive failure of imagination. So creative raising the money and then he pours it down a sewer. What happened between the hippies raising the money and the gross consultants spending it all? They were horrible people anyway, his campaign chiefs. Every time I saw one on tv I liked Sanders less.
There’s no rule that says we have to do this. We could spend money on something else.
Major Major Major Major
@SuzieC: you can have lots of facts and still be an asshole and a troll.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@gorram:
They are so vastly misinformed by right wing media about how Democrats take their money and give it to “those people”, and coupled with the fact that conservatives/Republicans only think in zero sum terms so that what “those people” get means it’s taken away from them because Democrats care more about “those people” than them, makes it virtually impossible to rationally explain a position they didn’t argue themselves into. They know what they know, and what they know is the opposite of what is true, and are impervious to any arguments from a liberal whom they hold in complete contempt.
Chris
@Kay:
To be clear, to the extent that I had beef with her, it’s past decisions in re foreign policy, mainly Iraq (which she repudiated – furthermore, I thought Democratic opponents had a right to bring that up, but Republican ones who’d cheerled the war all the way didn’t). I did not have a beef with her campaign, which I worked on, and especially not with her refusing to compromise on standing up for people who weren’t white, male, and heartlandese. Triangulating wouldn’t have saved her.
@Kay:
One of the very best articles I’ve seen in the last few months was about the mainstream media and how its real totem was savviness. They don’t respect beliefs (they find them embarrassing) or accomplishments (boring), they only respect politicians’ infighting skills within the arena that is politics. Another way of saying that they view the whole thing as a sport.
Or, another way to view it, would be that they’re the equivalent of teenagers who are still trying to cultivate coolness, and haven’t yet realized (in the MSM’s case, never will) what it actually is or how little it actually means.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
And the biggest problems that led to the 2008 crisis weren’t the ones Glass-Steagall was intended to prevent. The goal of Glass-Steagall was to keep commercial and investment banking separate. That was a big deal at the time, because linked banks could go under and take depositors’ money with them if the investment side invested foolishly. But that wasn’t the thing that led to the 2008 crisis, which was mostly about non-bank financial institutions like hedge funds and AIG- the so-called “shadow banking” system- that were never covered by banking regulations either before or after Glass-Steagall was repealed.
EBT
@SuzieC: Clinton Derangement Syndrome? Not sure why people would think the party that hates welfare and unemployment and unions, after picking a guy who failed to make money selling Vodka (the cheapest of booze to make) that gets off on firing people and moving their jobs overseas to make himself more money, will do anything to help them at all. Gullible fools of Tooks.
Ian
@Partisan Cheese:
Because they had laws on the books then that allowed them to charge the banks in violation. Those laws disappeared under the onslaught of the great saint magnus.
Like I said, this is a legal issue. You may want those bankers in jail, but they get a due process too.
gorram
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: That’s all true, I think that sort of rhetorical approach I laid out is only for a certain type of White working class voter. A lot are way too far down the rabbit hole, but I think especially in parts of the upper Midwest, there’s a number of people who sat out this election because of racist rhetoric that did appeal to them, seemingly more than they want to admit.
The ones who voted for Trump are pretty far gone, but I think Democrats could shave off a few key percentage points even with that demographic – but to avoid a lot of huge policy pitfalls (*glares in Sanders’ direction*) we have to approach them very carefully. That’s just a question of how to help them get out of the centrist hell they’ve talked themselves into – largely by decoupling anti-racism and plutocracy in their minds. Whether the Democrats should spend the next four, five, six years doing the dirty work of helping White people in a smattering of states unlearn their racism is another question of course, besides the one that I think there’s a target audience for it and a means to do it.
DCF
@Partisan Cheese:
– RationalWiki
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Identity_politics
Identity politics did in Clinton, but not the way you think
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-daum-identity-politics-in-the-gop-20161208-story.html
Bernie Sanders Nailed It On Identity Politics and Inequality, and the Media Completely Missed the Point
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/12/bernie-sanders-nailed-it-on-identity-politics-and.html
Read the whole article. It’s well worth your time….
les
@Keith G:
Context, dude. When saying it is a response to assholes saying Dems lost the white working class, it’s the right answer. Jesus.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
My big objection to this approach- apart from the whole worshiping false gods part- is that the Framers of the Constitution clearly didn’t see things that way. They knew damn well they weren’t going to get everything right, and even if they did that the world was going to change. That’s why they included Article V. So even if you accept that the Framers were a bunch of divinely inspired philosopher kings, you still have to accept that the Constitution is imperfect because they thought so.
les
@Partisan Cheese:
Ah, because assholes like you spout that shit all over the place?
gogol's wife
@Stacy:
It was written by a Jew.
Major Major Major Major
@DCF: so if I understand the excerpt correctly, the fact that Bernie sometimes uses the adjective ‘white’ means that he ipso facto has no race issues? Man, with that kind of reasoning, no wonder bernie and his fans were able to win the primary.
gorram
@DCF: My word of caution to this view is that we do a disservice to any big system that classifies, exploits, and destroys people (race, gender, class, etc) by willy-nilly comparing it every other such system. Class is really profoundly different from the rest of the ones I mentioned and you alluded more directly to.
For one thing it’s vastly easier to change class status than to have your ethnic/racial identity reclassified by society or radically (mis?)represent yourself, and while gender is definitely more malleable than people want to talk about there’s a whole different set of politics around gender being different than expected or capable of change. Religious conversion is likewise a loaded territory, and usually is wrapped up in a lot of ethnic or racial strife, and the mere idea that sexual orientation or gender identity aren’t innate is fairly controversial. Disability is something that people can acquire, but a lot of the nastiest experiences are tied up in hatred for disabilities that people are born with or acquire very early in life. Class isn’t unique in being fluid, sure, but there’s uniqueness in its fluidity.
In a nutshell, it’s much easier to witness a poor person who is White, who is a man, who is straight, who is cisgender, who is neither Jewish nor Muslim, who has a fluency in a Christian cultural background, who isn’t disabled, aligning himself with forces that directly endanger his own economic security. Sure, some of that can be confusion, some of that can be self hatred, but when we’re talking about class, a lot of that is just a basic calculation that that is very easy to fix. What’s more, what better way to climb the class ladder than by kicking everyone else off of it?
I think that’s what Sanders has tapped into, even if he doesn’t realize it (which is increasingly hard to believe). Trump very clearly has bought into elements of this way of viewing the world and exploited them to great person gain. The real question isn’t “will Democrats appeal to a very specific group of working class voters who suffer from nothing but class inequality?” it’s whether that very specific demographic sees its own short term successes as justifying all manner of violence to other people, a kind of collateral damage along the way. To focus on the Left recognizing that class is distinctive is a distraction from people exploiting that distinctiveness.
Mercuria
you are my favorite person
bemused
One of your best rants, john!
Ksmiami
@quakerinabasement: then why don’t we just call out the GOP for what they want. They want your money and they want you dead if you aren’t a rich white male. How’s them apples
owlface
Amen
hedgehog mobile
Fuck yeah. Thanks John.
SuzieC
@EBT: Don’t think so.Ohio also voted for Bill Clinton twice and Hillary (by overwhelming margins) twice in the primaries in 2008 and 2016. What changed? I admit I am still gobsmacked and confused, and I don’t know. But Ohio and the Rust Belt economy has tanked, in some places. Not in all. I live in the elite haven of educated white collar Columbus, where we failed to understand the depth of the red wave in rural Ohio. Hillary didn’t go into rural and rust belt Ohio;Trump did. I remember early in the campaign Trump spoke in Steubenville in Jefferson County, a quintessential rust belt county. My husband and I laughed–LAUGHED–at our TV and said good luck, loser, there aren’t enough votes there to make any kind of a difference. And of course, educated elite Columbus residents call Steubenville.”Stupidville.” I’m feeling sad, depressed, and guilty right now because I fail to understand half of my fellow citizens.
Roger Moore
@gorram:
I don’t completely agree. The people who talk about the white working class as a distinct group are revealing a truth that we don’t like to admit: that class in America incorporates race. White working class actually are a different class from the minority working class, and that has to be factored in when trying to appeal to them. Undoing that distinction so that white and minority working class people see themselves as a unified group ought to be the holy grail of every left winger who’s hoping to create a real working class party. Until that happens, working class people in this country will never be a coherent political group.
Felanius Kootea
Thank you John Cole!
@Kay: @Kay:
Kay please, please, please post again as a front pager. You can start with these wonderful ideas.
We need your common sense now more than ever. Please reconsider.
John Cole
@Felanius Kootea: Yeah @Kay– START POSTING AS A FRONT PAGER AGAIN!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Roger Moore:
Constitutionalist fundamentalism is like Christian fundamentalism – it relies on other documents that only the properly initiated have read to understand the “true” meaning of the original document. I mean how else do you get Jesus as a white, American supply side Captalist out of the Snoptic Bible?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SuzieC: I gather that was a combination of Trump promising the hicks an infrastructure program and something big for their megachurches. Not sure what is, but the way the Evangelicals are all starry eyed over Trump makes me think it has to be government church subsidies or mandatory tithing.
DCF
@Major Major Major Major:
You don’t ‘understand’, and you’re too lazy to read the article….
DCF
@Roger Moore:
Halleluhia!!!! Praise be to (insert deity-of-your-choice here)!!!!!!!! AMEN, brother!!!!!!!!!!!!….
SuzieC
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Maybe. An infrastructure program would be great, except that Trump will use it as an opportunity for grift.
Mnemosyne
@SuzieC:
I have a quick and easy way for you to find out why any Trump voters of your acquaintance voted that way, but I warn you that it may give you information about that person that you didn’t really want to know:
Ask them what they think about Black Lives Matter and/or Collin Kaepernick.
If you run into a single one who doesn’t know what you’re talking about and doesn’t have a spittle-flecked rant on the subject, I would really, really like to know why they did vote for Trump. But you have to ask the BLM question first, or else they’ll know what you’re trying to find out and parrot the “economic insecurity” line.
J R in WV
@Poopyman:
I very seldom (never) agree with a standing Pope, as I think the Roman Catholic religion is one of the more primitive and antique versions of Christianity.
But this statement from Pope Frank is amazing. And Trump and the media are rolling in fecal matter, totally.
The Mass Media worked hand and fist night and day to make this election turn out their way. [ETA: We all know they hate Hillary and wanted her to barely win or lose by a smidge!] They never talked about meaningful issues, just EMAIL SECRETS… 24 hours a day.
And now we learn that NBC intends to keep Trump on staff on The Apprentice show.
During the Democratic National Convention, I watched people make speeches time after time on NBC, followed by Andrea Mitchell mis-characterizing what I had just watched with my own eyes. At that point I decided it would be the end of the world before I watched NBC news again…
Shame it’s going to happen so soon!! /joke
Seriously, when I watch NBC, it’s to gather information about advertisers which I will be boycotting, much as we have done to Rush Limbaugh. I will not be watching “The Apprentices” as I don’t want to spoil a perfect record.
Did I mention Trump is going to be on staff at NBC? What Emoluments Clause was that? Is EgoBoo an authentic emolument?
Coprophilia, the exact vice the mass media has fallen prey to. And yes, it is exactly that vile, what they’re doing to the nation.
gorram
@Roger Moore: I think you’re getting your cause and effect a bit backwards. Class and race do have a long history, arguably one impossible to fully pull apart. The flexibility of class status is really hard to remove from that broader context, for that matter, since the capacity to change your class status has long been a right reserved for White people – through settlement policies to award land to White people, through racist elements in New Deal protections, through efforts to make the GI Bill and other provisions as inaccessible as possible for people of color.
Class, in general, is possible to change. From a White supremacist perspective, dangerously so even. For people who think in those terms (which is an undeniably large number of White people throughout this country’s history), racism serves at least one purpose, which is restricting opportunities for upward mobility as much as possible to White people. Race isn’t as historically timeless as people want to think, but they know just how quickly class status can change, and racism was used to act against that, curbing it.
gorram
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nah, it’s just straight racism. Remember this is the social movement that originated as A Thing in the US as a backlash to school integration. For decades that’s what MAGA meant to them.
Breezeblock
I love this post.
J R in WV
@Poopyman:
I’m really sorry to hear about your kitty. What’s his real name? If that isn’t too intrusive!?
It’s really hard to know that your cuddly kitty is on his last purrs, and you have my serious condolences.
While MRs J was in ICU on a vent for 3 weeks several years ago (completely recovered, thanks!) I had two elderly tom cats suffer kidney failure, they both would softly creep into the bed and lay across my bald head to help them keep warm at night.
And then after taking first one and then the other on that last trip to the really kind Vet clinic, I had to go to the Hospital and be all cheerful. What a year.
This is the first one worse than that one was. This year is really bad…
AnthroBabe
John Cole – this post makes you my hero! I love that you “saw the light” and this post expresses my own views wonderfully, profanely, and exquisitely.
PS Any one here from Phoenix or around Arizona? Thinking of doing a meet up in late January! You all and this blog have been lifesavers for me, keeping me having hope and keeping me angry and well informed. What say you peeps?
amk
perfect
ranttruth, cole.SuzieC
@Mnemosyne: I’ll try it, as best I can, tactfully. Do not want to accuse friends and relative of racism.
J R in WV
@Gravenstone:
Maybe a slight improvement to your snark?
Miss Bianca
@Partisan Cheese: Have you ever stopped to ask yourself *why* the Democrats felt they had to pivot to the center? Because that’s *what was needed to win elections at that point*. Are you prepared to argue that a Clinton presidency, however flawed it may have been, was worse for the country than Poppy Bush’s? Or a Bob Dole presidency?
That was then, this is now. But I don’t see why you can’t see the difference between the Democratic Party of the 90s and the Obama and post-Obama years. Honestly, I don’t get it. You think the Democrats “abandoned” OWS? How about OWS was stupid and ahistorical enough to boo John Lewis, a man they should have been asking for leadership tips? Any political “movement” that thinks politics are too dirty to sully itself with, man, is a movement doomed to failure, and rightly so. You think banksters should have been prosecuted and locked up? They didn’t *actually break any laws* – and those laws were crafted during the Shrub years.
Do you really believe this stuff, or are you making excuses for people who are stupid enough to fall for this stuff?
Mnemosyne
@SuzieC:
I have anecdotal reports from a friend in Michigan that, to a man (and woman) the white Trump voters he knew were all outraged about Black Lives Matter and voted for the guy based on that. So be careful who you pose the question to, because if they’re a close friend or a relative you have to see a lot, you may learn something about them that you were better off not knowing.
tobie
@J R in WV:
I just got to this thread…which I suspect is over but a light bulb went off in my head when I read JR’s comment. I suspect Trump’s next ploy will be to buy one or two networks. If he doesn’t do it, Jared and Ivanka will. What two-bit dictator doesn’t own the media in his/her country? My one solace in all this is that the young don’t get their news through tv much any longer.
Davis X. Machina
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
He hates, or appears to hate, the same people they hate. It’s not very complicated.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It’s abortion. He’s finally going to ban abortion and save all the baybeez.
Again, straight from my Trump-voting cousin in Wisconsin. She was willing to sacrifice healthcare for her own teenage boys to save the baybeez.
amk
@Partisan Cheese:
boy, are you gonna be surprised off your socks by trump’s team.
Idiot.
Miss Bianca
@gorram: Oh, damn…you’re making sense of this Dealing with Whiteness Angst for me.
And so is Kay (I love that organizing around Voter IDs idea with the heat of a thousand suns).
FTR, type-y fingers first banged out “Whineness” and then “Whitness” for “Whiteness”. What, if anything, that means, I have no idea.
Mnemosyne
@gorram:
You know, I’ve never thought about that aspect of it, but I’m pretty sure you’re right. What I generally say is that we have two systems, an economic class system and a racial caste system. The two systems overlap in a way that blurs the lines of each one a little.
Now I’m wondering if Sanders and his supporters have their line of thinking completely backwards and, when white people who buy into the caste system start to feel economically secure is when they start trying to enforce it again. When they’re economically insecure, they don’t have the time or energy to waste on it.
Interesting thought. I’m going to need to ponder it over for a bit. Thanks!
J R in WV
@Kristin D:
Kristin,
I’m with you when you say “They want to hold the whole country hostage (whether “they” is Trump voters or Bernie people who vote third party) because someone hurt their fee fees.”
Personally, I’m willing to kick them in their precious fee fees over and over, for the next 4 years.
TriassicSands
John Cole:
Why were you a Republican? And why did it take you so long to realize you were supporrting truly horrible people? You must have explained all that at some time in the past, but for those of us who missed it, a quick explanation would be helpful. It’s not like the GOP suddenly became the force for evil they are today. They were that in 1994 when Gingrich took over the House. They certainly were that when you supported George W. Bush in 2000. So, what turned the tide for you? Obviously, it wasn’t a change in the GOP that made the difference. It was a change in you. So, what happened?
ChrisGrrr
Cole, thank you.
Thorough.
Bookmarked.
Angela KC
This was awesome to read. I had Samuel L Jackson’said voice playing in my head. Democrats are all for advanced human rights. All of the things listed are advanced human rights. And we have a right to them.
Jamey
And a final FUCK YOU to JGC because my neck hurts from nodding my head up and down vigorously in assent.
Fr33d0m
A very clear majority of Americans did not vote for the racists.
Duncan Basson
So, you enjoyed losing the election then? Can you point to a single instance where pointing out the hypocrisy has made a hypocrite change their tune?
Both sides play the identity politics game but only one side is losing. It might not be fair, but it is the reality. We need to a celebrity candidate who runs an effective marketing campaign, not another truth teller to lead us further into the political wilderness.
Jeff Smith
Absofuckinglutely! Btw, commenters, not Trump picking Cabinet, it’s corporatists who buzz around him like flies on shit, e.g., Carl Ichon put up EPA pick, climate denier Pruitt, OK AG. Trump’s clueless about his new job. Time to bell the fucking rat, so we cats can hear him coming!
NotoriousJRT
@Poopyman:
So sorry to hear this.
NotoriousJRT
@Partisan Cheese:
Sanders also repelled perhaps as many voters with his sociaIist ideas, so they might have been the ones staying home because of “economic anxiety.” Bernie did not win the primary; do you get that? And it wasn’t because DWS held him down. He won your heart, I guess, but he was too far left for others in the coalition. But, I guess we could be blaming YOU, him, and Jingles, the incredible purity pony right now. So there is that.
NotoriousJRT
@Kay:
Kay, this is why I am loathe to just throw money at every ask or even every third ask. Some people are getting very wealthy and they are just mercenaries. The money is there but is it akin o trickle down?
NotoriousJRT
@John Cole:
I agree
Ryan
Also too, Hillary won more votes.