Dear Identity Politics: please die.

Discussion in 'Politics' started by ElectricFetus, Jan 10, 2017.

  1. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Consider reading this piece "The End of Identity Liberalism by Mark Lilla in the New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html?_r=0

    Mark makes a simple call to action:

    "We need a post-identity liberalism, and it should draw from the past successes of pre-identity liberalism. Such a liberalism would concentrate on widening its base by appealing to Americans as Americans and emphasizing the issues that affect a vast majority of them. It would speak to the nation as a nation of citizens who are in this together and must help one another. As for narrower issues that are highly charged symbolically and can drive potential allies away, especially those touching on sexuality and religion, such a liberalism would work quietly, sensitively and with a proper sense of scale. (To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms.)"

    What happen to the democrats of 2008, what happened to the democrats who cried at Obama's one America speech? what happened to the issues we wanted of single payer healthcare, of progressive taxation, of higher minimum wage, etc, we have lost all of that now. Because we lost focus, because we focused on other problems that only divide voters rather then unify them. Call the majority of voters racist sexist misogynist and that is what your going to get for president.

    Further reading: www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/19/1601739/-Examining-The-End-of-Identity-Liberalism-NY-Times

    "What matters in the long run is our ability to craft a unifying platform to counter this wave of white nationalism spreading around the Western world which America too just elected into office. I don’t think we can do this by doubling down on our divisive approaches to identity politics who’s litany of reprisals left people frustrated by ever evolving social faux pas and numb to trivialized conceptions of racism and sexism. Worse yet it’s readily exploited by these new movements with demagogic identity threat narratives of their own appealing to whites left out by the left as a identity group unworthy of protection from others. Every time we fixate on some minority in danger they double down on the (post-truth) threat to the (white) majority they represent."

    But here is hits the game plan we must reacquire:

    "The politics of “privilege” ought be reserved for class arguments where the shoe fits without extensive education in social theories or historic contextualization. In the end class divides are we’re really focused on when it comes to disadvantaged ethnic minorities. Hyper focus on just their exceptional circumstances is certainly justified but ultimately ineffective politically. Compassion and concern can’t be exclusive to a select few minorities or women who are a demographic majority."

    We must return to class issues, not race issues, not gender issues, not transsexual bathrooms but how we are going to get good jobs to the middle class, reduce their debt, pay off their medical bills. It is rather probable the republicans will repeal ACA implement nothing viable to replace it and leave dozens millions with nothing, it not going to be hard for us to point out the coming failures of the republican domination, of course we can only ruin that by going on and on about BLM instead.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2017
    Russ_Watters and Dr_Toad like this.
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Fuck that. We won't compromise on trans rights or the separation between church and government just to court some bigoted assholes.
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Why in hell is this plea directed at "liberals"? The Republican Party has been the primary employer of identity politics for a generation now.

    If you want to get rid of identity politics, you have to defeat it at the polls - the Republicans are going to use it as long as it works.
    "Return" to the lefty politics of exactly who, and when?

    And how are you going to address "class" issues without addressing race and gender issues? The current political division of the American working class is largely on race and gender lines, as per longtime Republican Party strategy. That's how the Dems have been getting beat. You plan to ignore that?

    Last week you were arguing that the people like me should be banished from the Democratic Party. Now you say you want the whole Democratic Party establishment to convert to our way of doing things.
    That wasn't the "left", doing that.

    And nothing any currently confused purveyors of the bullshit concept of "identity liberalism" decides the Dems should do is going to prevent the rightwing corporate authoritarian dominated media currently in thrall to the Republican nameless-faction propaganda operations from lying and slandering.

    Why do you suppose these writers are blaming the "left" for what the rightwing Democratic Party faction that took control of the Party under Bill Clinton deliberately and overtly set out to do and did, along with the lies and slanders the Nameless Republican media operations spread around?

    The political faction least responsible for, and least devoted to, "identity politics" in America, is the libertarian left.
     
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  7. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah and? So? They have the klan so we should have one too?

    This is such a horrible come back, I point at real actionable changes: rise the minimum wage, get us universal healthcare, pay of education debt... and your reply is what about race and gender? That is exactly the kind of response that lost us the election.

    No no your not blaming the republicans for all of this, not when just above you wanted to make this race and gender issue. It is people like you that helped: you helped divide people up into smaller groups for the republicans to conquer, you HELPED them.

    Yes and?

    Steve Bannon and you have so much in common.

    So your saying this writer is some republican stooge?

    libertarian left... yeah well I'm, not talking about the "libertarian left" or is that what you are calling your self now?[/quote][/quote]
     
  8. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    So you want to lose than and let those bigoted assholes control everything? There is no compromise here by the way, it is simply a matter of focusing on issues that we can all agree on, a majority of Americans want to rise the minimum wage, want to better healthcare, want better education, we could have won with that and tactfully and got trans rights after the election. You honestly think if the party does not constantly proclaim it they aren't actually for it and working for it behind the scenes? Look at how Obama and Hillary were on gay marriage in 2008 and before, do you honestly think republicans would have "evolved" on that issue?

    From: http://www.npr.org/2016/11/25/50331...mocrats-need-to-move-beyond-identity-politics

    LILLA: To take one example, I mean, the whole issue of bathrooms and gender - in this particular election, when the stakes were so high, the fact that Democrats and liberals, more generally, lost a lot of political capital on this issue that frightened people. People were misinformed about certain things, but it was really a question of where young people would be going to the bathroom and where they would be in lockers. Is that really the issue we want to be pushing leading up to a momentous election like this one? It's that shortsightedness that comes from identity politics.


    INSKEEP: I'm just imagining some of your fellow liberals being rather angry at you saying such a thing.


    LILLA: Well, those are the liberals who don't want to win. Those are the liberals who are in love with noble defeats, and I'm sick and tired of noble defeats. I prefer a dirty victory to a noble defeat. The president who did the most for black Americans in 20th century history was Lyndon Johnson, and he got his hands dirty by dealing with Southern senators, Southern congressmen, horse trading with them, cajoling them, learning what not to talk about. And he got civil rights passed and Great Society programs. That should be the model. Get over yourself.


    INSKEEP: Do you oppose transgender rights, or simply...


    LILLA: Oh, my God, no.


    INSKEEP: ...Oppose talking about them in the way that people have been talking about them?


    LILLA: No, it's a question of emphasis. The fact that - I mean, these are things to be talked about. You can't do anything without educating the public, right? And that's a slow work.

     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    We should not direct our complaints about Klan influence against the people who fought it.
    No, it's not. You seem to think you can get "real actionable changes" in the minimum wage, universal healthcare, and educational debt, without dealing with the major obstacles you face in obtaining those fine things: that would include racism and sexism, and the politicians elected on their basis.
    Either that, or you think these obstacles being employed so effectively by the Republican Party will vanish if Democrats unilaterally quit talking or thinking about them. You're talking like you have a choice, in the US, about whether or not to deal with racism in a national political campaign.
    Nonsense. The Republican Party did that, with the cooperation of the Clinton Democratic Party establishment. We fought both of those factions, in proper turn.
    And they did it long ago - the Republicans conquered no new groups in this election.
    We didn't invent race and gender, and we didn't make them issues coordinated against Democrats. The Republicans did - race starting in 1968, gender somewhat later and less clearly demarcated.
    I think he's handing you the current Democratic Party establishment line, deflecting blame and defending the old guard of civilization against the lefty idealists and barbarians, using the vocabulary and issue framing inculcated by the Nameless media manipulators. This isn't the first time the Democratic Party establishment has used the latest misfortune to justify the latest purge of yet more lefties and leftist thinking from the D Party. Hubert Humphrey set that trend in motion nationally in 1968, after finding success with the approach in his home State early in his career.
    We both know how the Republicans are winning?
    Like this:
    Note that few Dems (and almost no leftwing Dems) "pushed" that issue - the Nameless and their pet media, including Steve Bannon's wing of it, did. They told lies and slandered and blew it up to mountain size as much as they could, and the Clinton Dems didn't know what to do or say in response -

    and they didn't know how to handle the issue in part because they had banished the lefty issues along with the lefty people from the campaign. If memory serves, the geniuses at Democratic command central didn't want to engage in "class warfare".

    Like your guy Lilla said, as Bannon&Co proved: it's a question of emphasis. And whoever has the most media leverage controls the emphasis.
    You have no idea what you're talking about - you're just repeating media bs vocabulary originally planted by Republican media manipulations.

    Meanwhile, "libertarian left" or "left libertarian" is a term people like me have used for ourselves and each other for a long time now - for decades, in my case. It's virtue is that it's accurate. I've noticed it's become more common since "liberal" was trashed. Learn it, use it, it will help you think.
     
  10. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Recently I had Foxtel installed. Apart from great British shows there are an abundance of American news channels.

    Often the subject of division of America is broached. I find it puzzling when during the discussions someone will declare themselves to be an AfricanAmerican.

    I know my knowledge of geography is weak so I went to my trusty wall mounted National Geography map of the world.

    Nowhere could I find this country called AfricaAmerica.

    Appears to me many in the land of the Stars and Stripes are inflicting the division on themselves.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  11. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Those bigoted assholes already control everything... and with some of the latest actions they are preparing to take, I honestly don't believe there will be enough of a country left to salvage by the next election.
     
  12. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    The Klan is a tiny nothing now, get over it.

    How is racism and sexism the obstacles in the way of upping minimum wage for example.

    I like these weasel words here "conquered no new groups", nice, how about they made gains, they got back a one or two million voters that had voted for obama, twice, in key states that cost us the presidential election. Because white former factory workers in ohio don't give a fuck about transgender bathrooms, proper pronouns, their racial privilege, etc.

    Race started in 1968... you have just blown my mind. Maybe you mean the idea of a unified white race began after the second world war, before there was the Irish race, the German race, the Polish race, etc,


    A bernie supporter? And he is a puppet of the "Nameless media manipulators", Hubert Humphrey... Jesus you live in a world a conspiracy just like Alex Jones only ideological flipped!

    What a fucking tin foil hat world do you live in? I was listening about it on NPR, Obama made presidential statements about, presidential executive order, blocked by judges, you can go on the internet and find people of every kind of political leaning putting in there 2 cents about it. Here is what should have happend: Obama should not have signed that order then, right before a major election we don't need to rally the stupid and the theological against transgender people! We needed to focus on the issues that would give us the most traction with the most people, and that was economic reforms for the middle class, right after you have won the election, that is when you run an executive order on transgender bathrooms! Remember how back before the election Obama and Hillary were against gay marriage, then by 2012 they had filliped, I mean "evolved"? There chances of winning in 2008 would have been lower had then they been openly for gay marriage.

    The establishment of the democratic party is a whole other issue from you and your ilk, their primary concern is keeping their jobs and keeping the donor gravy train running, I'm not going to join forces with you and your ilk to overthrow them.

    Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz are plants "by Republican media manipulations"? Yeah well I'm going to call you "regressive left" and I don't care if republicans use that word to (actually they just say "the left")
     
  13. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    That Obama never existed except in a small handful of speeches...or, perhaps more directly, like a hidden landmine in the use of the word "UFO" or the fact that a "safe space" is really "a safe space for liberal indoctrination", the real meaning of such speeches is hidden in plain view and it isn't what it looks like at face value: the unity and inclusiveness only starts when "my" group has taken enough from my enemy --- which is to say, never.

    I agree that what is needed in this country is true/classical liberalism, with real freedom of speech/expression, real equality of opportunity, etc., but the modern Democratic party has never, that I can see, been about such things -- at least dating back 50+ years.

    Identity politics is the main philosophy of the Democratic party. It is about fighting for the rights/priveleges of one group while pulling down another. In the 1960s, with the civil rights movement, fighting and unfair-to-make-it-fair treatment was needed, but the pendulum has swung in the other direction and the core philosophy is what continues to drive it. Trouble is, that while in the 1960s they could rightfully claim righteousness, today it is bigotry.
     
  14. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    5,051
    Give it time. The question for Hillary was: do you want to be right/righteous or do you want to be President? For the past 8 years, liberals believed they could have both and they are still reeling from their election loss and loath to accept the fact that they couldn't have both in the way they wanted. It will take time for the shock to fade, but for anyone politically minded, the real answer is they want their party in power.

    A lot of what makes the pendulum swing back and forth is that more ideologically driven people use the opportunity when they get into power to drive their ideology and forget that they need broad support to stay in power....or even become deluded into thinking their election win means the furthest extreme of their ideology has that broad support when it doesn't. Obama was elected in part because he tricked people into thinking he cared about broad support. Hillary lost in part because she didn't think she needed to.
     
  15. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    You know what Russ, instead of telling you to fuck off, could you argue with iceaura instead? That would be great.
     
  16. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    Iceaura is generally too incoherent to hold a discussion with. I thought from your OP that you were interested in calm/reasonable/rational discussion. Guess I was wrong. Carry on with your flaming each other over things you largely agree on. :boggle:
     
  17. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Is there a subtle implication here that the Republican party is, somehow, the party of "classical liberalism, with real freedom of speech/expression, real equality of opportunity, etc."? Or are you merely pointing out the obvious (that both parties have utterly failed America as a whole)?
     
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  18. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Well I don't see anything in your comments we can have a discussion about, you and iceaura appear to be mirrors of each other in your rambling so I figured you could get along better. Maybe Kittamaru's take would be a point of progress for a discussion.
     
  19. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    No, I was speaking only abut the Democratic Party and making no comment on implication about the Republicans. Also, putting the word in quotes implies you aren't familiar with it. Here is a primer:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

    As relates to this thread, identity politics replaces true individual rights/freedoms with thir view of a common (social) good. "AND EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES IS RACIST ASSHOLES!"; Freedom be damned.
     
  20. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah ok I don't disagree with anything there. Although I feel its more along the lines of "you disagree with me ergo you are a racist, sexist, evil, we must prevent you from speaking or existing" Tiassa is a perfect example of that. Identity politics is really just cover for bullies who want to claim they are righteous in their bullying.

    It just everything you said before was iceaura level absurd just inverted in political opinion.
     
  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    And deaths from measles and smallpox are a tiny nothing now. Should we "get over it" and not get worked up over anti-vaxxers?
     
  22. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Anti-vaxxers are a bigger problem now than the klan is presently, considering anti-vaxxers, not the klan, now runs the presidency. But yes bring up hate crimes committed by whites in the past to preach racial injustice now has helped hand the presidency to republicans and what ever elder nightmare trump is.
     
  23. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    This is possibly the most bizarre response to what billvon wrote that I can imagine.

    Please, read over billvon's response again, and rethink what you just wrote.
     

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