A thread for Democrats Only

POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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SECOND

Sunday, April 22, 2018 8:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Debunking the myth that “identity politics” is bad for the Democratic Party

Followed by about 8 paragraphs that did no such thing.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I would guess that you did not read the article. I will quote it:

The push for racial justice was a bottom-up movement, not a misstep by elites
www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/16/17242748/identity-politics-racial-j
ustice-democratic-party-lilla-traub-trump

African Americans, the CIO, and other urban liberals fostered a new understanding of “liberalism” in which support for civil rights was a key marker of one’s identity as a liberal. Ordinary voters, too, came to link racial and economic liberalism: By the early ’40s, Northern Democratic voters were substantially more likely to back key civil rights initiatives than were Republicans.

Grassroots African-American activists played a critical role in tightening these connections. Capitalizing on the mobilization for World War II, they pushed Fair Employment Practices legislation — to prevent racial discrimination in employment — onto the political agenda. The Fair Employment Practices Committee soon became a core element of the “liberal program.”

The energy and activism that propelled the Democratic Party in the 1940s and beyond came from this new coalition, which gradually captured the formal party organization, despite the reluctance of most top party leaders. The Democrats’ endorsement of civil rights in 1948, and beyond, was not a matter of elites steering the people the wrong way. It was the product of a long-term, cross-racial movement that viewed civil rights as integral to the liberal program — and the labor program.

The “identity politics” argument assumes that racial justice ultimately brought down the liberal project. But this gets the history almost backward. Indeed, much of the moral fervor that fed the liberal project in the 1940s came precisely from its linkage to the cause of racial justice.

The bitter response to this program forged a clear division in which Southern conservatives were identified on one side and African Americans, unions, Jews, and other urban liberals on the other. Where Traub and others think this division was the product of liberals’ shift in focus from white workers to African Americans, racial backlash was sown into the attack on the New Deal almost from the beginning (just as cross-racial solidary was assumed by many of its supporters).

Lessons for today’s Democrats

Contemporary liberals are once again confronted with the challenge of forging a politics in which reformers seeking progress for particular groups do not see themselves as isolated advocates but instead as part of a broader ideological coalition with common aims and shared enemies.

The biggest obstacle to such a coalition today is the decline of organized labor, which played a critical role in forging the expansive New Deal liberalism that took hold in the 1930s. But this decline is rooted not in a post-1965 reaction against civil rights; instead, it can be traced to the alliance between Southern Democrats and Republicans nationally that made crushing unions a top priority from the late 1930s onward.

What the cross-racial liberal vision put forward by the CIO and its African-American allies suggests is that movements for economic justice can derive vitality from attending to the identities and interests of marginalized groups.

New Deal liberalism was, in part, identity politics. Appeals to identity — whether by farmers, veterans, workers, or immigration opponents — have always been a potent political force. The main difference is that, unlike previous versions of identity politics in the US, the identity politics of the New Deal era was not limited to white Americans.

The lesson of the New Deal coalition for liberals today is not that they should turn away from appeals to the identities of particular groups. Instead, liberalism is at its strongest when its advocate

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, April 23, 2018 12:17 AM

Oh good. You followed up with another 15 paragraphs that did no such thing.

Thanks for wasting my time twice in one morning.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, April 23, 2018 2:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Oh good. You followed up with another 15 paragraphs that did no such thing.

Thanks for wasting my time twice in one morning.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Didn't you fall for the redefining of Slavers, anti-Freedom, anti-Liberty, anti-Emancipation, anti-Civil Rights Southerners as "Conservatives" already? We must accept that all reasonable people from Lincoln to Dirksen must have been those Progressives working to remove Liberty and Freedom from The Constitution.

No wonder he dislikes reasonable people, when he redefines Democrat Socialist Progressives as "Conservatives".

1KIKI

Monday, April 23, 2018 3:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
justice for all

Justice for all. Even whites. Even white males. Even fly-over country.

Justice for all. Excluding no one. Favoring no one. Equal and universal. Uplifting all with efforts to improve all lives. Understanding that justice isn't making sure we're all equally-armed in the Roman arena of the war of all against all in the need for work, where nobody wins except business. Instead, binding us with our common concern and the power of masses, to change our common relationship with government and business.

If the democrats got behind that, I could get behind the democrats.

So anyway ... anyone up for a rational, fact-based, and civil discussion about the topic?

SECOND

Monday, April 23, 2018 4:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Oh good. You followed up with another 15 paragraphs that did no such thing.

Thanks for wasting my time twice in one morning.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ixStringJack, you have been given by 1kiki a lofty and inspiring explanation. Another, by Thomas Piketty: “without a strong egalitarian-internationalist platform, it is difficult to unite low-education, low-income voters from all origins within the same party.” Because I am crude, I’ll explain "identity politics" crudely: White trash think that dividing money equally with people they despise will mean far less money for white trash. But the white trash of America will never get the money they think they deserve unless Mexicans, niggers, queers and women also get a much bigger share of the wealth. I am in the sweet position of a wealthy person where I can tell the white trash that their understanding of how America works is erroneous. I don’t expect they will understand their error, but that’s great for me. The choice is between getting almost nothing more for anyone but the already wealthy or else everyone gets more, that is everyone except rich people. Wealthy people like me will get far less because they will be paying more taxes and paying higher minimum wages. You might have noticed that higher taxes and higher wages are not on the political agenda. That is a clever choice made by the wealthy – to never pay extra until they absolutely must.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

1KIKI

Monday, April 23, 2018 5:01 AM

Quote:
White trash think that dividing money equally with people they despise will mean far less money for white trash. But the white trash of America will never get the money they think they deserve unless Mexicans, niggers, queers and women also get a much bigger share of the wealth.

It's not true that one group will prosper only if other groups prosper, which is the only argument in favor of identity politics.

That argument is the fallacy of identity politics. Through it we are being played by identity politics into an unstated zero-sum game. The notion is that it's OK to be pitted against each other for survival, as long as the fight is FAIR. But it doesn't matter how FAIRLY we are judged in the arena. There will be the winners at the expense of the losers. If some groups rise it will be because other groups fall. It's still the same zero-sum game.

Democrats - or some new party that rises up out of the ashes - need to specifically reject the notion that people being FAIRLY pitted against each other for survival is the end goal.

The end goal should be to raise us all up. Together.

So anyway ... anyone up for a rational, fact-based, and civil discussion about the topic?

SECOND

Monday, April 23, 2018 5:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
White trash think that dividing money equally with people they despise will mean far less money for white trash. But the white trash of America will never get the money they think they deserve unless Mexicans, niggers, queers and women also get a much bigger share of the wealth.
It's not true that one group will prosper only if other groups prosper, which is the only argument in favor of identity politics.

That argument is the fallacy of identity politics. Through it we are being played by identity politics into an unstated zero-sum game. The notion is that it's OK to be pitted against each other for survival, as long as the fight is FAIR. But it doesn't matter how FAIRLY we are judged in the arena. There will be the winners at the expense of the losers. If some groups rise it will be because other groups fall. It's still the same zero-sum game.

Democrats - or some new party that rises up out of the ashes - need to specifically reject the notion that people being FAIRLY pitted against each other for survival is the end goal.

The end goal should be to raise us all up. Together.

The zero-sum game that should be played is the one where the wealthy lose to everyone poorer. But that is not the game that Congress will allow to be played. At one time Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act which was targeted at the wealthy. That act hasn't been enforced in decades, which is extremely advantageous for the wealthy and harmful to the poor. There is a half trillion dollars in uncollected taxes from the wealthy each year. That is also to the advantage of the wealthy and disadvantage of the poor. Congress is not providing the IRS with more tax auditors to prevent this cheating. There is a consumer protection agency that does not enforce rules that cheat poor people who borrow. This cheating will make rich people even richer. All this cheating can go on for the advantage of the wealthy because the lower classes hate each other and fight with each other rather than with Congress and the Wealthy.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, April 23, 2018 5:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Oh good. You followed up with another 15 paragraphs that did no such thing.

Thanks for wasting my time twice in one morning.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
6ixStringJack, you have been given by 1kiki a lofty and inspiring explanation. Another, by Thomas Piketty: “without a strong egalitarian-internationalist platform, it is difficult to unite low-education, low-income voters from all origins within the same party.” Because I am crude, I’ll explain "identity politics" crudely: White trash think that dividing money equally with people they despise will mean far less money for white trash. But the white trash of America will never get the money they think they deserve unless Mexicans, niggers, queers and women also get a much bigger share of the wealth. I am in the sweet position of a wealthy person where I can tell the white trash that their understanding of how America works is erroneous. I don’t expect they will understand their error, but that’s great for me. The choice is between getting almost nothing more for anyone but the already wealthy or else everyone gets more, that is everyone except rich people. Wealthy people like me will get far less because they will be paying more taxes and paying higher minimum wages. You might have noticed that higher taxes and higher wages are not on the political agenda. That is a clever choice made by the wealthy – to never pay extra until they absolutely must.

lol. You're too funny Second.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

1KIKI

Monday, April 23, 2018 5:37 AM

Who is supposed to benefit from the existence of society? Corporations, or people? When you answer that question you'll be able to make a straightforward argument.

So anyway ... anyone up for a rational, fact-based, and civil discussion about the topic?

SECOND

Monday, April 23, 2018 5:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Who is supposed to benefit from the existence of society? Corporations, or people? When you answer that question you'll be able to make a straightforward argument.

Everybody benefits, but some have their benefits increasing every year, while others get approximately the same as they always have -- the smallest amount that they will accept before they leave the slums of Beverly Hills and start burning down the mansions of Brentwood.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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