White people and the Democratic Party
Commenter “Concept Junkie” makes this interesting point about identity politics and today’s Democratic Party:
I think the Democrats have put themselves in a box in that they’d look like hypocrites nominating a white male. This limits their list of qualified candidates significantly. Oh, wait, “qualified” is rarely a consideration. Regardless, by becoming the anti-white and anti-male party, they are hurting themselves.
That got me to wondering whether it’s true.
Actually, I believe that the Democrats would have no trouble nominating a white male if they chose to do so—although I also doubt they’ll choose to do so. But if they did, they’d just re-label him a non-white male, as they’ve somehow been doing with Beto O’Rourke. Alternatively, they’ll just point out how he’s a “woke” white male who has renounced and/or confessed to his white male privilege and is atoning for it by running on a platform of championing diversity and undoing that privilege by which he’s benefited.
It’s not that difficult, really—and, as I pointed out in this post, Democratic voters don’t have much trouble with hypocrites: the left is all about holding power and getting “progressive” things done and saying what is necessary to do so.
What about Concept Junkie’s second point, that the Democrats have hurt themselves by positioning themselves as anti-white and anti-male? I wonder; I’m just not sure.
Even prior to their overt embrace of anti-white-male rhetoric, Democrats had a lock on the black vote and to a great extent the Hispanic vote. I doubt that their stance on white males would impact that negatively. Nor has it seemed to have had much (or any) negative effect on the Jewish vote—the Democratic segment of which is about 2/3 of the total Jewish vote and consists to a large extent of secular Jews (although Jews are such a small group they hardly matter in terms of numbers, but they do form a disproportionate percentage of donors to the Democratic Party).
There are a bunch of charts at this link illustrating the changes in voter patterns from the 80s till now based on demographics. It’s quite informative. In general, the leftward/Democratic trend in most groups has been pretty strong in all groups, although men in each group are consistently less left than women, even among fairly monolithically Democratic groups such as black voters. The only group solidly to the right (men and women, although men more so) are whites. And whites are a smaller and smaller percentage of voters as time goes on.
Whites also—unlike many other ethnic groups—do not vote as a solid bloc. There are many liberal whites males, for example, who support the anti-white anti-male stance of the current Democratic Party. What’s more, young people have in recent decades been steeped in anti-white anti-male rhetoric through a host of influences, starting with education and continuing in popular culture and the press. An enormous number of young white people are on board with this. So far I haven’t been able to find a breakdown of youth voting patterns by race, so I don’t know how white voters under 30 have been voting, but the preference for Democrats among voters under 30 is so huge and pronounced that I’d be surprised if white males under 30 weren’t part of it (and note, if you read that link, that voters under 30 accounted in large part for the Democratic victory in the House in 2018).
Democrats long ago decided to case their lot with identity politics. That certainly paid off during the Obama years in terms of political power in the federal government. I’m not sure that the Republican victory in 2016 on the national level (presidency and legislature) represents a long-lasting reversal for the Democrats, as the 2018 midterms showed. If Republicans hold their own in 2020 I think the argument that Democrats have hurt themselves will be stronger, however.
I do think that on the more local (state) level, there definitely has been a general trend toward the right. Whether that has anything to do with a reaction to the anti-male anti-white stance of the Democratic Party I don’t know, but it’s certainly possible.
I’m also not sure the Democrats have a coherent message except for racial and gender identity politics: we are the nice people, the ones who care, and the GOP are the bigots. There don’t seem to be any winning alternatives, so they may as well stick with it.
One of the best books by the brilliant David Horowitz, published some twenty years ago, is entitled Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes. Since then, the situation on the left has continued to deteriorate to the point at which, now, antipathy towards the paleface is the very height of “wokeness.”
I’m not sure the country is on a course that will result in a United States that we would recognize in 50 years. Maybe 30.
First, the “Progressives” have no idea about how long the deficit can be ignored until the economy crashes and we have national bankruptcy. The die was probably cast in the 90s when the GOP Congress stole the Social Security surplus from the working Baby Boomers to “balance the budget.”
Maybe I’m too pessimistic but I see few signs of sanity. Trump is very alone.
Diversity or color judgments, “Jew”… “White” privilege, selective-child, and warlock hunts/trials. [unqualified] Progress.
Mike K, how well would most crystal balls have done projecting today from where they sat 50 years ago?
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/images/content_image/data/25/259453b76da717221f17350b2822559d.png
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/images/content_image/data/d5/d5a845cbb6ebbcc41c063f85403f7d9a.png
From 1968, the trends went down for a couple years. But then American enterprise reasserted itself. Results pretty good.
Past performance not predictive of future results. [Note: may be hard to have another 50 years with a record like this!]
Wow. Thanks for the detailed response, Neo. 🙂 This is why I read you almost every day, and have for 10 years or more.
You raised a lot of important factors, including the fact that the education system is instilling bias in kids as they grow up (I’ve seen that in some of my kids, but not all). Then there’s the MSM, which doesn’t have the monopoly they had 30-40 years ago, but have gone so far over the edge. I recall hearing the editor of Newsweek being quoted in 2004 that he believed the press in the U.S. accounted for a 15% swing in favor of the Democrats. In terms of politics, that was a lifetime ago.
The Democrats’ message is definitely vacuous these days, but then again, the Republicans’ message is often vacuous as well. Some Republicans have a lot of good ideas, but they are rarely good at expressing them, and they don’t have the press doing all the legwork for them.
I think you are right, though. 2020 will tell us if this turnaround is a blip or a trend. I wouldn’t hazard a guess at which way it will go. I am reminded of Kurt Schlichter’s “Conservative Insurgency”, which, for people who haven’t read it, was written in a form of a documentary in the 2040s detailing how conservatives came to ascendancy. (Spoiler: Things get much worse before they gets better.) I think his scenario is possible, but perhaps not likely.
I am with Mike K, I am now certain that I have a good chance of living long enough to see interest payments on the federal debt exceed entitlements. When that happens Yates’ “center” will not only not hold, it will unravel.
Neo:
“I’m also not sure the Democrats have a coherent message except for racial and gender identity politics: we are the nice people, the ones who care, and the GOP are the bigots.”
They have two other messages that are effective and will be used. Healthcare as a right is one. The House probably turned Democrat in 2018 because they effectively used the health care issue – especially pre-existing conditions. That was used effectively here in Washington State to turn a reliably GOP district to a Democrat win.
The other message is Climate Change. Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee, is going to run for President on that platform. The carbon tax measure that failed in Washington State is going to be introduced in Congress. My local rag runs a Climate Change propaganda piece about once a week. They are grooming the population to believe that Climate Change is an existential crisis. and that we must stop using fossil fuels. Watch for that issue to be pushed more and more as we move toward the 2020 election. (Inslee will not be nominated. If he is, they will lose.)
Unless the GOP can counter those issues with cogent ideas and plans, 2020 could be a good year for Democrats.
How many have called their Senators and Reps about the border wall issue? Call and urge them to get the wall built. Trump is working hard to get it done. He needs our help. Just do it!
J.J.;
Good points.
The healthcare message and climate message are good ones to run on. However, when either is actually implemented, the financial pain and restrictions are likely to cause a backlash.
Under universal health care I would not have had my knee replacement last February. Too old. CO2 climate change is ridiculous and they refuse to make their computer models public. So far the polar regions are not ice free, polar bears continue to breed, seas are not rising to drown Central Park and Seattle, etc. I doubt 50.1 % of voters give a damn. Unless 50.1% are brainwashed, those 2 issues are kaput.
The die was probably cast in the 90s when the GOP Congress stole the Social Security surplus from the working Baby Boomers to “balance the budget.”
Social Security taxes are invested in Treasury issues. They always have been.
I was talking with someone recently about “what is white?” In response to some statistic that in 2042 “whites” will be the minority in the US.
What is “white”?
A hundred years ago, in the US, Italians and Jews were not considered “white.” Now, not only are Ashkenazim, but also Sephardim and Mizrahim called* “white” while Middle Eastern and North African moslems are considered* “people of color.” Latinos/Hispanics vary — remember George Zimmerman was called a “white Hispanic?” Alexandria Ocasio-Nutjob is a “woman of color,” while my Sicilian uncle, who was darker and spoke with a heavy accent, was considered* “white.” Georgians (from the country, not the state) and Armenians get called* “white” while Chechens and Azeribaijanis are considered* “people of color.” Rashida Tlaibi is a “woman of color,” but what so they* say up blondie Ahed Tamimi?
And then… When does “blackness” fade? Are Rashida Jones’s children “black” even though they have only one mostly black grandparent (who had white ancestors)? Quincy Delight Jones III is Swedish. If he marries a fellow Swede who’s blond, will their children be “black”? What about their grandchildren? (Look at Dumas fils and let me know.)
Identity politics gets the woke people tied up on knots. (They have so much in common with the Nazis and the racists who focused on “octoroons” who were obsessed with fractions of “racial” make up.)
(* — Note: the people considering and calling people “white” or “people of color” are the PC police, the woke, the identity politicians, etc.)
A white male married to a “woman of color”, such as NYC’s de blasio would be okay.
It’s even worse. It’s now down to, “I’m White, therefore I shouldn’t exist.” Watch these people.
Great comment, Lee. As always with the left the issue is never the issue, it’s just a means to gain power. When they want portray white people as old and fading then Hispanics are POC. When Zimmerman turned out to be Hispanic instead of Jewish they came up with a term they had never used before, “white Hispanic”.
Mike K:
I don’t get this. Deficit spending seriously increased under Trump. No?
Instead of me elaborating, perhaps you could explain first.
The thing about identity politics that always confuses me is why Democrats are able to benefit from it. They have the black vote in Chicago, for example, but are black Chicagoans better off after having voted D for decades? It would not appear that way. And we have all heard what the minority unemployment figures are under Trump — better than they’ve ever been, in some cases. But the Democrats still took the House. I just don’t get it. Saying you care is worth more votes than showing through policies that you care.
On the topic of crystal balls, I think we are still living with the consequences of World War I. Long story but “Whig progress” pretty much ended with that. Our post World War II prosperity was based on Europe being destroyed and Asia not yet being engaged in the modern world, except Japan which was also destroyed.
Deficit spending seriously increased under Trump. No?
Instead of me elaborating, perhaps you could explain first.
Obama doubled the national debt. Trump is alone in Washington with the Ruling Class being composed of both parties. The GOP Congress could have done something but it has been useless since Hastert became Speaker. Ryan was not as obviously corrupt but no improvement. Trump dopes not write spending bills. Your concept of Civics has been shaky before.
You might read Codevilla’s essay, “The Ruling Class,” if you are interested. I’m not sure you are.
Art Deco, I grant that the bulge in the SS Trust Fund in the 90s was a dilemma to invest. In fact, it was spent.
Deficit spending seriously increased under Trump. No? –Manju
Trump budgeting has gone the wrong direction. But the big deficits occurred under Obama. Obama’s best year, F2016, was still worse than Bush’s worst year, F2008. A very clear picture in here: https://www.briefing.com/Investor/Calendars/Economic/Releases/budget.htm
As for the future, rising rates are costing an extra $100 billion this year, but Trump has issued some cost-cutting measures. Perhaps Democrats in the House will bring out some more serious efforts from the President.