The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    What Liberals Get Wrong About Identity Politics

    By rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/13/2018 - 12:26pm |

    A group of black feminists met in the mid1970s to address issues that felt were being ignored by white feminists, and black, mostly male-led, Civil Rights organizations. They called themselves the Combahee River Collective. .In 1977, the group issued a statement 

    In 1977, the group issued “A Black Feminist Statement,”the culmination of their work to clarify their politics, “while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements.” They made clear that they were “actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression” and that they saw “Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.” Having found that other groups—including the civil rights, black power, and feminist movements—were lacking in their approach to ending the oppression of black women and women of color, the collective wrote: “We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation is us. ... This focusing on our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially the most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.

    https://newrepublic.com/article/144739/liberals-get-wrong-identity-politics

    The focus on their own oppression does sound selfish. However there is more included in the statement 

     “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”

     

    Reviewing the statement t

    The original intent of identity politics was articulating black women’s struggle at the nexus of race, gender, sexual, and class oppressions, and then forming strategies for dismantling each of these, both in black feminist spaces and in coalition with other groups.

    Identity is the place to understand what forms of oppression are operating within your own life. From here, coalitions can be built with others who face similar forms of oppression, so long as it is also understood that oppression is not experienced the same across identities. This is where intersectionality, the theory developed by black feminist scholar and activist Kimberlé Crenshaw, is useful. It helps us to understand that class oppression will look different for those who also exist at the intersection of marginalized race, gender, and sexual identities. Any coalition worth forming has to take stock of those differences or suffer an agenda that is insufficient to liberating all people.

     

    In another article discussion of identity politics, the following is noted.

    Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, a professor of political science and chair of the gender-studies department at the University of Southern California, tells me that identity politics, in the scholarly sense, has to do with a politics of activism and engagement “that is focused on the fact that people of certain identities have specific experiences that marginalize them or prevent them from otherwise being treated equally in society.”

    In this way, Hancock says, the fight for LGBTQ equality, the women’s rights movement and the civil rights movement were all, in some form, identity politics movements. It’s not a worldview, she adds, as much as it is a tool to exact very specific political and social gains.

    What defines identity politics now is its focus on intersectionality, on multiple identities and how they inform the way Americans experience things like debt, employment, housing and policing. Advocates of identity politics would point out that intersectionality informs a class discussion, rather than detracts from it.

    Also

    Part of the pushback against identity politics has been the emergence of the “alt-right”—Nazis and neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, white nationalists and white supremacists. White nationalists, in particular, whose foundational belief is that white people are under attack in this country, both in terms of population and power, practice a fun-house-mirror version of identity politics. Because they operate from a place of assumed disenfranchisement, of assumed oppression, one could argue that those groups fit the definition of identity politics.

    This is different from simply being white and loving Donald Trump because he’s angry about the same white things you are. (As The Root’s Michael Harriot might write, that’s just white supremacy.)

    Either way, the liberal argument that all of identity politics needs to be abandoned simply because certain white people have violently co-opted it isn’t a compelling argument, according to professor Hancock. “All tools are co-optable,” she points out

    https://www.theroot.com/it-s-time-to-reclaim-identity-politics-1820269813

    Identity politics helps in determining solutions to common problems where a one size fits all approach may not work. 

    Comments

    Who are these "liberals" who are getting it wrong?
    I understand the right wing arguments that say that protest is about claiming privileges equal to others who are already privileged. And then complaining about special privileges given to who ever happens to be knocking on the door. They have been doing it for decades so it is pretty easy to track.
    I don't understand your statement that the same stew is being served by the Left. I get being pissed off at the Left for not bringing forward what has been promised in the past to get better. I get that the Left has problems with class consciousness that they have not owned up to.
    But I don't understand how the clear message that diversity is good is somehow secretly in cahoots with the other side.


    by moat on Thu, 09/13/2018 - 7:48pm

    After the Clinton loss in 2016, some Liberals called for a rejection of so-called identity politics. One key article was written by Mark Lilla in the NYT, “The End of Identity Liberalism “

    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html

     

    Edit to add:

    The concern about downplaying race, covers over the fact that multiple studies suggest race was a more powerful reason for Trump’s election than economic strife

    http://time.com/5388356/our-racist-soul/


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 09/14/2018 - 9:11am

    The two articles are about taking back the meaning of the term identity politics.. 

    Black identity politics does not mean that other groups can’t be supported 

    BLM commented when white teen Zachary Hammond was killed by police

    https://aplus.com/a/zachary-hammond-black-lives-matter?no_monetization=true

     

    AllLivesMatter was silent

     

     


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 09/14/2018 - 9:32am

    Except it doesn't matter because the same people unsympathetic to minorities are unsympathetic to crime and the accused. Their issue is more economic bereavement, that "the other" is getting ahead instead of them.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 09/14/2018 - 10:29am

    A WaPo article about Paul Ryan notes that Ryan hates identity politics, even though he benefitted from identity politics via the Tea Party

    The article note identity politics is common. Identity politics is neutral 

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/14/paul-ryan-retains-his-cynical-view-identity-politics-he-closes-his-congressional-career/?utm_term=.9d00eec60022

     

    As someone who writes and speaks about identity politics, I think Ryan’s take — that identity politics is “morally wrong” — is a bit of an overreaction to a reality that he himself has benefited from, and arguably stoked.

    I actually think identity politics is neutral. It is not good or bad. It just is.

    According to Dictionary.com, identity politics is “political activity or movements based on or catering to the cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, religious, or social interests that characterize a group identity.”

    Obviously, we can see how something like identity politics can be abused and perhaps that is what Ryan is referring to, but just because something can be abused and manipulated does not make it inherently wrong.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 09/14/2018 - 10:23am

    I believe the proof is in the pudding in that the actual fruits of identity politics as described in these links as a tool is Trump as president and a Republican Congress as well as things like a Breixit mess elsewhere. That's what it accomplished in the here and now

    And now in the U.S. in the here and now what is needed to rectify that is a "blue wave" where a majority of people set aside their identity issues to form a large enough coalition to work for what's called THE COMMON GOOD. After the common good is re-attained nationally and in state government, everyone can go back to push their tribal agendas on a local level and through attempts at culture-changing activities if they like.

    P.S. It behooves for all interested in this kind of discussion to keep in mind that in the U.S. female persons are not a minority but a majority.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/14/2018 - 3:48pm

    Trump would have been elected without identity politics because people who voted for Trump were concerned about a cultural shift. There was nothing blacks could no to pacify those voters. Multiple studies show that race was the major factor.

    Historically, the common good has been doing what the white folks wanted to do. Identity politics became a scapegoat after Hillary lost. Blacks were told to wait their turn while Democrats sought white votes. Blacks felt they had already waited their turn during the Obama administration. 

    Blacks responded to the repeated wait your turn suggestion with a letter sent to the DNC by black female activists demanding a seat at the table. There was a demand for Democratic outreach to black communities. There was also a demand for a seat at the table for those planning the women’s march. None of the folks arguing about the common good would have paid attention to these issues.

    Blacks turned out to help elect Democrats in special elections. They have been joined by a subset of white voters. There are 68 black women running for office in 2018.We have competitive candidates for Governor in Georgia and Florida. We have viable candidates in multiple House seats. The real common good is being served. The folks who are arguing for the old style white-centric common good want to go back to a failed process. The old common good was how Democrats lost seats.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 09/14/2018 - 4:15pm

    In your first paragraph you are basically saying that black identity politics did not cause a cultural shift and did not help blacks and has nothing to do with race.

    That's all I need to know.

    You're going to continue to argue that up is down and down is up and black is white and white is black and east and west are the same thing...For some reason you just like this wording "identity politics" and have no desire to let it have any specific meaning. Now I expect you will find a straw man, and start arguing nonsense like a character out of Alice in Wonderland. Please leave me out of it, I've said my piece and I am comfortable with it (though I do regret I even bothered) and realize that you are not willing to learn anything but will continue to cherry pick to confirm some strange idea of reality you have in your head which you cannot seem to logically communicate; hat tip to Peracles Please:

    'Mumpsimus': a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong https://t.co/ZxeSqVQr02

    — Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) September 13, 2018

     


    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/14/2018 - 4:57pm

    p.s. you need to identify this, let it sink in real good:

    If you're a voter in North Dakota, your vote is 26x more important in determining the fate of the Senate than the average American voter's. https://t.co/LUBG6Osgma pic.twitter.com/3xOhgi5LvI

    — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 12, 2018

    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/14/2018 - 5:18pm

    HOW THE IDENTITY POLITICS ARGUMENT AFFECTS A PARTY'S CHOICES

    By  @ Pacific Standard Magazine,  AUG 27, 2018

    I examined this using a survey experiment, and I wrote up the results for a paper that I'll be presenting this week at the annual convention of the American Political Science Association. Basically, I was interested in knowing whether the argument that Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential race due to "identity politics" changed voters' perceptions of the 2020 election. That is, I was curious if that argument caused voters to desire different sorts of candidates and a repositioning of the Democratic Party.

    I conducted a survey using Amazon's Mechanical Turk among a group of 803 participants, roughly half of whom were self-described Democrats or Democratic-leaning Independents

    [.....]

    The identity politics argument seems to have some effect on making Democrats, and voters in general, want a more conservative Democratic Party, and possibly advantages the white male candidates pursuing the presidency. How Democrats understand the last election, it seems, determines how the party prepares for the next one.

    Link to the full paper in 29-page PDF is here


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 12:59am


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 1:07am

    After seeing Cynthia Nixon fail badly, Zephyr Teachout lose again, etc, people are realizing it ain't that easy. All the informed wisdom of how the race was Hillary's to lose comes back to familiar impediments like "Hispanics don't get out to vote". Then, yes, the question of "how conservative are most people" is a real thing, not just an issue of old dinosaurs who could be safely ignored. And then there's fatigue - new yorkers might be more enthusiastic about fixing MTA than another round of identity concerns, and I'm pretty sure Beto's not running on transgender bathrooms in Texas.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 2:47am

    one thing the NY primary will give the national party is a good real bead on registered Dems of the northeastern type, what they want as a party, what they represent, precisely because of turnout: ..."It's off the charts," said Blaire Horner, the executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, adding that the "remarkable" turnout is almost definitely the highest in the state's primary history. "I haven't seen anything like it."All told, a record-shattering 1.5 million votes were cast in the gubernatorial primary, nearly three times the number of ballots counted in 2014 and, in some districts, more than those tallied during the presidential primary. The brunt of that surge came in New York City, where 855,087 residents made it to the polls, compared to less than 500,000 in last year's mayoral primary.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 3:03am

    Enthusiasm is there on the democratic side. That's a good sign but let's not over react. I suspect what it means is the democrats that usually only vote in the general are also voting in the primary. It doesn't mean the democrats that rarely vote in either will come to the polls in the general and that we'll see a comparable up tick in votes in the general. We'll see.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 3:40am

    You keep mentioning this transgender bathroom thing and I've just let it pass but I don't think you're framing it correctly. I don't know of any democrat anywhere that ran on transgender bathrooms. Republicans are quite skillful in bringing up these issues and weaponizing them to rile up their base. No democratic politician wants to talk about these issues but they have to find a way to address them that doesn't turn off the LGBT community and the more leftish liberals that support them.   

    Beto's isn't running on kneeling for the national anthem either. I'm sure he didn't want to talk about it. But the issue came up and he had to say something. He gave an answer liberals loved. I'm not confident it was equally effective with moderate republicans whose votes he will need if he wants to win. We can only hope that his answer didn't piss them off. The answer they wanted was condemnation which he couldn't do without losing blacks and liberals.

    All these issues are like knife edges that democratic politicians are forced to walk. It's easy to slip and get cut. You can critique how well they walk the knife edge but to claim they're running on them is just false. No democratic politician anywhere is going into the election carrying a banner calling for transgender bathrooms as a major or even a minor part of their campaign.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 3:31am

    I think Democrats walked into the transgender bathroom thing in North Carolina (nowhere else if I recall correct) which was bad for an important swing state. Maybe it was GOP taunts, but Dems pushed out ahead on gay marriage in 2004 with devastating results, and pushing single payer as the most important issue in 2016 when people were trained to hate Obamacare was none too smart either (thanks, Bernie, if I need another anchorweight I'll call)

    PS quick google seems to have started w cruz v trump, but again, these identity issues are no win for us in an election


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 4:42am

    I don't think democrats walked into the problem. It's not like they introduced the topic. It's not like they began their campaign by announcing that transgendered should be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice. It wasn't as if there was a problem with transgendered using the "wrong" bathroom. Republicans didn't pass the bathroom bill to deal with a real problem affecting the people in their state. Republicans created the law to create an issue that democrats were forced to address. They couldn't ignore it they had to choose in some way a side. It's a difficult situation but not a no win situation. Support the law and you win with conservatives and some moderates but you lose with LGBT and liberals. Speak up for the rights of transgendered and you win with LGBT and liberals but lose conservatives and some moderates. I'm sure a majority of democrats would prefer republicans didn't create the wedge issue and would rather not discuss it. If you want to talk about how democrats could better walk that knife edge I'd be interested since I haven't a clue how to do it. If you're going to claim democrats ran on the issue I disagree and don't see much value in the attack.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 6:28am

    Quick Googling again seems Dems focused on this issue as I remembered, and that Dems made much more noise about this issue to cut through than they did about issues that would be less controversial and provide them more unifying publicity.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 8:25am

    Beto took a stand on the attacks on black NFL players.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 10:05am


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 1:10am

    I really recommend the above video, she is basically saying the same thing as Fukuyama as expressed here, but makes it more clear for those who can't abide the academic language. She is addressing the global results, like with Breixit, and taking it out of the context of just the U.S. is helpful for the myopic. She is definitely the anti-Bannon! He's over there all the time stoking it.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 12:58pm

    Now Prof. Amber Spry, (Brandeis/African and Afro-American Studies and Politics)

    as a doctoral candidate:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 1:18am

    I don’t know if yo meant your snippet to appear as if Spry rejects identity politics. In truth. Spry’s research focuses on understanding variations in support of certain policies among members of different groups. She finds for example, that white male Conservatives tend to have the least forgiving attitudes when it comes to immigration. Hispanics peak in agreement among the group when it comes to a pathway to citizenship. She is try g to better define attitudes among the groups

    https://www.sas.upenn.edu/andrea-mitchell-center/sites/www.sas.upenn.edu.andrea-mitchell-center/files/uploads/Spry%20-%20Group%20Political%20Attitudes.pdf

     

     


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 10:00am

    Researchers who accurately predicted Trump’s election note the following

    https://www.salon.com/2017/07/22/trump-won-on-white-fright-why-identity-politics-win-elections/

     

    America’s problem is not racial resentment, mainstream reportage and even progressive reaction insisted, it is economic anxiety. “No one saw the election of Trump coming,” countless analysts proclaimed — but they should have, they whined, because of growing dissatisfaction with globalization, international trade and wage stagnation.

    Christopher Parker, a political scientist at the University of Washington, not only predicted the nomination and presidential victory of Donald Trump. He also accurately forecasted the flatulent rise of the white reactionary constituency when the Tea Party was in its embryonic stage.

    Parker and his research partner Matt Barreto wrote "Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America," which won the American Political Science Association's award for the best book in race, ethnicity and politics, and are currently working on a book examining how “white fright” led to the Trump victory. Racial resentment and terror at the prospect of social change is what animated the Tea Party and now energizes Trump supporters, according to their research, not perceptions of economic interest.

    The meticulous research and masterful argumentation of Parker and Barreto is difficult to dispute, especially considering that they have correctly predicted the outcome of American politics for several years. Yet, they are largely invisible, far from mainstays on television and radio and anything but viral. The mediocre punditry, while scrambling to dissect and decipher Trump’s ascension, has ignored the two men who consistently called it.

    Parker suspects that the reason for his own obscurity bears hideous resemblance to the impetus for the rightward shift in American politics. It is the purloined letter left out in the open that no one wants to see, much less read. It is racism.

     

    Race is the issue. Identity politics is not the problem. Identity politics is a solution

    Let’s say that the Democratic Party regained its intelligence and composure, and asked you to offer a political outreach strategy, what would you advise them to do beyond dropping the white working class idiocy? What is something proactive they can do to better ensure the likelihood of their victory? 

    They need to scare the s**t out of their base, especially people of color. The base needs to see Trump as an existential threat. For black people, that means that on Trump’s watch racism is increasing, civil rights protections are decreasing, and voting rights are in danger. For Latinos, it is the fear that they don’t belong, and that someone from the government will soon snatch up a member of their family. The Democrats need to take the legitimate anxieties that exist among people of color, and among women, and among gay voters, and make them more salient and manifest. This is exactly how conservatives punch above their weight. Conservatives are rarely in the majority, but they continue to win elections, because their base is anxious and angry. It is a huge motivation for mobilization. Even within the Republican Party, Tea Party conservatives turned out at a much higher rate than so called “establishment conservatives.” Do you know why? Because they were afraid and they were pissed.

    The same logic should apply to the left, but the left always wants to have an empowering, uplifting conversation about process. F**k that. You need to retake power before you have the luxury of discussing process.

    In order to do that, you need to use what works. Anxiety and anger works for people of color. The more they were worried about Trump, the more they were mobilized. Too many people of color did not take Trump seriously. They thought he was a joke. The same is true for women. This needs to be about identity politics on the left. Class-based politics will not work for people of color. We know that for a fact, because it never does. It also won’t work for women.

    It is amazingly frustrating to see how quickly progressives have dropped race and gender in their response to Trump, and how they are succumbing to pressure to surrender identity politics in a failure to realize that Trump is the most powerful practitioner of identity politics in the country. 

    Liberals always want to take the f**king high road. The high road leads to Bozo the Clown beating their ass again. It looks good in theory, because race and class correlate, but in practice, it does not work with people of color. They need to play to people’s fears and anxieties. Given the changing demographics, which work to the left’s advantage, they also need to play the race card. I’m sorry. Call me whatever you want to call me, but Democrats needs to play the race card if they want people of color to show up.

    Democrats are winning elections even as identity politics groups are operating in the open. Abandon identity politics and lose.

    As one of the researchers notes.

     Part of my answer is colored by who I am — a black man in America. Every time it seems like we are making progress, white folks move the goal posts. I’ll put it like this, if the outcome depends on the goodwill of the majority of white folks, I’m not faithful at all. If the outcome depends on people of color, feminists, and all the others who are not considered the “real Americans,” then I’m much more sanguine. We cannot depend on the largesse of white folks. We can forget about the reactionaries. They’re gone. Now, the conservatives who are willing to put country before party -- they are viable allies, but I’m not depending on them either.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 9:02am

    This all seems like a ineffectual way to talk about how progress is made. Progress is made by forming coalitions and every part of that coalition is valuable, indispensable. The votes the democratic party got in 2016 was 60% white and 22% black. You make much of the fact that 90% of blacks voted for democrats and disparage white males for only voting about 40% democrat. The simple fact is that 40% of white males resulted in more votes than that 90% of blacks. Lose the 90% of blacks and democrats lose. Lose the 40% of white males and the democrats lose. Your researcher feels that if the outcome depends on a majority of white folks he has no faith. But the fact is that he needs to depend on at least a minority of white folks to support progressive policy for it to survive and the minority of the white vote will exceed the majority of the black vote in raw numbers. Even when the majority of the black vote is 90%. 

    It just doesn't come down to identity politics. It depends on all of us supporting each other in a coalition to win. What democrats need to figure out is how to pull those disparate groups together and how get as much done for each group within the coalition.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 1:32pm

    The fact is that worrying about what racist whites are going to do is futile. There are enough whites who will not be put off by black identity politics. Democrats appear to have to Edgar in the upcoming midterms.

    The Democratic base is becoming more woke on issues of race

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/democrats-are-changing-thei...

    The past coalition tended to sideline racial issues.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 1:57pm

    We agree that democrats shouldn't try to appeal to racist whites. The problem is that your definition of racist white to be written off as futile to approach includes a far greater percentage of whites than mine. You focus your ire at republicans but I'm sure if we got down to it you'd consider a significant portion of moderate and conservative democrats racist too.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 2:42pm

    I have pushed for Democrats to be more responsive to black issues. The racists will always be there. Much of the nonsense about identity politics has been worrying that it chases away white voters. The Trump vote was about race not economics. I have problems with the DNC for pretending that the race component did not exist.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 3:11pm

    Stacy Abrams doesn't seem to be taking your advice as she looks for votes in the largely white rural areas of Georgia. By your standards she's reaching out to racists. She's actually taking my advice in that I posted when she won the primary that to win the general she would have to reach out to white rural republicans who voted for Trump. 


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 3:24pm

    From PBS

    Number one, in the rural communities of Georgia, it's a very diverse community. A third of Georgia — a third of rural Georgia is African-American. But the reality is, whether you're rural or urban or suburban, you want your kids to have a good education, you want good jobs, and you want your hospitals to stay open.

    Those are all issues that appeal to everyone. What I have said is that I don't intend to pretend conservative values that demonize immigrants, that say that we have to put a gun in every counter, that say that we can have gun safety laws without sacrificing the Second Amendment.

    I'm not going to pretend to be a conservative to win. I'm going to run the same way I have run my entire career, and that is with authenticity, and with honesty, but with clear plans for how we can lift up every Georgian.

     

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/stacey-abrams-democrats-cant-win-by-pretending-to-be-republicans

    Democrats have lost statewide pretending to be Republicans 

     

    Also

    But I do think that Georgia is actually a bluer state than people realize. We have an opportunity to turn out voters who haven't voted in recent years. They vote in the presidential election, but not in the gubernatorial election.

    And we have more than enough of those voters to win, without compromising our values and pretending to be moderate to conservative to appeal to a certain segment. There are places where we differ on policy, but at the core of being a progressive in Georgia, it's about making sure that we're helping families have the freedom and opportunity to thrive


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 3:54pm

    This is one of your favorite strawmen, to equate reaching out in any way for some republican votes with pretending to be a republican. There are certainly other ways to talk to them that isn't pretending to be a republican. You have stated several times your opinion that it's futile to reach out to any one who voted for Trump because they are all racist. That is a sure losing strategy for democrats. Trump won Georgia 51 to 45. It's totally unrealistic and almost impossible for Abrams to get enough new voters that didn't vote in 2016 to win. She will have to get some people who voted for Trump to vote for her. She will have to find some way to talk to them and convince them to flip to her or she will lose.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 4:40pm

    Democrats have repeatedly reached out to Republicans and lost. She wants to energize Democrats and Independents.

    If Gillum and Abrams lose, we will be back asking what is wrong with white voters.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 6:47pm

    That's not the whole story. If you think it is you didn't bother to read the article I linked. Abrams has 6 points to pick up over the Trump win. 6 points is a significant number of votes. Perhaps in a state that Trump won by 1 or even a few points energizing democrats could be enough but not in Georgia. She needs to energize the democrats and flip some Trump voters to win. She's trying to do both without betraying her democratic values. She may or may not be successful but that's her only path to victory. 


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 7:08pm

    Flipping Republicans has never worked in Georgia in recent elections.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 8:39pm

    Serious? If it hadnt been for vote rigging/machine malfeasance, flipping Republicans would have probably been decisive.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 10:43pm

    I spent a considerable amount of time looking at both of Stacey Abrams twitter feeds last night. It was extremely clear that her plan to win is to sell the diversity thing first and foremost & the remove obstacles for hard working people thing. And only attack the Trump tribe. She isn't even attacking the elite much less attacking Republicans in general. Very far from following rmrd's tribal and special interest coalition prescriptions, more like the opposite. The same road someone like Romney took becoming governor of a blue state.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/17/2018 - 1:49pm

     

    Stacey Abrams

     

    ·

    Sep 15

     

    Our culture is part of who we are. Our differences—in background, identity & belief—make up our Georgia. During #HispanicHeritageMon

    and every day, we lift up & listen to our diverse Latinx community. What makes you proud of your culture?

     

    The above is from Abrams twitter account on 9/15/18

    She specific about asking about Latinx cultural pride.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 09/17/2018 - 3:00pm

    I would like the party to be more responsive to smaller segments of the coalition but when 60% of the democratic vote is white and only 22% black the policy desires of the largest number of voters will always be a priority. As an ardent environmentalist I wish the party would be more responsive to my concerns. I think there's a good case to be made that climate change is a more pressing issue and should be a priority concern. When black refugees are leaving a flooded New York City that is no longer livable due to rising sea levels none of them are going to be reminiscing and celebrating their success in eliminating racism in the selection process for elite NYC public schools. But environmentalists are a minority part of the democratic coalition so we are going to get less attention. That's the reality we both have to deal with.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 3:43pm

    The Democrats mounted an argument about identity politics that specifically put black voters on the back burner.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/16/2018 - 6:50pm

    He knows exactly how to troll you racial identity types:

     


    by artappraiser on Tue, 09/18/2018 - 6:25pm

    I didn’t know that he was trolling me about John James since I hadn’t heard of John James.

    John James’ message seems to be the one you like hearing 

    "I don't have a Black message. I don't have a White message. I have a Michigan message," James said. 

    https://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/08/___wins_us_senate_republican_p.html

    If you live in Michigan, you are free to cast a vote for James, he has your type of message.

    The tribe has dealt with people who were not members of the tribe.

     All My Skinfolk Ain’t My Kinfolk: Ben Carson version

    https://www.theroot.com/all-skinfolk-ain-t-kinfolk-a-few-words-on-ben-ca...

    Thanks for letting me know that I was being trolled


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 09/18/2018 - 8:58pm

    Trump likes him cuz he's sitting in his Daddy's chair at James Group International pretending he built the place, when his father's been Chairman since the 70's, brother's been CEO for at least 8 or 10 years, & John James just got back from the military 6 years ago, spent 2 years to get his MBA & then to sit in a newly created "President" position while backslapping/handshaking on a bunch of Michigan industry councils while preparing to run for office.

    That's a  troll.  Has to put up that he's pro-choice, pro-2nd Amendment (what's wrong with the other sweater?), Christian... but best line in his bio is "John has led the company from $35 million to $137 million in revenue while creating 100 additional jobs in Michigan and around the country since 2012." Wow, no wonder things are fucked up - $100 million in new revenue and only 100 jobs?

    Runner up suckup line is: "The James’ love spending time with their parents and family members who reside on both sides of the State."  Guess not much love for the Upper Peninsula (UP) as usual, much less the "elite" state government in central Lansing.

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 09/19/2018 - 7:39am

    Upper Peninsula (UP) = Yoopers, kinda like furriners to Michiganites and Wisconsinites, lagging in assimilation due to geography.  Lake Superior people. Never looked into their political activities or lack of them. Looking that up on Wikipedia, though, ran across an interesting 2000 census map at the lower right, shows how the German DNA sort of took over 'merica, a least according to self-reporting of citizens. All this talk about "Hispanic" taking over, it appears that by 2000 they hadn't gotten very far. In any case, by 2020 I suspect that those answering "American" will grow a great deal simply because: there is no dominant ethnicity anymore in the "23 and Me" tests they are all taking.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 09/19/2018 - 12:42pm

    Yes, Yoopers, their own breed - even have their own state bird, the mosquito. Ramona'll know more.
    Probably a bit insignificant vote-wise, always a source for jovial derision. Never actually made it there - the 1 spontaneous road trip our say stimulus wore off & we fell asleep.

    Still, James bills himself first as an "Outsider" (in daddy's company? sure, dude) and then that unlikely "Job Creator" I mentioned above. Anyway, don't blame him tough enough for a black guy to run for office.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 09/19/2018 - 5:56pm

    P.S. I remember posting this elsewhere but it is bears repeating the point that it appears that in the "Upper Midwest" Obama/Trump swings are flipping back to the Dems this time Judging from the Wisconsin type of this variety, I would generalize them as always going for "fresh" rather than ideology. . Sick of the Scott Walker type shitck, methinks, been around too long. Happened to Russ Feingold, managed the idiosyncratic reputation for a long amount of time, but they finally got tired of him. Maybe Proxmire beat him on the longevity record, I dunno for sure. Sometimes it's radical policy, sometimes moderate policy with a radical face, the unifier is: it just has to be fresh. Whether Bob LaFollette, Scott Walker, Barack Obama or Donald Trump.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 09/19/2018 - 2:08pm

    This thread seems to have run into the sand ,time for me

    .I'm struck by the fact that rmrd0000  and ocean-kat  are brilliant. I wish I were as smart. 

    Nearly always  that sort of sucky statement is followed by  an "I only wish that"  conclusion: "I only wish they both had green hair"  etc.  I don't have an "only wish"  to insert.

    Just keep on  keepen  on you two. Just as  long as you don't end up at the 21st century equivalent of  A. Hamilton and A Burr, at dawn on the banks of the Hudson. 

    At least not until after the election.

     


    by Flavius on Thu, 09/20/2018 - 7:01am

    You're too kind. Everyone here is very smart and knowledgeable.

    No worries about rmrd and I. He's doesn't even come close to getting on my list of names.

     

     

     


    by ocean-kat on Thu, 09/20/2018 - 7:36am

    We will be voting for the same type of candidates. There is no real problem.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/20/2018 - 8:12am

    Here's the part Flavius is not saying, methinks:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 09/20/2018 - 8:16pm