Why are Identity politics so bad?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why are Identity politics so bad?

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

The way I usually see it argued here is that the way identity politics were defined in the Clinton camp was basically "The demographics make victory inevitable", which resulted in a campaign that was more about (rightfully, to be fair) making GBS threads on Trump rather than getting people excited about Clinton outside the "First woman president" thing. The way some supporters really embody the whole "Progress is making it so everyone can become an oppressor, not just straight white christian men" strand of liberalism probably doesn't help perceptions either. But yeah, this:

Byolante posted:

Because neoliberals use it as a wedge issue to divide classes so they won't unite on economic issues

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 18:31

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 00:48

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

stone cold posted:

Really? Because the lady who wanted to uplift them lost to the man who thinks wages are too high and we just need to kick out all the browns.

The Democratic establishment claimed America was already great. What else were these people to take from that than "Yeah, not going to lift a finger for you."

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 20:55

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Brainiac Five posted:

"a compelling read". What the hell is wrong with you.

Alternatively, people preferred Hillary Clinton because they genuinely believed she would be better on those issues than Bernie Sanders, instead of black people operating like La Cosa Nostra.

It's actually because all the people Hillary's husband put in prison weren't allowed to vote.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 22:37

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Brainiac Two posted:

Funnily enough, the story of slavery in the South is a lot more complicated than white Liberals like to shriek about.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 22:50

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Brainiac Five posted:

Whoa, drat, it turns out that you can make people say anything with judicious use of backspace.

You're defending the continuing re-enslavement of the black community with "it's complicated", I didn't really make you say anything.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 23:26

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Brainiac Five posted:

Interesting how "the new Jim Crow" became "re-enslavement."

In any case, the 1990s crime bill didn't create carceral racism, motherfucker. That began in the 1960s with the involuntary hospitalization of civil rights workers as schizophrenic and developed into its modern form with the War on Drugs. The 1990s crime bill also had a great deal of support from minority communities at the time, because there was a genuine fear of surging violence in the early 1990s. People worried about children growing up to be "superpredators" because of high-profile cases where children murdered other children in hideously violent ways.

That turned out to be bullshit, but it's also a level of bullshit a whole bunch of people fell for, so it is, in fact, more complicated than "Killary Kkklinton has bamboozled all the black people of American into voting for her so she can kill and eat them all", as y'all euros like to insist upon.

I wrote continuing, as in, Clinton continued the work of re-enslavement that his predecessors began. In any case, I didn't claim that "Hillary bamboozled all black people into voting for her", merely that the ones her husband put in prison couldn't vote at all.

Neurolimal posted:

What is your plan for abandoning capitalism, if you denigrate the strategy of diluting capitalism with socialism until capitalism is left irrelevant.

In reality, it works the other way around though. Capitalism accumulates power in the hands of the people who want to destroy any "socialist" policies. Social democracy has shown itself to be a terrible strategy in the long term.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 23:38

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Neurolimal posted:

That's not to say that you aren't wrong that a socialist-capitalist system is unstable and a poor strategy. That's why I and many leftist writers are not in favor of leftist capitalism as a goal, but as a stepping stone towards a society free of capital.

That was the plan of early 20th century social democrats too. Look where that got us.

Brainiac Five posted:

I mean, dogg, you're not going to lose the propaganda game if you admit to the subtext here. Or maybe you really are some ingenue bursting into the thread fresh from Michelle Alexander, and I'm Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

The subtext is that you shouldn't enslave people, even if people around you think it's cool.

Brainiac Five posted:

I've straight-up never understood why the glass ceiling will just automatically be made irrelevant under socialism. Will divine knowledge filter down and cause women to have an equal voice in worker's soviets? To be elected to representative councils? To automatically enter into the same areas of work as men?

And then you could consider race.

Glass ceilings are a product of hierarchy, and thus logically impossible under socialism.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 23:50

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Neurolimal posted:

If one failure was enough to deter, then socialism and communism would have been abandoned long ago.

It's blatantly obvious on its face that it's a losing strategy though. Leaving power in the hands of people who want to destroy your ideology is not going to get you to the finishing line. And yeah, you shouldn't try the Russian approach either. You need to take the power out of the hands of capitalists, AND put it in the hands of the people. The social democrats failed at the former, the soviets at the latter.

Brainiac Five posted:

So you're going to go the "playing dumb" route, instead of telling me, openly and honestly, what sufferings I should inflict upon myself to expiate the crime.

What crime? I'm pretty sure you're not Bill Clinton.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 00:02

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

khwarezm posted:

But at the same time I find some of this rethoric ridiculous, nobody could argue with a straight face that the Democratic party genuinely hated people just because they were a 'Working Class White'.

Someone linked a tweet in one of the election threads from some Democrat (I'm pretty sure at least) who did explicitly state that he wanted to punish white (working class) people because they were never going to come around to his way of thinking anyway, or something to that effect. Not that this is representative of the party as a whole, but it's a pretty terrible message for even a small part of the party to send.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 17:08

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Brainiac Five posted:

Oh man, how horrible it would be to punish someone for having the wrong opinions, such as being a fascist.

He didn't want to punish them for having wrong opinions though, he wanted to punish them because they were white, and thus incapable of not having wrong opinions in his view.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 17:15

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 00:48

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

khwarezm posted:

A tweet. That hardly means anything. And I presume its been deleted now for being completely terrible. Who was this guy even? Did he have anything approaching prominent standing in the Party? Because it sounds like this is the sort of thing that gets blown up and trotted out by people who sincerely think that the Democrats hate white people to justify voting for a white Nationalist. Which again calls into question whether or not Identity politics has been somehow weakened by this election when it seems that identity politics for white people is even more ascendant than usual.

Like I said, not representative, though I kinda wonder if a portion of the whole "Demographics are destiny" crowd might not harbor similar feelings.

khwarezm posted:

Following on from that, I can imagine its extremely frustrating for that guy or other people, especially minorities, to be now be told that the problem that the Democratic party had was that it put too much emphasis on identity politics (and it put barely any emphasis on identity politics), since it seems that a perception that their issues are getting any kind of national airtime results in the one of the worst examples of racist, sexist regression getting elected into the highest office of the land by scared white people. In that light I can imagine a lot of people are prepared to say 'gently caress that and gently caress you' when their issues have been loudly rebuffed by a white majority in the crudest way in decades.

The Democratic party seems/seemed to put a lot of emphasis on identity politics, with an emphasis on politics. Less "Let's help people", more "We're so gonna win this election you guys, just look at the number of Hispanics!"

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 19:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why are Identity politics so bad?