57% of white people in the United States voted to keep Donald Trump in the White House.
57% of white people didn’t give a damn about kids in cages, Presidential self-dealing with government funds, the growing number of deaths to COVID, or the diminished standing the nation has internationally.
Think about this for a minute.
This is what we’re up against. This, and a lily white, recalcitrant Senate that will, no doubt, obstruct everything they can.
Identity Politics
The current GOP is the most racially cohesive political party since the end of Jim Crow laws. North of 85% of all Republicans are white.
The media says Democrats play “identity politics” when we acknowledge the importance of black and brown people, or the role LGBTQ play in the coalition. They purposely ignore the GOP’s lack of diversity is the hallmark of identity politics.
The GOP has been doing it since Nixon launched the Southern Strategy in 1968.
Using the politics of grievance, while pursuing policies that make the grievance worse.
In the process they’ve picked up the white working class, because, Identity. This, despite the fact that, like religious conservatives, the main organ of the GOP only needs them for the ballot box. The real GOP doesn’t give a damn about the white working class after November.
They are a means to an end.
No one likes to be told they’ve been played for a fool, but white working class, you’re wearing curly toed shoes with bells on them.
These identity politics transformed the south into a solid red wall.
They caught the patrician rural Blue Dogs of yore unawares back in 2010, and mostly swept them out of office.
It had been building for a long time. Blue Dogs thought they could go right and stay in office. They were wrong.
To spite their face
By 2010, the GOP media machine set identity in the minds of the white folks who had been left behind by the growing service economy.
Small communities never rebounded from the 2008 financial crisis or the umpteen other crisises before. The compromise stimulus passed in 2009 to help fuel the recovery was far too modest to do much good.
Being left behind was made worse by GOP policies that kept wages artificially low, made healthcare unaffordable, and made the hard labor of the working class measurably more dangerous.
Despite it all, white working class folks moved to the GOP en masse. People believed the “magic beans” narrative that their sacrifice was saving the country while finding comfort in the casual racism of today’s Republican Party.
Its sad that a major political party in this day and time could be so craven, so ruthless to its own supporters, but today’s GOP loves it.
I don’t know how to negotiate with people who don’t give a fuck about their supporters.
I also don’t know how to talk to people who know the folks they support don’t give a fuck about them, and don’t give a fuck about them not giving a fuck.
I do know one thing, if we’re going to get anything done, we have to get it past the Kentucky Fried Majority Leader in the Senate. And that racism is slicker than goose shit.
Back to our regularly scheduled racism
Of course, duped white working class folks, and old south racist Senators aren’t the only issue. Here on the left, the remaining 42% of white folk got serious issues.
Like, for some reason, white people keep coming with this “we need to help out moderates more” bullshit they fall back on as soon as even the slightest progress is made.
As I was writing this, I ran across this thread that pretty much encapsulates this kind of passive racism.
And the truth is, she’s right.
White folks on the left need to start getting more uncomfortable with the comfortable racism we’ve consciously or unconsciously participated in for our whole lives.
That means we have to acknowledge it and push back when it comes to visit.
And honestly, part of that acknowledgement is understanding we don’t have to lead the march backwards when we take a small step forward…which we do. A lot.
That means not hemming and hawing at election reform, police reform, or true reconciliation of the atrocities of the past…something we’ve spent more than 400 years avoiding.
That means not second guessing activists on the front lines while you watch with a bag of Sour Cream and Onion Lays from your couch.
Hi Never Trumpers, Now Sit the Fuck Down in the back of the room
The thing I knew would happen is happening. White people wanna take credit for this election.
Fuck you John Kasich. You couldn’t even crack 50% in a state you led as Governor, so sit the fuck down.
White people didn’t win this shit. Sure, Democrats appreciate all the support from White folks we can get, but come on, we all know who carried the load… black and brown women.
They are CONSISTENTLY the most loyal and regular voters on our side.
The accolades have been many. But for white folks like me and my whole damn family, there’s not enough thanks in the world we could ever shower on folks like Stacey Abrams.
She built, what could be, a Juggernaut.
She needs to hold school for the DNC, DCCC & DSCC, because all three of those organizations are broke as fuck.
She and a ton of other women of color showed us white folk the way. I’ll bet we’re too comfortable in our middle class silos to follow.
Let the leaders lead
Its time to hand black and brown women the keys to the Democratic Party infrastructure. They have led us through thick and thin. They have put up with our white people fragility. They have shown themselves worthy. Now show it by trusting them with the future.
As Vice President Elect Kamala Harris said, its time to show them the respect they’re due.
Because without these great leaders, we wouldn’t be talking about Georgia.
Without these great leaders, a whole bunch of states would be off the table.
And they are the vessel to get us into the homes of folks all over the country.
That’s where the future of the Democratic Party lies.
Don’t just keep the faith, spread the faith.
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