This is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. I want to push back respectfully on the framing of the conflict as between the leftists and the heterodox. I am both heterodox and firmly on the left, and I think that's true for most of us who advocate for class as more important than race if we want to recapture a Dem majority. (Not a permanent majority, as nothing is permanent in politics, but a *durable* majority.)
I might describe the conflict as between the liberal materialist left, which includes people like myself and many moderate Dems who support policies to benefit working-class and poor people; versus an illiberal, identitarian left that traffics in self-absorption, guilt, and virtue-signaling.
I totally agree with you - I think we're mostly saying the same thing? I did say twice that I want my party back and I will vote for Biden for positive reasons. I do really appreciate the way you phrased this because it actually invites an engagement rather than putting someone on the defensive like some of the comments here. I, too, am heterodox in that I disagree with many social positions but am still firmly a progressive/classical liberal and think capitalism needs taming.
I am extremely Far Left when it comes to economic issues; I want every single person in this country to have housing, healthcare, and access to high quality K thru 12 education.
But when it comes to children, I am just Right of Attila the Hun.
We need to STOP medically transitioning kids under 18.
We need to STOP teaching Gender ID to elementary school kids.
We need to STOP allowing men dressed like strippers to read to preschoolers in public libraries.
We need to STOP allowing abortion on demand after 15 weeks.
We also need to STOP enabling the most horrific antisemitism I have seen in my lifetime (and which I never dreamed I would see in the USA).
Biden has endangered this country and others around the world by his appeasement of Iran and Hamas. He has endangered the Jewish people in this country, in Israel, and everywhere else.
Also, Trump recently came out in favor of abolishing taxes on tips.
As a former waitress, all I can say to that is: MAGA.
I totally get it, and I see why you and many others are on the side of MAGA. I don't agree, but I think we should be able to have a conversation. Let me ask you this - if Dems moderated on social issues, would you come back? Or have you moved toward Republicans? I couldn't tell.
Or at least render it meaningless. I’m not even sure what it stands for anymore other than abortion into the third trimester. I’m all for keeping it legal but perhaps we could find a compromise position
If you want to stop anti-semitism, then maybe try to remove the influence of AIPAC and other Israeli lobbies. Israeli lobbies are literally the only ones who aren't registered under the FARA act in the US, hence what they doing is illegal. All the politicians are funded by AIPAC's donations and they in-turn implement open borders, T agenda and other BS.
Maybe ask yourself why a foreign country has so much influence on the US. People are rightfully mad about it. And btw the Palestine protests are funded by the Jewish men like Soros.
As an antisemite yourself, I don't think you should be giving advice on fighting anti-semitism. You are spouting antisemitic conspiracy theories. Please stop.
AIPAC not being registered under FARA act and operating without the registration is a fact lmao wtf. This is why anti semitism exists. Maybe try to live in reality.
You have completely lost your moral compass. Whatever issues you may have with AIPAC, there is no excuse for antisemitism which is a form of racism against a group of people. Is racism against the Chinese ok now because the CCP is awful? Or racism against Koreans because Kim Jung Il is a mad dictator? And racism against blacks also ok now because people like Charles Taylor and Idi Amin were players in international affairs?
The people who use some organization as an excuse to hate on other people on account of their race are racist. Your excuse is abhorrent.
When I bash CCP, there's no Asian dude claiming that I'm racist. But when I bash the Israeli government for the amount of influence they have, so many hyper sensitive Israelis / Jewish people start harping on about anti semitism.
Know the difference.
CCP is absolute shit. But Asians admit it unlike Jews for Netanyahu.
Your reply is just changing the subject away from racism. Do you even hear yourself?
"Antisemitism will stop when Jews do this this this and this. . . . " Where have we heard this before? Oh yes! Nazi Germany 1930s. IF ONLY the Jews would do this, and that, and that, and not do this and that."
No. Antisemitism stops when people stop being racist and stop excusing racism. Your statement putting the onus on a race of people to have to take any specific actions as a prerequisite for not being targets of racism is abhorrent. It does not matter if Asians do or not do anything about some government regimes from certain countries linked to their race or whether they have positive or negative opinions about such regimes. It does not matter if Jews do or not do anything because of some Jewish organizations or what opinions they have about such organizations. Racism is wrong and abhorrent. Full stop.
You're the one who don't know the difference if you can't see that.
So what if someone bashes you? That makes antisemitism and racism ok? Some spats and arguments are all that it takes to excuse racial hate?
Every single Israeli outside Israel doesn't criticize Israel's government and supports literally anything they do. Not the case with other groups of people.
And any criticism of them immediately gets people like you talking about 1930s which is non sensical. I can criticize and not be Hitler at the same time.
Well this is just patently false; there are multiple groups of American Jews who don’t support Israeli actions. I’ve come to understand Zionism as the need for a Jewish state. Jews do need their own state because of their history. If for example you think various Muslim countries have the right to exist as ethnostates favoring one group, then Israel has a right to exist as it does. It’s all or nothing. Plenty of people seem to be fine criticizing Jews for this and yet I see nothing similar for states like Pakistan which is essentially theocratic and doesn’t even pay lip service to minority protections.
It does not matter if every single Israeli doesn't criticize the Israeli government or support everything their government does. Criticize their political positions all you want. But it is simply abhorrent (and disgusting, frankly) to then make racism as ok on that account. Racism cannot be justified on the basis of political beliefs. Exemption from racism cannot be conditioned on the race of people having the "correct" politics.
You conflated the two and as a result you said something that sound exactly like what Nazis in 1930s Germany said. Your rant that any criticism against Israel invites comparison to Nazi Germany does not change that. Go back and re-read your original comment. Antisemitism will stop when Jews stop this and this. You may think you were talking about Israeli politics, but that was not what your statement reflected. You put the onus of stopping racism on a race of people being targeted, not the people who instigate hate. You basically said all Jews must conform and comply to demands of a political fraction or else it's open season for racism against them. You then doubled down and insist Asians are relieved from racism as long as they don't behave themselves in a way you don't like.
And still you don't realize how all this sounds to listeners who aren't in your camp.
Maybe if those of you who are anti-Israel can take a look at how you all sound to everyone else, you may get more receptive ears.
Advocating for a foreign country to have this much influence over the United States shouldn't be done. What do you expect me to do? Support the Jewish lobby funded politicians and their decision of open borders to stop "anti semitism"?
Sorry, security of the country is more important than "anti semitism"
I mostly agree but came to a slightly different conclusion (maybe because I'm Canadian) - that rather than focusing on "taking back" one predetermined party from the Laptop Class, the working/Physical classes are better off being swing voters:
"You can’t let yourself be bogged down by cultural or nostalgic ties to any one political party. Most political parties default to caring more about the priorities of their donors and staffers than their voters, so which party has a better platform for the Physical Class can and does vary from election to election....Given the circumstances, never let anyone give you shit about being a swing voter."
Seems like we read a lot of the same thinkers :) I alluded to this a bit when I said some people need to defect, and perhaps poc voters defecting will wake them up. I agree with everything you say btw- I try to be a laptop class traitor myself (and I've been using that term!) because the divide is between the knowledge workers and manual workers, with the former thinking of ourselves as a distinct class separate from the 'working class' even though we are workers mostly dependent on an income rather than capital ownership. The problem is we see ourselves as closer to the owners of the means of production than we do to the 'working class' as currently conceived which is exactly because of socially liberal beliefs being the litmus test of being a good person. Embracing your inner barbarian is a good thing to advocate. I was a little timid about advocating swing voting simply because I knew I'd get flak for it, but I find myself sometimes wanting to vote R just out of spite tbh. I never have, and will not in this cycle, but then again if I want to support what the majority of POC actually want, as Texieria notes, then being a swing voter is the thing to do. Curious if you're a swing voter.
Yeah I voted for Trudeau back in 2014; I would never vote for the current incarnation of the Liberals, but I haven't necessarily closed the door to it if they get their shit together (though that's currently a big if)
While I'm not a Democrat, I liked your analysis! In general, I wish that "compromise" and "bi-partisanship" weren't dirty words in Washington. Surely there's enough common ground to not only banish the crazies from both sides, but accomplish something. I can't stand the rhetoric of "the other side is the enemy."
It's funny bc these days in Washington there somehow is some bipartisanship, possibly because people are so sick of congress doing nothing due to seeing the other side as immoral. I worked hard to stop thinking of Trump supporters as the enemy, and I'm a lot happier and open to people since I did.
Glad to see you back. Like Anomalogue, I also forwarded this to a number of friends who have either left the party or feel disaffected but trapped. I think a lot of what gets derided as populism these days is a shorthand for centering class and material wellbeing over race, sexuality, and a politics of marginalization.
But like you note, the politics of marginalization and resentment is on both sides with MAGA tapping into white identity politics.
I used to agree with Anand Girodharadas that Democrats need to do a better job celebrating the virtues of multiracial democracy instead of waving hands at the fear of authoritarianism. But now I think that is the wrong path.
I’m looking for a political movement that focuses on class over race and innovation/progress over degrowth/stagnation. I think we might be the majority (certainly here on Substack), but we don’t have an obvious candidate/leader or offline political movement. I thought Steve Teles and Rob Saldin made this point well (absent the class part):
The problem is we aren't the loudest of people even if we probably make up the majority of people of lean democrat. I think a good template is PA - Josh Shapiro is an eminently reasonable Democrat who cares more about class than race. Similarly John Fetterman who once considered himself 'progressive' but then eschewed the label bc of racial politics is a class-first Democrat. The lefties, however, generally seem to think all white men are suspect, even though many white men are also pushing for this kind of politics. We of course should run women and people of color but their politics need to not privilege race and gender, and among my friends I see a very casual dismissal of white people without considering their positions.
It's funny you bring up Giridharadas, because I once thought people like him were correct. But I would recommend reading Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country, in which he notes that the celebration of difference leaves us factionalized; it's not a celebration at all, and cultural relativism precludes the creation of a mass movement.
I think Bernie provided a template for this, which is to primary those who've put off the majority of the working class. This could mean finding moderate people of color who don't agree, for example, with gender ideology or can articulate a positive vision of the future that's not constantly referring to an original sin. We need universally appealing policies, but more than that we need someone to articulate a vision like Obama did during the 2008 primary and to a certain extent during his presidency. We don't have an obvious leader, but at the very least with our money we can support people like this. I also know that our influence is extremely limited in the sense that the people surrounding the people in power are from the minority faction of affluent white liberals. That said, I think part of it is also to argue and debate without backing down, as well as eschewing social media, especially for women.
I think if we had a mass exodus from social media, much would be fixed. But this is primarily a gendered problem, and women are of course the hardest people for me to reach. I also think, though, that white people who agree with me who have generally kept their mouths shut need to start arguing back. There are also Democrats working from within to try to push reforms like those who formed the group DIAG which aims to inject sanity into the conversation about gender. Finally, I think people of color need to especially abandon these paradigms. We need a clearing out of our psyches. Much of this is internal work, but I also try to at least learn about the sorts of policies that can build a movement like this. And indeed, Biden has taken several of these ideas and implemented them, even if they didn't last. I honestly admire that he changed. Hilariously, as angry as I was about Bernie in 2016 and 2020, I was pleasantly surprised by how Biden does seem to have placed class first to a certain extent. There's a great example of how moderate people of color put an imperfect messenger in. Finally, we need to stop allowing people with ivy league degrees in power; they will simply never think like a regular person. We need to actually rhetorically and electorally marginalize them as best we can. The overall battle is against elite capture. That was meandering but I always appreciate your questions and observations.
Re the piece you linked, I think Bernie showed that you can have a moderate agenda on identity, not destroy capitalism and create a stronger safety net. I suspect the authors would however consider Bernie on the side of destroying capitalism. I think they're right, however, that intraparty factions are the best way to achieve change. I think they also advocate local engagement, which is the place to start. If Austin is governed by identity leftists, I need to engage at that level to try to inject some sanity, which I'm getting into. Another thing we can get mad and organize about is housing policy, which is under local control. E.g. every Democratic city has this issue and I believe it was Minnesota that straight up banned single family zoning - that is HUGE. Finally I think making an alternate elite network is key to spread the ideas, because every mass movement needs elite support. And there are people in support of a class first movement. AOC was once such a person, but she's since shifted toward race and gender politics over class. This probably means supporting more white people who think like this who can attract back white working class people. That'll of course be controversial. The Progressive faction is actually a great template for this as the authors note.
Now that the Soviet Union is gone, and People Of Influence And Authority no longer have to toss the masses a bone or two, they would much prefer that we dissipate our energy on dreary arguments about cultural appropriation and how many LGTBQXYZPDQ can dance on the head of a pin, endless and endlessly performative struggle sessions, rather than raise questions about how the economic pie is sliced.
Put another way - to paraphrase Chris Hedges - elites will gladly discuss race, they will decry gender inequality most piteously, they will demonstrate a touching sensitivity to the rights of sexual and gender minorities so oppressed that they have not been discovered yet. Those same elites will not readily discuss economic class.
Or, in the negative formulation - if businesses were to stop opposing unionization of their workers, the result would be a transfer of wealth, of concrete material benefits, to brown and black and yellow and white working class people greater than all the allyship statements ever penned, all the diversity committees ever instituted, all the preferred pronoun tags ever attached to a corporate email. Which is precisely why they will not do this.
I think it’s telling that transgenderism is most often found in affluent communities and those parents are loudest. You make a great point about the post Soviet consensus. I’m reading Chaotic Neutral which reminded me that the New Deal was about preventing communism…and I will definitely take our society over authoritarian communist states. The left still thinks that communist countries should be beyond reproach. The thing that’s most shocking to me is the pendulum swinging so far in the other direction on Islam. Yes, in the wake of 9/11 there was actual violence against Muslims, but we seem to have concluded that the experience of x minority in the US means we can’t criticize the country of origin.
I really enjoyed this excellent analysis of the current political and cultural interplay. I learned a lot from your perspective and diagnosis of the problem leading up to the POTUS election. As a non-American, I could care less for US politics but your breakdown of the role of self-serving narcissistic elites driving the race/gender agenda really helped me appreciate once again how so few people can be destructive. Fantastic piece that I'm sure many will use as a reference for their own political decision making.
This is fantastic! You're after my own heart. Have you read Catherine Liu's book, Virtue Hoarders? Great stuff in a similar (though definitely not the same) vein.
Thank you! I have read that one, and I generally devour the anti elite genre. I also recommend Dream Hoarders by Richard Reeves. I’ve made these connections based on the work of many people, but the thing most miss is the racial aspect as well as the way white guilt weaves through it all. And this is because of course people like me have an interest in perpetuating it.
I missed Dream Hoarders, thanks for that! I'll also mention Musa al-Gharbi, on the off chance that you are not familiar with his work. I'm currently reading a preprint of his book, We Have Never Been Woke, which will be out in October.
There are some wonderful quotes in here for people looking to understand what has happened to factions on the left and how to push back - while not giving up creds of being on the left. I still hear an undercurrent of dislike for anyone to the right. Rather than substituting socio-economic status for race as a basis for 'seeing the enemy' what if we didn't see each other as enemies at all? And is that even possible anymore?
Thank you so much. Not only do Dems not have the moral high ground, nobody does, except when it suits them. It's a very feel-good way to promote our own interests.
I think you're missing a key class. It's not just the progressives driving Democratic policy leftward. In fact, the Outsider Left is almost as progressive but much more racially diverse and significantly more skeptical of government. It makes up almost 10% of the electorate and anecdotally has pushed policy significantly further left, including originating defunding for the police: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/outsider-left/
These are the young anarchists and left-libertarian anti-capitalists and they are also quite important to the leftward shift but don't fit other aspects of your thesis. I'm not saying you're wrong but i think the piece would make more sense if you had addressed this group
That is totally fair. The anarchists were the ones supporting the takeover of public places in 2020 and served as a kind of police force for BLM. I will explore this group more later on. Nellie Bowles’s book details this dynamic also, I recommend it.
I can tell you right now, the Democratic Party is just a bunch of rich white people who think they have the right to make decisions for everyone else. It is sickening. The Democrats abandoned the working class years ago with their commitment to free trade with declared enemies of the US (China) without any regard to the costs born by working people. They believe that their ivy league degrees and their self-righteous choice to work in the non-profit sector make them better than everyone else, but especially better than the working class majority that they despise. They milk race because they can use it as a battering ram against poor whites. I am convinced the trans activism obsession is just an excuse to silence working class back Americans. The best part is that most of these ladies who lunch either come from money or their husbands are investment bankers, management consultants or lawyers at big firms. They love to point out their low salaries, but they live in ritzy downtown neighborhoods using money someone else earned.
We need to stop talking about race and gender and to start talking about class. I would love to see the capital gains tax doubled. That would be a good start. In general we need a less hands on government. So long as one side can use the power of government, no one is safe. We need to get back to the roots of a small, effective government. I used to believe that government could be a force for good, but I have seen this disproven so many times that now i just want less government overall.
Jamaal Bowman is a great example of this at play. Another person of color who has focused on the wrong things. He is rhetorically and literally favoring a specific constituency and ignoring the rest of it, esp his Jewish constituents, and we saw the results. His is also unfocused on class and overly focused on race, and we saw this when he voted against the infrastructure bill.
I think he is a perfect example. The recent election results are reassuring, but I suspect the entire election will be cast as some exercise in White Supremacy, because in the minds of these rich white ladies, Jews are Nazis. I can kind of understand why White Ladies Who Lunch would hate Asian people (they refuse to be victims, they make their own way, their families are proof that modernity need not destroy children-focused family structures, ...), but the resurgence of Anti-Semitism has been surprising. I never saw that coming. Then again, I never foresaw the entire universal victimhood culture either. We have so much work to do in building a better future, and we are training children to hate themselves and feel self-pity. I cannot help but to think that we have spent the last twenty years going backwards, building up ethnic and racial hatreds. I do not believe that this was unintentional. I think our adversaries in China and Russia have been promoting this, and our sad, pathetic educational system has been their willing useful idiots.
Hopefully the success Trump has had among Latino voters and to a lesser extent African-Americans will hit hard enough to quiet the Progressives and restore some kind of liberal sensibilities in the Democratic Party. My greatest fear is that the Ladies Who Lunch are already so entrenched that there is no longer any working class base upon which the Democrats can restore majoritarian politics.
I don't want trump to win, but if we does, I hope the white ladies in particular see the people of color abandoning democrats and come to their senses. But, much of this will also have to be borne by candidates - they have to be brave enough to buck this class, even if it means elite people of color shout at them for being white supremacists. We have to resist both groups, and there is a strong alliance between elite POC and these affluent white women. That needs to break, and people need to come to their senses as I did. They studiously ignored, for example, all the Latinos who voted for Bernie and the argument was that black voters' preferences had to be heeded as they are the 'backbone'. I see that backbone is slowly disintegrating.
As for asian americans, you are correct. We are conditionally accepted as POC when it's convenient but otherwise our own needs are ignored in favor of other groups, and we get called white supremacist if we don't toe the party line, and I resent this. You are correct that we refuse to be victims.
The antisemitism makes sense in a historical context in that when social structures start breaking down antisemitism rises. What seems also to be ignored is anti-semitism among people of color. I once thought Ilhan Omar was unfairly targeted years ago for this, but now it seems like the norm. Bowman, also, was anti-semitic in his denial of the rapes, and I saw that denial everywhere among young brown people of color on twitter. It was shocking and saddening.
Your reply is just changing the subject away from racism. Do you even hear yourself?
"Antisemitism will stop when Jews do this this this and this. . . . " Where have we heard this before? Oh yes! Nazi Germany 1930s. IF ONLY the Jews would do this, and that, and that, and not do this and that."
No. Antisemitism stops when people stop being racist and stop excusing racism. Your statement putting the onus on a race of people to have to take any specific actions as a prerequisite for not being targets of racism is abhorrent. It does not matter if Asians do or not do anything about some government regimes from certain countries linked to their race or whether they have positive or negative opinions about such regimes. It does not matter if Jews do or not do anything because of some Jewish organizations or what opinions they have about such organizations. Racism is wrong and abhorrent. Full stop.
You're the one who don't know the difference if you can't see that.
So what if someone bashes you? That makes antisemitism and racism ok? Some spats and arguments are all that it takes to excuse racial hate?
This is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. I want to push back respectfully on the framing of the conflict as between the leftists and the heterodox. I am both heterodox and firmly on the left, and I think that's true for most of us who advocate for class as more important than race if we want to recapture a Dem majority. (Not a permanent majority, as nothing is permanent in politics, but a *durable* majority.)
I might describe the conflict as between the liberal materialist left, which includes people like myself and many moderate Dems who support policies to benefit working-class and poor people; versus an illiberal, identitarian left that traffics in self-absorption, guilt, and virtue-signaling.
I totally agree with you - I think we're mostly saying the same thing? I did say twice that I want my party back and I will vote for Biden for positive reasons. I do really appreciate the way you phrased this because it actually invites an engagement rather than putting someone on the defensive like some of the comments here. I, too, am heterodox in that I disagree with many social positions but am still firmly a progressive/classical liberal and think capitalism needs taming.
Thank you for writing such a clear diagnosis. This is the best article of its kind that I've seen so far, and I'm going to keep it as a reference.
I've forwarded this article to friends who have been confused when I accuse them of supporting a class supremacist movement.
Thank you for the extremely useful term-that is a great rhetorical weapon to fight back with. Glad I could give you some fodder to argue with!
I am extremely Far Left when it comes to economic issues; I want every single person in this country to have housing, healthcare, and access to high quality K thru 12 education.
But when it comes to children, I am just Right of Attila the Hun.
We need to STOP medically transitioning kids under 18.
We need to STOP teaching Gender ID to elementary school kids.
We need to STOP allowing men dressed like strippers to read to preschoolers in public libraries.
We need to STOP allowing abortion on demand after 15 weeks.
We also need to STOP enabling the most horrific antisemitism I have seen in my lifetime (and which I never dreamed I would see in the USA).
Biden has endangered this country and others around the world by his appeasement of Iran and Hamas. He has endangered the Jewish people in this country, in Israel, and everywhere else.
Also, Trump recently came out in favor of abolishing taxes on tips.
As a former waitress, all I can say to that is: MAGA.
I totally get it, and I see why you and many others are on the side of MAGA. I don't agree, but I think we should be able to have a conversation. Let me ask you this - if Dems moderated on social issues, would you come back? Or have you moved toward Republicans? I couldn't tell.
If Dems moderated on social issues I would 100000% come back. I would also come back if they would stop playing footsie with Iran.
Right. Come back to the center.
We also need to stop allowing ANYONE with a penis into women's locker rooms, prisons, and shelters.
And males in women's sports? Seriously??? That is just plain deplorable.
As a man, it IS bizarre. It's kinda like men finally found a way to destroy feminism. Bizarre.
Or at least render it meaningless. I’m not even sure what it stands for anymore other than abortion into the third trimester. I’m all for keeping it legal but perhaps we could find a compromise position
If you want to stop anti-semitism, then maybe try to remove the influence of AIPAC and other Israeli lobbies. Israeli lobbies are literally the only ones who aren't registered under the FARA act in the US, hence what they doing is illegal. All the politicians are funded by AIPAC's donations and they in-turn implement open borders, T agenda and other BS.
Maybe ask yourself why a foreign country has so much influence on the US. People are rightfully mad about it. And btw the Palestine protests are funded by the Jewish men like Soros.
As an antisemite yourself, I don't think you should be giving advice on fighting anti-semitism. You are spouting antisemitic conspiracy theories. Please stop.
AIPAC not being registered under FARA act and operating without the registration is a fact lmao wtf. This is why anti semitism exists. Maybe try to live in reality.
You have completely lost your moral compass. Whatever issues you may have with AIPAC, there is no excuse for antisemitism which is a form of racism against a group of people. Is racism against the Chinese ok now because the CCP is awful? Or racism against Koreans because Kim Jung Il is a mad dictator? And racism against blacks also ok now because people like Charles Taylor and Idi Amin were players in international affairs?
The people who use some organization as an excuse to hate on other people on account of their race are racist. Your excuse is abhorrent.
When I bash CCP, there's no Asian dude claiming that I'm racist. But when I bash the Israeli government for the amount of influence they have, so many hyper sensitive Israelis / Jewish people start harping on about anti semitism.
Know the difference.
CCP is absolute shit. But Asians admit it unlike Jews for Netanyahu.
Your reply is just changing the subject away from racism. Do you even hear yourself?
"Antisemitism will stop when Jews do this this this and this. . . . " Where have we heard this before? Oh yes! Nazi Germany 1930s. IF ONLY the Jews would do this, and that, and that, and not do this and that."
No. Antisemitism stops when people stop being racist and stop excusing racism. Your statement putting the onus on a race of people to have to take any specific actions as a prerequisite for not being targets of racism is abhorrent. It does not matter if Asians do or not do anything about some government regimes from certain countries linked to their race or whether they have positive or negative opinions about such regimes. It does not matter if Jews do or not do anything because of some Jewish organizations or what opinions they have about such organizations. Racism is wrong and abhorrent. Full stop.
You're the one who don't know the difference if you can't see that.
So what if someone bashes you? That makes antisemitism and racism ok? Some spats and arguments are all that it takes to excuse racial hate?
You're morally lost.
Every single Israeli outside Israel doesn't criticize Israel's government and supports literally anything they do. Not the case with other groups of people.
And any criticism of them immediately gets people like you talking about 1930s which is non sensical. I can criticize and not be Hitler at the same time.
Well this is just patently false; there are multiple groups of American Jews who don’t support Israeli actions. I’ve come to understand Zionism as the need for a Jewish state. Jews do need their own state because of their history. If for example you think various Muslim countries have the right to exist as ethnostates favoring one group, then Israel has a right to exist as it does. It’s all or nothing. Plenty of people seem to be fine criticizing Jews for this and yet I see nothing similar for states like Pakistan which is essentially theocratic and doesn’t even pay lip service to minority protections.
It does not matter if every single Israeli doesn't criticize the Israeli government or support everything their government does. Criticize their political positions all you want. But it is simply abhorrent (and disgusting, frankly) to then make racism as ok on that account. Racism cannot be justified on the basis of political beliefs. Exemption from racism cannot be conditioned on the race of people having the "correct" politics.
You conflated the two and as a result you said something that sound exactly like what Nazis in 1930s Germany said. Your rant that any criticism against Israel invites comparison to Nazi Germany does not change that. Go back and re-read your original comment. Antisemitism will stop when Jews stop this and this. You may think you were talking about Israeli politics, but that was not what your statement reflected. You put the onus of stopping racism on a race of people being targeted, not the people who instigate hate. You basically said all Jews must conform and comply to demands of a political fraction or else it's open season for racism against them. You then doubled down and insist Asians are relieved from racism as long as they don't behave themselves in a way you don't like.
And still you don't realize how all this sounds to listeners who aren't in your camp.
Maybe if those of you who are anti-Israel can take a look at how you all sound to everyone else, you may get more receptive ears.
You don't have the moral high ground when you make a “Jews deserve it for advocating for Israel”, remark.
Advocating for a foreign country to have this much influence over the United States shouldn't be done. What do you expect me to do? Support the Jewish lobby funded politicians and their decision of open borders to stop "anti semitism"?
Sorry, security of the country is more important than "anti semitism"
You can judge AIPAC and their influence all you want. But when you call it a justification for antisemitism that's a bad take.
I mostly agree but came to a slightly different conclusion (maybe because I'm Canadian) - that rather than focusing on "taking back" one predetermined party from the Laptop Class, the working/Physical classes are better off being swing voters:
"You can’t let yourself be bogged down by cultural or nostalgic ties to any one political party. Most political parties default to caring more about the priorities of their donors and staffers than their voters, so which party has a better platform for the Physical Class can and does vary from election to election....Given the circumstances, never let anyone give you shit about being a swing voter."
https://milesmcstylez.substack.com/p/embrace-your-inner-barbarian
Also - we are why we can't have nice things is an excellent tagline.
Seems like we read a lot of the same thinkers :) I alluded to this a bit when I said some people need to defect, and perhaps poc voters defecting will wake them up. I agree with everything you say btw- I try to be a laptop class traitor myself (and I've been using that term!) because the divide is between the knowledge workers and manual workers, with the former thinking of ourselves as a distinct class separate from the 'working class' even though we are workers mostly dependent on an income rather than capital ownership. The problem is we see ourselves as closer to the owners of the means of production than we do to the 'working class' as currently conceived which is exactly because of socially liberal beliefs being the litmus test of being a good person. Embracing your inner barbarian is a good thing to advocate. I was a little timid about advocating swing voting simply because I knew I'd get flak for it, but I find myself sometimes wanting to vote R just out of spite tbh. I never have, and will not in this cycle, but then again if I want to support what the majority of POC actually want, as Texieria notes, then being a swing voter is the thing to do. Curious if you're a swing voter.
Yeah I voted for Trudeau back in 2014; I would never vote for the current incarnation of the Liberals, but I haven't necessarily closed the door to it if they get their shit together (though that's currently a big if)
While I'm not a Democrat, I liked your analysis! In general, I wish that "compromise" and "bi-partisanship" weren't dirty words in Washington. Surely there's enough common ground to not only banish the crazies from both sides, but accomplish something. I can't stand the rhetoric of "the other side is the enemy."
It's funny bc these days in Washington there somehow is some bipartisanship, possibly because people are so sick of congress doing nothing due to seeing the other side as immoral. I worked hard to stop thinking of Trump supporters as the enemy, and I'm a lot happier and open to people since I did.
Othering the other side never helps. It doesn't matter who flies the plane--if they crash, you go down too!
Glad to see you back. Like Anomalogue, I also forwarded this to a number of friends who have either left the party or feel disaffected but trapped. I think a lot of what gets derided as populism these days is a shorthand for centering class and material wellbeing over race, sexuality, and a politics of marginalization.
But like you note, the politics of marginalization and resentment is on both sides with MAGA tapping into white identity politics.
I used to agree with Anand Girodharadas that Democrats need to do a better job celebrating the virtues of multiracial democracy instead of waving hands at the fear of authoritarianism. But now I think that is the wrong path.
I’m looking for a political movement that focuses on class over race and innovation/progress over degrowth/stagnation. I think we might be the majority (certainly here on Substack), but we don’t have an obvious candidate/leader or offline political movement. I thought Steve Teles and Rob Saldin made this point well (absent the class part):
https://hypertextjournal.substack.com/p/879f5abf-8087-46cb-b481-32204715a71a
Curious for your thoughts on how to build a movement that moves the party by 2028.
The problem is we aren't the loudest of people even if we probably make up the majority of people of lean democrat. I think a good template is PA - Josh Shapiro is an eminently reasonable Democrat who cares more about class than race. Similarly John Fetterman who once considered himself 'progressive' but then eschewed the label bc of racial politics is a class-first Democrat. The lefties, however, generally seem to think all white men are suspect, even though many white men are also pushing for this kind of politics. We of course should run women and people of color but their politics need to not privilege race and gender, and among my friends I see a very casual dismissal of white people without considering their positions.
It's funny you bring up Giridharadas, because I once thought people like him were correct. But I would recommend reading Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country, in which he notes that the celebration of difference leaves us factionalized; it's not a celebration at all, and cultural relativism precludes the creation of a mass movement.
I think Bernie provided a template for this, which is to primary those who've put off the majority of the working class. This could mean finding moderate people of color who don't agree, for example, with gender ideology or can articulate a positive vision of the future that's not constantly referring to an original sin. We need universally appealing policies, but more than that we need someone to articulate a vision like Obama did during the 2008 primary and to a certain extent during his presidency. We don't have an obvious leader, but at the very least with our money we can support people like this. I also know that our influence is extremely limited in the sense that the people surrounding the people in power are from the minority faction of affluent white liberals. That said, I think part of it is also to argue and debate without backing down, as well as eschewing social media, especially for women.
I think if we had a mass exodus from social media, much would be fixed. But this is primarily a gendered problem, and women are of course the hardest people for me to reach. I also think, though, that white people who agree with me who have generally kept their mouths shut need to start arguing back. There are also Democrats working from within to try to push reforms like those who formed the group DIAG which aims to inject sanity into the conversation about gender. Finally, I think people of color need to especially abandon these paradigms. We need a clearing out of our psyches. Much of this is internal work, but I also try to at least learn about the sorts of policies that can build a movement like this. And indeed, Biden has taken several of these ideas and implemented them, even if they didn't last. I honestly admire that he changed. Hilariously, as angry as I was about Bernie in 2016 and 2020, I was pleasantly surprised by how Biden does seem to have placed class first to a certain extent. There's a great example of how moderate people of color put an imperfect messenger in. Finally, we need to stop allowing people with ivy league degrees in power; they will simply never think like a regular person. We need to actually rhetorically and electorally marginalize them as best we can. The overall battle is against elite capture. That was meandering but I always appreciate your questions and observations.
Re the piece you linked, I think Bernie showed that you can have a moderate agenda on identity, not destroy capitalism and create a stronger safety net. I suspect the authors would however consider Bernie on the side of destroying capitalism. I think they're right, however, that intraparty factions are the best way to achieve change. I think they also advocate local engagement, which is the place to start. If Austin is governed by identity leftists, I need to engage at that level to try to inject some sanity, which I'm getting into. Another thing we can get mad and organize about is housing policy, which is under local control. E.g. every Democratic city has this issue and I believe it was Minnesota that straight up banned single family zoning - that is HUGE. Finally I think making an alternate elite network is key to spread the ideas, because every mass movement needs elite support. And there are people in support of a class first movement. AOC was once such a person, but she's since shifted toward race and gender politics over class. This probably means supporting more white people who think like this who can attract back white working class people. That'll of course be controversial. The Progressive faction is actually a great template for this as the authors note.
Now that the Soviet Union is gone, and People Of Influence And Authority no longer have to toss the masses a bone or two, they would much prefer that we dissipate our energy on dreary arguments about cultural appropriation and how many LGTBQXYZPDQ can dance on the head of a pin, endless and endlessly performative struggle sessions, rather than raise questions about how the economic pie is sliced.
Put another way - to paraphrase Chris Hedges - elites will gladly discuss race, they will decry gender inequality most piteously, they will demonstrate a touching sensitivity to the rights of sexual and gender minorities so oppressed that they have not been discovered yet. Those same elites will not readily discuss economic class.
Or, in the negative formulation - if businesses were to stop opposing unionization of their workers, the result would be a transfer of wealth, of concrete material benefits, to brown and black and yellow and white working class people greater than all the allyship statements ever penned, all the diversity committees ever instituted, all the preferred pronoun tags ever attached to a corporate email. Which is precisely why they will not do this.
I think it’s telling that transgenderism is most often found in affluent communities and those parents are loudest. You make a great point about the post Soviet consensus. I’m reading Chaotic Neutral which reminded me that the New Deal was about preventing communism…and I will definitely take our society over authoritarian communist states. The left still thinks that communist countries should be beyond reproach. The thing that’s most shocking to me is the pendulum swinging so far in the other direction on Islam. Yes, in the wake of 9/11 there was actual violence against Muslims, but we seem to have concluded that the experience of x minority in the US means we can’t criticize the country of origin.
This also why social democracy went deeper in europe, which was at greater risk.
I really enjoyed this excellent analysis of the current political and cultural interplay. I learned a lot from your perspective and diagnosis of the problem leading up to the POTUS election. As a non-American, I could care less for US politics but your breakdown of the role of self-serving narcissistic elites driving the race/gender agenda really helped me appreciate once again how so few people can be destructive. Fantastic piece that I'm sure many will use as a reference for their own political decision making.
Means much coming from you! And thanks for the rec :)
👍👍👍
This is very well thought out. Thank you.
This is fantastic! You're after my own heart. Have you read Catherine Liu's book, Virtue Hoarders? Great stuff in a similar (though definitely not the same) vein.
Thank you! I have read that one, and I generally devour the anti elite genre. I also recommend Dream Hoarders by Richard Reeves. I’ve made these connections based on the work of many people, but the thing most miss is the racial aspect as well as the way white guilt weaves through it all. And this is because of course people like me have an interest in perpetuating it.
I missed Dream Hoarders, thanks for that! I'll also mention Musa al-Gharbi, on the off chance that you are not familiar with his work. I'm currently reading a preprint of his book, We Have Never Been Woke, which will be out in October.
There are some wonderful quotes in here for people looking to understand what has happened to factions on the left and how to push back - while not giving up creds of being on the left. I still hear an undercurrent of dislike for anyone to the right. Rather than substituting socio-economic status for race as a basis for 'seeing the enemy' what if we didn't see each other as enemies at all? And is that even possible anymore?
Thank you so much. Not only do Dems not have the moral high ground, nobody does, except when it suits them. It's a very feel-good way to promote our own interests.
Highly recommend Excluded that I mentioned in the essay on this topic along with Ehrenreich if you want more.
I think you're missing a key class. It's not just the progressives driving Democratic policy leftward. In fact, the Outsider Left is almost as progressive but much more racially diverse and significantly more skeptical of government. It makes up almost 10% of the electorate and anecdotally has pushed policy significantly further left, including originating defunding for the police: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/outsider-left/
These are the young anarchists and left-libertarian anti-capitalists and they are also quite important to the leftward shift but don't fit other aspects of your thesis. I'm not saying you're wrong but i think the piece would make more sense if you had addressed this group
That is totally fair. The anarchists were the ones supporting the takeover of public places in 2020 and served as a kind of police force for BLM. I will explore this group more later on. Nellie Bowles’s book details this dynamic also, I recommend it.
Yes! Just caught her interview on Free Press. Loved it.
This is brilliant. Well done.
You have a new subscriber. :-)
I can tell you right now, the Democratic Party is just a bunch of rich white people who think they have the right to make decisions for everyone else. It is sickening. The Democrats abandoned the working class years ago with their commitment to free trade with declared enemies of the US (China) without any regard to the costs born by working people. They believe that their ivy league degrees and their self-righteous choice to work in the non-profit sector make them better than everyone else, but especially better than the working class majority that they despise. They milk race because they can use it as a battering ram against poor whites. I am convinced the trans activism obsession is just an excuse to silence working class back Americans. The best part is that most of these ladies who lunch either come from money or their husbands are investment bankers, management consultants or lawyers at big firms. They love to point out their low salaries, but they live in ritzy downtown neighborhoods using money someone else earned.
We need to stop talking about race and gender and to start talking about class. I would love to see the capital gains tax doubled. That would be a good start. In general we need a less hands on government. So long as one side can use the power of government, no one is safe. We need to get back to the roots of a small, effective government. I used to believe that government could be a force for good, but I have seen this disproven so many times that now i just want less government overall.
Jamaal Bowman is a great example of this at play. Another person of color who has focused on the wrong things. He is rhetorically and literally favoring a specific constituency and ignoring the rest of it, esp his Jewish constituents, and we saw the results. His is also unfocused on class and overly focused on race, and we saw this when he voted against the infrastructure bill.
I think he is a perfect example. The recent election results are reassuring, but I suspect the entire election will be cast as some exercise in White Supremacy, because in the minds of these rich white ladies, Jews are Nazis. I can kind of understand why White Ladies Who Lunch would hate Asian people (they refuse to be victims, they make their own way, their families are proof that modernity need not destroy children-focused family structures, ...), but the resurgence of Anti-Semitism has been surprising. I never saw that coming. Then again, I never foresaw the entire universal victimhood culture either. We have so much work to do in building a better future, and we are training children to hate themselves and feel self-pity. I cannot help but to think that we have spent the last twenty years going backwards, building up ethnic and racial hatreds. I do not believe that this was unintentional. I think our adversaries in China and Russia have been promoting this, and our sad, pathetic educational system has been their willing useful idiots.
Hopefully the success Trump has had among Latino voters and to a lesser extent African-Americans will hit hard enough to quiet the Progressives and restore some kind of liberal sensibilities in the Democratic Party. My greatest fear is that the Ladies Who Lunch are already so entrenched that there is no longer any working class base upon which the Democrats can restore majoritarian politics.
I don't want trump to win, but if we does, I hope the white ladies in particular see the people of color abandoning democrats and come to their senses. But, much of this will also have to be borne by candidates - they have to be brave enough to buck this class, even if it means elite people of color shout at them for being white supremacists. We have to resist both groups, and there is a strong alliance between elite POC and these affluent white women. That needs to break, and people need to come to their senses as I did. They studiously ignored, for example, all the Latinos who voted for Bernie and the argument was that black voters' preferences had to be heeded as they are the 'backbone'. I see that backbone is slowly disintegrating.
As for asian americans, you are correct. We are conditionally accepted as POC when it's convenient but otherwise our own needs are ignored in favor of other groups, and we get called white supremacist if we don't toe the party line, and I resent this. You are correct that we refuse to be victims.
The antisemitism makes sense in a historical context in that when social structures start breaking down antisemitism rises. What seems also to be ignored is anti-semitism among people of color. I once thought Ilhan Omar was unfairly targeted years ago for this, but now it seems like the norm. Bowman, also, was anti-semitic in his denial of the rapes, and I saw that denial everywhere among young brown people of color on twitter. It was shocking and saddening.
Your reply is just changing the subject away from racism. Do you even hear yourself?
"Antisemitism will stop when Jews do this this this and this. . . . " Where have we heard this before? Oh yes! Nazi Germany 1930s. IF ONLY the Jews would do this, and that, and that, and not do this and that."
No. Antisemitism stops when people stop being racist and stop excusing racism. Your statement putting the onus on a race of people to have to take any specific actions as a prerequisite for not being targets of racism is abhorrent. It does not matter if Asians do or not do anything about some government regimes from certain countries linked to their race or whether they have positive or negative opinions about such regimes. It does not matter if Jews do or not do anything because of some Jewish organizations or what opinions they have about such organizations. Racism is wrong and abhorrent. Full stop.
You're the one who don't know the difference if you can't see that.
So what if someone bashes you? That makes antisemitism and racism ok? Some spats and arguments are all that it takes to excuse racial hate?
You're morally lost.
Well said.
Sorry I was replying to a commenter and just realized I wrote this in the general comment instead by mistake.
No I was following - thx for the clarification though 😅