What follows here is remarkably similar to what I had planned to write after an expected and prayed-for Hillary Clinton victory: Obsessive appeals to racial, ethnic, sexual and gender identity groupings are bad politics. That’s because at a certain point, “inclusivity” takes on the air of exclusivity.
Clinton’s fervent messaging to Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, Muslims, the LGBT community and women went beyond the usual targeting. It drowned out her economic platform, which would have done much more for the struggling white workers who chose Donald Trump than the Trump presidency is about to do.
One could argue that Trump played white identity politics. The history of white nationalism is ugly, to be sure. But people get confused when “Black Lives Matter” is deemed as acceptable and “All Lives Matter” as racist.
Consider the idea of “white male privilege.” I know what they’re getting at — that well-to-do white men often have access to contacts and investment money that poor women of color do not. But try to explain that to less educated white males suffering severe economic loss.
A backlash was inevitable, and it came from many college-educated white men resenting their near-demonization. Too bad the vehicle for the reaction had to be a repulsive candidate for president.
Wide-open highway for cruelty
Immigration. When Democrats don’t take a firm stand against illegal immigration, they leave a wide-open highway for figures like Trump to push cruelty as the only solution. Today’s immigration laws were not designed to ensure racial purity but meant to provide labor where needed and protect vulnerable workers.
Why, when Clinton called for giving legal status to most undocumented workers, did she fail to emphasize that comprehensive reform also means strengthening enforcement to stop future illegal immigration?
With Trump, poor whites got validation, but at the price of less security. Trump now insists that folks using Obamacare will not lose coverage. But if he lets healthy people opt out of participating — currently his and the official Republican position — the insurance pool will collapse. Guaranteed coverage will disappear or become wildly more expensive. Or coverage for the working and middle classes will become a shabby welfare program.
It will never be forgotten that Clinton won the popular vote by well over 600,000 votes. Had the votes been distributed a little differently across state lines, she’d now be president-elect and I’d be delighted. But this critique would still stand.
It should have been obvious before. It’s obvious now. Identity politics is not good for the country. It’s not even good politics.
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