Shot in the Dark

The Majority Minority

What happens when you, much like a colonial power of the 1800s, build an entire political strategy out of harnessing minorities against the majority?

Specifically, when you do as the Democrat party – especially Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 campaign did, making the crux of the campaign about identity politics?

You will get a response based on identity politics.

One of the many lessons of the recent presidential election campaign and its repugnant outcome is that the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end. Hillary Clinton was at her best and most uplifting when she spoke about American interests in world affairs and how they relate to our understanding of democracy. But when it came to life at home, she tended on the campaign trail to lose that large vision and slip into the rhetoric of diversity, calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, L.G.B.T. and women voters at every stop. This was a strategic mistake. If you are going to mention groups in America, you had better mention all of them. If you don’t, those left out will notice and feel excluded. Which, as the data show, was exactly what happened with the white working class and those with strong religious convictions. Fully two-thirds of white voters without college degrees voted for Donald Trump, as did over 80 percent of white evangelicals.

If you make politics about identity…then politics will be about identity.

With all that that implies.

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Mitch Berg

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6 responses to “The Majority Minority”

  1. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    The Democrats have lost its traditional base in the working class. Those voters are now Republicans. The appeal to female voters resulted in the largest groups of them (whites) going 53% for Trump. The Democrats are now left with a dwindling white vote and it seems likely that the Hispanic vote will migrate to the GOP rather than become a junior coalition partner with African-Americans. The party’s disdain for nearly three-quarters of the electorate means permanent exile in the wilderness.

    So far, Identity Politics have brought liberals nothing but defeat. Expect more of this with Keith Ellison as head of the DNC.

  2. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Identity politics benefits minorities if the majority can be shamed into surrender. “Your grandparents treated Blacks badly at lunch counters in the 1950’s, therefore your kids should give up their slots at Harvard, give up their shot at a job, give up their easy-term home loans.” It never worked on new arrivals from Central America or Southeast Asia because they felt no guilt but gladly accepted the benefit. What’s changed is now it’s not working on millennials either.

  3. Scott Hughes Avatar
    Scott Hughes

    “Fully two-thirds of white voters without college degrees voted for Donald Trump….”

    It seems to me that non-degreed folks in coal country states figured that Identity Politics wasn’t working in their favor when Hill said she was going to end their good paying jobs.

  4. Chuck Avatar
    Chuck

    I think one of the reasons Hillary lost is because a woman in a high place is not a novelty to anyone under 50. Woman have held leadership roles for decades.
    Perhaps as Joe D alludes to above….50 years after the end of Jim Crow, running a campaign talking about segregation, slavery, etc doesn’t resonant with most voters.
    The left in most countries run by stirring up class warfare, not identity warfare. Maybe we are going in that direction.

  5. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    What do you mean, “maybe”? Does 1% ring a bell? Occupy Wall Street?

  6. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    Sometimes you have to fill the swamp before you can drain it.

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