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But muh rainbow coalition of marginalized identities will smash the kyriarchy as we sprinkle magic diversity pixie dust over everyone and create a shiny liberal Starbucks utopia. Yesterday was 18 Brumaire CCXXV according to the French Republican calendar, by the way. Just a happy coincidence, I’m sure.
Left-liberal “progressives” did this to themselves. This is exactly what retreating into cultural (i.e., identity) politics, while abandoning class as the basis for a socially transformative coalition, gets you. If you make no attempt to appeal to workers qua workers, the Right will inevitably make inroads within that group. As they indeed have. So I don’t pity anyone who is seriously distraught by these results. Blame for Trump cannot be laid solely at the doorstep of “crackers” and hicks; he did significantly better among blacks and Latinos than Romney, his Republican predecessor.
Most anti-affirmative action shit is totally right-wing, so I will begin by saying that I in no way share the politics of most people who look to criticize it. But it’s ultimately a cosmetic measure, which creates a black and minority bourgeoisie and political elite (“black faces in high places,” etc.). When coupled with general economic stagnation and wage depression, growing income inequality and job loss, it’s a recipe for revanchist majoritarian backlash. Educated liberal elites expressed nothing but contempt for the working poor in flyover country, whom they vilified as “one reactionary mass” — i.e., a “basket of deplorables” — of ignorant racists.
In such an atmosphere, even the slightest overture to the working class was bound to resonate enormously. Here, of course, the appeal was made using xenophobic and hateful rhetoric, exploiting longstanding racial divisions and capitalizing on deeply-felt anxieties. Plus, the lack of any appeal to the working class by the Democrats also meant that poor minorities were not energized to vote for them. Smug, latte-sipping liberals just rested on their laurels, secure in their belief that victory was assured by simple demographic shifts. All this while offering nothing to working blacks or Latinos, and promising continued war on those parts of the globe from which the refugee crisis first arose. Continue reading