Can the Democrat Party Survive Without Identity Politics? (Part 2)

 

On the other hand, there may be a more relevant question facing us today: can the Democrat Party survive with identity politics?

Four years ago I wrote an article with the above title. I speculated about the inherent instability of a political movement that is based on identity politics. I suspected that once such a movement achieved power, that the smoldering internecine battles would turn ugly (and perhaps violent) and tear the power structure apart. This brief article asked a lot of questions, but I put the third paragraph in italics, as I think that is our primary concern here today – four years after I wrote this:

I read a fascinating article by Paul Mirengoff a few days ago on PowerLine, with a similar title. I made a quick post over breakfast to get the opinion of my esteemed Ricochet colleagues (…and the rest of you, too!). I have given this a great deal of thought since then, because it highlights a dichotomy I’ve never been able to resolve. The Democrat party has been the party of identity politics for as long as I can remember (I’m 48 years old). It has always reminded me of European governments, which are typically incredibly complex coalitions of many different groups who have little in common. These groups need each other in order to project power, but they don’t necessarily like each other all that much. The Democrat party includes trial lawyers, unionized factory workers who drive huge pickup trucks, environmental wackos who drive Priuses, teachers’ unions, and so on. They have nothing in common, other that their desire for power. I can understand that. I was an athlete for a long time, and I had to work with people that I didn’t necessarily like if I wanted to win. That’s the way the world works.

What I find confusing is the concept that the Democrat party, at its core, ultimately wants socialism. How is it that such a hyper-fragmented group has collectivism as its ultimate goal? How do they intend for that to work? If that is their goal, why would they take this approach? How do they see this working – if they’ve spent the last 50 years accentuating the divisions between people, how do they envision all of us living together as one, as if we were all Danish or something?

So, getting to Mr. Mirengoff’s question, “Can the Democrat Party Survive Without Identity Politics?” I think that without identity politics, the Democrat party ceases to exist tomorrow afternoon. On the other hand, even as the Democrat party rides this wave of identity politics to power, the inherent conflict from their predictable power struggle will become increasingly difficult to control as they gain more influence, and any real power they have will rapidly devolve into internecine infighting, which may become violent. We may be seeing the beginnings of this already.

The conservative movement (I hesitate to type “Republican party” here…) is based on ideology. This ideological cost of admission may limit the growth of the movement, but I think (hope?) that whatever is built will tend to be more stable and sustainable, because those involved have at least something in common.

Again, though, I just don’t understand the Democrat party. What is their goal, and how do they intend to attain it? Do those two things match? Am I missing something? A lot of my friends are liberals because media, teachers, peer pressure etc told them that liberals are nice, and they are nice, so they must be liberals. But somebody in the Democrat party must be giving more thought to strategy than to tactics. What are they thinking? How do they intend to achieve a collectivist society by intentionally dividing it into smaller and smaller pieces?

Am I missing something?

So here we are four years later. What do you think? Is the Democratic Party becoming more ruthless and intolerant because they’re in the process of cementing their control of the American political system for the foreseeable future?

Or is the Democrat party becoming more ruthless and intolerant because, after leveraging the divisions between various identity groups to gain power, they now need to enforce more conformity among these various groups to maintain a stable power structure?

I’m not sure. And I’ll bet you would get different answers if you asked Nancy Pelosi, or AOC, or Kamala Harris, or Joe Manchin, or Maxine Waters, or Pete Buttigieg, or Rashida Tlaib, or Chuck Schumer, or Mark Zuckerberg, or Al Gore, or any number of other leading Democrats. They probably all have different plans, I suppose.

But surely somebody at the top has a plan, somewhere.

On the other hand, perhaps not. The President is generally in charge of his political party. But Joe Biden is clearly not in charge of anything. So perhaps that creates a power vacuum at the top, that creates the instability we’re seeing in the Democratic Party today.

If that’s the case, then this is going to be a very interesting four years.

But one would think that there is a plan behind the increasing ruthlessness and intolerance we’re seeing from the Democrat party. There must be a plan, right?

I wonder what that plan is, exactly?

Because if they’re not careful, the Democrat party is going to destroy itself.  This doesn’t seem to be sustainable long-term.

Leftists movements that seek to control their populations require a dominant leader: A Stalin, or a Castro, or a Mao, or a Hitler, or a Chavez, or someone like that to scare the opposition into compliance, and to keep their followers in line. Once that leader dies, then that political system becomes extremely unstable very quickly. Of course, by the time their leader dies, they’ve generally had several decades to establish bureaucracies and power structures to attempt to hold everything together after they’re gone. But it doesn’t generally work. Things get unstable quickly.

The leftist wing of the Democratic Party recently gained control of the most powerful country in the world, by using identity politics, which naturally creates conflict. And now that they’re in power, it’s hard to say who’s in control. This would seem to be extremely unstable.

And again, I just don’t see how this could be sustainable long-term.

And I suspect that the higher-ups in the party can see this fairly clearly, as they watch cities burn across the country they now rule.

Surely they have a plan to stabilize their control of the power they just won.

Surely. Right?

So what do you think? Can the Democratic Party survive with identity politics?

And more importantly, can America?

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  1. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    Ultimately the fracture will have to happen.  I noticed it the other day with this story:  

    https://news.yahoo.com/biden-holds-meeting-congressional-asian-190924367.html

    Asian Democrats, demanding spoils. Biden selected Kamala Harris, a completely tone deaf, awful retail politician simply because she checked off two blocks.  Sooner or later these competing interests have to collide.  Shoot, I’m just waiting for the first leftie to notice that all the violence against Asian-Americans is coming from another minority group.  Working class whites finally figured it out; working class Americans of all groups are slowly coming around. 

    • #1
  2. Eustace C. Scrubb Member
    Eustace C. Scrubb
    @EustaceCScrubb

    When

    E pluribus unum

    becomes out of many, many more… No. No, we couldn’t survive that as one nation.

    • #2
  3. Rōnin Coolidge
    Rōnin
    @Ronin

    “Surely they have a plan to stabilize their control of the power they just won.  Surely.  Right?” 

    I think the establishment center left of the Democratic Party (Clinton Inc.) thinks they can control it through coercion by using money and position.  The far left side of the party (Barry O.) think they can do it with power sharing and money.  and the uber left (Marxist) just want the chaos because they want the money they think they are going to in-charge.  They got a plan, but it’s not going to work, and the rest of us will get to pay for it good and hard.

    • #3
  4. Sisyphus Member
    Sisyphus
    @Sisyphus

    I began writing of my most heartfelt wishes for the party that has declared war on the Constitution and stolen an election for a senile grifter who never gave a moment’s thought to anyone not lining his pockets and those of his equally vile relatives. But there is the CoC to consider, so I will leave the exact wording to your vivid and lurid imaginations. 

    DC is not under military occupation because their slates are clean and their hearts are pure. They put up fences to protect themselves and tear down fences that protect American families. 

    I pray that the Lord delivers my country from their constant trespasses and usurpations. But not my will but His will be done.

    • #4
  5. DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) Coolidge
    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!)
    @DonG

    The DNC and their fascistic Oligarch partners are successfully using identity politics and Wokeism to control half the people and most of the country for the benefit of about 5% of folks.   I think it is working pretty well for them.

    • #5
  6. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    The American people do not understand what is going on but do understand it is going to come apart.  There is a reason why everybody is buying guns and ammo.

    • #6
  7. Sisyphus Member
    Sisyphus
    @Sisyphus

    Fake John/Jane Galt (View Comment):

    The American people do not understand what is going on but do understand it is going to come apart. There is a reason why everybody is buying guns and ammo.

    It isn’t as if the prices have dropped.

    • #7
  8. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Rōnin (View Comment):
    The far left side of the party (Barry O.)

    What’s crazy is that I really don’t think Obama is considered a far leftist in today’s Democrat party.  Their far left keeps moving further and further left.  At warp speed.

    Heck, Obama may be a moderate now…

    • #8
  9. DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) Coolidge
    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!)
    @DonG

    Dr. Bastiat: establish bureaucracies and power structures to attempt to hold everything together after they’re gone.  But it doesn’t generally work.  Things get unstable quickly.

    Do you see any instability in China?   I don’t.  They have an authoritarian party controlled system (aka, communism) that seems to be stable and growing.  They are ahead of schedule on their 100-year plan.  The Chinese Communist Party not only have firm control of their country, they control ours too!   Look at Hollywood, Big Sports, Big Tech, Big Edu, Wall St, Corporate Media, the Biden’s,… and tell me that the CCP doesn’t have more influence on our country/culture than me or you. 

    England was controlled by a landed elite for nearly a 1000 years.   The Roman empire, controlled by elites, persisted for 500 years.  A government of, by and for the people is a fluke of history.  

     

    • #9
  10. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    I’m not sure where this thought will lead me. Identity can be defined, and usually is, as who we are. If you want to hold a group composed of different identities together, you have to start defining the group and everyone in the group in terms of who they aren’t. Who they aren’t is defined as the enemy. If you think of yourself as, for example, Asian, you have excluded whites, blacks, LGBTQ who aren’t Asian, and so on. If you think of yourself as a minority, your identity extends beyond racial boundaries. However, you still have your enemy: The majority. And it will matter not a burst of flatulence on a wet Wednesday to you that the majority itself has many sub-groups and identities. 

    • #10
  11. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: establish bureaucracies and power structures to attempt to hold everything together after they’re gone.  But it doesn’t generally work.  Things get unstable quickly.

    Do you see any instability in China?   I don’t. 

    You won’t – they won’t – until it is already too late.

    • #11
  12. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: establish bureaucracies and power structures to attempt to hold everything together after they’re gone. But it doesn’t generally work. Things get unstable quickly.

    Do you see any instability in China? I don’t. They have an authoritarian party controlled system (aka, communism) that seems to be stable and growing. They are ahead of schedule on their 100-year plan. The Chinese Communist Party not only have firm control of their country, they control ours too! Look at Hollywood, Big Sports, Big Tech, Big Edu, Wall St, Corporate Media, the Biden’s,… and tell me that the CCP doesn’t have more influence on our country/culture than me or you.

    England was controlled by a landed elite for nearly a 1000 years. The Roman empire, controlled by elites, persisted for 500 years. A government of, by and for the people is a fluke of history.

     

    I’d love to disagree with you but I don’t have much to back me up.  Our own leaders (in the areas you mention above) appear to be leading this country into decline. 

    I hate to say it but this country is ripe for a right-wing strongman who will combat the self-hatred that we see coming from our coastal elites. 

    • #12
  13. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: establish bureaucracies and power structures to attempt to hold everything together after they’re gone.  But it doesn’t generally work.  Things get unstable quickly.

    Do you see any instability in China?   I don’t.

    I don’t either.

    But the Chinese have a strong leader, and a homogeneous population.

    We have neither.  And our diverse population has been trained to hate one another.

    And I don’t think that’s a stable situation.

    • #13
  14. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Rōnin (View Comment):
    The far left side of the party (Barry O.)

    What’s crazy is that I really don’t think Obama is considered a far leftist in today’s Democrat party. Their far left keeps moving further and further left. At warp speed.

    Heck, Obama may be a moderate now…

    Yeah, I’ve seen his last few statements and he seems to be going further leftward in order to stay relevant.  In a sense, the Democratic leadership (if you can still call it that) is riding the tiger; the tiger being the anarchy that AOC and her followers are creating.  If you notice, when AOC (and her followers) complained about the cap placed on the number of illegals being allowed in, Biden saluted smartly and sent Psaki out to announce that there had just been some “confusion” and that the cap was being raised.

     

    • #14
  15. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    But surely somebody at the top has a plan, somewhere.”

    I wonder what that plan is, exactly?

    Which came first? The Democrat Party as a party of those all in agreement which synthesized the Plan, or the Plan itself? Which came first? The Leader of the Plan, or the Plan? It seems as if the Plan has come first and remained despite its shifting and frequently replaced primary leaders and despite the variety of its current crop of leaders. These leaders of various interests and groups look more like individual Cabinet Members of a single government administration.

    If the Party is composed of various groups with their own distinct priorities and goals, each vying for power, they seem to be doing it within a prearranged and fairly unanimously agreed-to political matrix; not a Constitutionally-derived matrix, but an extra-Constitutional organization outside the established order. A diverse Party cannot organize, control, and direct all these various actors without a specific organizer who directs authoritatively from the top.

    I would suspect that there is no one single person or personality driving the many social and political agendas (that corporately are the Plan) but contrarily it appears far too complex and well-directed to not be following a series of specifically laid-out and incrementally progressive goals for it to be engineered and then guided by rough-hewn ad hoc interest groups. Therefore I ask, Who is directing the Plan?

    What is more this Plan seems to be developing more or less simultaneously in more countries than just the United States, so: Who in the world is directing this Plan?

    • #15
  16. Sisyphus Member
    Sisyphus
    @Sisyphus

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Who in the world is directing this Plan?

    Let’s see. The mercenaries in the streets terrorizing with impunity fly the hammer and sickle. Who comes to mind. The name is on the tip of my tongue. 

    • #16
  17. Doug Kimball Thatcher
    Doug Kimball
    @DougKimball

    Kimball’s law: never attribute to ideology what can be explained by greed and envy.

    To the winners go the spoils, that’s the old bromide.  The Left’s coalition is made up of those who want something and to get it, they need to be the winners.  The Democrats are not leftists nor are they collectivists; they only appear to be collectivists because they say that they will “share” the winner’s spoils.  To accomplish this they need to ride the wave of coalition support.  Hence, they patronize the SJWs (who want revenge and confirmation), the socialists (who want to satisfy their anger and envy), the BLM believers (who want to punish and take), the LBGT community (who want to be normalized), the ANTIFA types (who want chaos and mayhem for its own sake), the mega-capitalists (who want to dominate commerce) , the academics (who want to be declared right) and mainstream guilt-ridden suburban Democrats (who want to be “nice” and obedient.)   The Democrats promise to lead these “winners” and assure them that they do all this together, hence the coalition will gain their “spoils” if they win.  And what do the Democrats get?  Power, money and protection in perpetuity.  That’s the game.

    “We are the ones we are looking for.”  When Obama first said this I thought it was the most specious and silly slogan ever.

    Now, I get it.

    • #17
  18. Sisyphus Member
    Sisyphus
    @Sisyphus

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: establish bureaucracies and power structures to attempt to hold everything together after they’re gone. But it doesn’t generally work. Things get unstable quickly.

    Do you see any instability in China? I don’t.

    I don’t either.

    But the Chinese have a strong leader, and a homogeneous population.

    We have neither. And our diverse population has been trained to hate one another.

    And I don’t think that’s a stable situation.

    It is not all wine and roses for the CCP. They make our anti-American tyrants look nearly sapient. From the Epoch Times:

    Chinese theaters suddenly became empty this month after the Hollywood classic trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” was replaced with Communist Party propaganda movies.

    On April 1, the first day of the change, the box office revenue for five pre-cultural revolution films, which were first released before 1965, was zero. Three others had very limited income. On the second day, ticket-selling websites removed the showtimes of the six oldest movies.

    “I have waited for almost a month for the re-release of Peter Jackson’s epic,” a Chinese netizen posted on social media Weibo on April 6. “I won’t go to the cinema if there’s no ‘The Lord of the Rings,’” the netizen said.  “My happy April is gone. It made me even feel that I shouldn’t go to the cinema in May,” another netizen commented on the post.

    The Chinese regime ordered all theaters to release over 10 propaganda movies every month from April to December, to celebrate the party’s 100th anniversary. Each theater must show at least two propaganda movies five times per week.

    It’s unclear whether the Hollywood blockbusters can be re-released in China.

    Zero attendees. Even worse than a Brie Larson superhero movie. Just because the Party suddenly realized they were the orcs. (No, it doesn’t say that, but the resemblance is uncanny.)

    Yes, the CCP is pretty opaque, but Xi isn’t howling and spitting because his job approval is up. He’s got an empty hand and if he can’t intimidate some Western chump to prove he still has the mandate of heaven his dictator for life job could very well end abruptly. Of course, that’s why he hired Biden. But the world knows that and if Biden is too quick to kowtow it will make the obvious more obvious.

    • #18
  19. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Sisyphus (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: establish bureaucracies and power structures to attempt to hold everything together after they’re gone. But it doesn’t generally work. Things get unstable quickly.

    Do you see any instability in China? I don’t.

    I don’t either.

    But the Chinese have a strong leader, and a homogeneous population.

    We have neither. And our diverse population has been trained to hate one another.

    And I don’t think that’s a stable situation.

    It is not all wine and roses for the CCP. They make our anti-American tyrants look nearly sapient. From the Epoch Times:

    Chinese theaters suddenly became empty this month after the Hollywood classic trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” was replaced with Communist Party propaganda movies.

    On April 1, the first day of the change, the box office revenue for five pre-cultural revolution films, which were first released before 1965, was zero. Three others had very limited income. On the second day, ticket-selling websites removed the showtimes of the six oldest movies.

    “I have waited for almost a month for the re-release of Peter Jackson’s epic,” a Chinese netizen posted on social media Weibo on April 6. “I won’t go to the cinema if there’s no ‘The Lord of the Rings,’” the netizen said. “My happy April is gone. It made me even feel that I shouldn’t go to the cinema in May,” another netizen commented on the post.

    The Chinese regime ordered all theaters to release over 10 propaganda movies every month from April to December, to celebrate the party’s 100th anniversary. Each theater must show at least two propaganda movies five times per week.

    It’s unclear whether the Hollywood blockbusters can be re-released in China.

    Zero attendees. Even worse than a Brie Larson superhero movie. Just because the Party suddenly realized they were the orcs. (No, it doesn’t say that, but the resemblance is uncanny.)

    Yes, the CCP is pretty opaque, but Xi isn’t howling and spitting because his job approval is up. He’s got an empty hand and if he can’t intimidate some Western chump to prove he still has the mandate of heaven his dictator for life job could very well end abruptly. Of course, that’s why he hired Biden. But the world knows that and if Biden is too quick to kowtow it will make the obvious more obvious.

    When the Mandate of Heaven goes, it goes fast.

    • #19
  20. Sisyphus Member
    Sisyphus
    @Sisyphus

    Remember how infuriating it was when that stupid RINO, HW, was discovered to be trying really, really hard to prop up Moscow for the sake of “stability”? Xi might turn out to be Biden’s Gorbachev. 

    • #20
  21. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Whenever I see a picture of Rashida Tlaib, I find it hard to believe there was a man on this Earth who impregnated her twice . . .

    • #21
  22. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    Sisyphus (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Who in the world is directing this Plan?

    Let’s see. The mercenaries in the streets terrorizing with impunity fly the hammer and sickle. Who comes to mind. The name is on the tip of my tongue.

    I’ve lost track of the number of liberals I know who are utterly untroubled by Democrat support for Antifa terrorists.

    • #22
  23. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Sisyphus (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Who in the world is directing this Plan?

    Let’s see. The mercenaries in the streets terrorizing with impunity fly the hammer and sickle. Who comes to mind. The name is on the tip of my tongue.

    I tend to think that even communism is but a tool.  But maybe you’re right.

    • #23
  24. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):

    Kimball’s law: never attribute to ideology what can be explained by greed and envy.

    To the winners go the spoils, that’s the old bromide. The Left’s coalition is made up of those who want something and to get it, they need to be the winners. The Democrats are not leftists nor are they collectivists; they only appear to be collectivists because they say that they will “share” the winner’s spoils. To accomplish this they need to ride the wave of coalition support. Hence, they patronize the SJWs (who want revenge and confirmation), the socialists (who want to satisfy their anger and envy), the BLM believers (who want to punish and take), the LBGT community (who want to be normalized), the ANTIFA types (who want chaos and mayhem for its own sake), the mega-capitalists (who want to dominate commerce) , the academics (who want to be declared right) and mainstream guilt-ridden suburban Democrats (who want to be “nice” and obedient.) The Democrats promise to lead these “winners” and assure them that they do all this together, hence the coalition will gain their “spoils” if they win. And what do the Democrats get? Power, money and protection in perpetuity. That’s the game.

    “We are the ones we are looking for.” When Obama first said this I thought it was the most specious and silly slogan ever.

    Now, I get it.

    This is a convincing argument, but why the emergence of these disparate groups?  Essentially all at once.  These aren’t grass-roots groups that form and grow as the society gradually transforms; these are top-down transformative and propagandistic groups, and they all are progressive (that is, planned to be slippery sloped) in nature toward a unnatural and anti-social end.

    The simultaneous emergence of all these groups — from pro-illegal immigration to prohibitions on speech and cancellation, “racism” and white supremacy, to Cross-dresser Children’s Story Day (or whatever it’s called) to child castration, to MMT to AGW and renewable energy to mandating electric cars, etc. — cannot be mere coincidence.

    • #24
  25. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Stad (View Comment):

    Whenever I see a picture of Rashida Tlaib, I find it hard to believe there was a man on this Earth who impregnated her twice . . .

    They say that she’s a very good dancer.

    • #25
  26. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Whenever I see a picture of Rashida Tlaib, I find it hard to believe there was a man on this Earth who impregnated her twice . . .

    They say that she’s a very good dancer.

    Anna Pavlova wasn’t that good a dancer.

    • #26
  27. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    That was quick :-(

    • #27
  28. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Whenever I see a picture of Rashida Tlaib, I find it hard to believe there was a man on this Earth who impregnated her twice . . .

    They say that she’s a very good dancer.

    And Hitler wasn’t that bad an artist . . .

    • #28
  29. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Stad (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Whenever I see a picture of Rashida Tlaib, I find it hard to believe there was a man on this Earth who impregnated her twice . . .

    They say that she’s a very good dancer.

    And Hitler wasn’t that bad an artist . . .

    The only one I remember seeing was no Edward Hopper.

    • #29
  30. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Stad (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Whenever I see a picture of Rashida Tlaib, I find it hard to believe there was a man on this Earth who impregnated her twice . . .

    They say that she’s a very good dancer.

    And Hitler wasn’t that bad an artist . . .

    you need to see “Justified” hitler art episode.

    Here is a relevant clip of the Hitler painting collector.

    • #30
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