THE
2016 PRESIDENTIALelection was the
peak, at least thus far, for the tactics of identity
politics in U.S. elections. In the Democratic
primary, Hillary Clinton’s potential status as the first
female candidate was frequently used not only to inspire
her supporters but also to shame and malign those who
supported other candidates, particularly Bernie Sanders.
In
February 2016 — at the height of the Clinton-Sanders
battle — former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright introduced Hillary Clinton at a New Hampshire
rally by predicting
a grim afterlifefor female
supporters of Sanders, while Clinton and Cory Booker
cheered: “There’s a special place in hell for women who
don’t help each other!” she announced.
Though Albright apologized
in the New York Timesfor her
insensitive phrasing after a backlash ensued, she did
reaffirm her central point: “When women are empowered to
make decisions, society benefits. They will raise issues,
pass bills and put money into projects that men might
overlook or oppose.”
At
roughly the same time, Clinton supporter Gloria Steinem
said female supporters of Sanderswere
motivated by a primitive impulse to follow “the
boys,” who, she claimed, were behind Sanders. Just
this week, the Clinton loyalist and Salon writer Amanda
Marcotte said
Trump won“because some dudes
had mommy issues,” then
clarified that she was referring to left-wing
misogynists who did not support Clinton: “I also have
those moments where I’m like, ‘Maybe we need to run Bland
White Guy 2020 to appease the fake socialists and jackass
mansplainers.'”
By
no means did these rhetorical tactics make their debut
appearance in the 2016 Democratic primary. Indeed, the far
more vitriolic 2008 primary — between Clinton and Barack
Obama — was driven in large part by similar identity-based
accusations from both camps.
Clinton
supporters constantly accused Obama supporters of being
driven by misogyny for opposing the first female president
(a chargevoiced
by Clinton herself), while Obama supportersroutinely
depicted the Clintonsand their
supportersas
racistdue to the nature of their
opposition to the first African-American president.
The
term “Bernie bros,” which became so widespread as a term
of recrimination against Sanders supporters in 2016, was
actually conceptually invented in 2008 to malign Obama
supporters. Rebecca Traister, then of Salon,wrote
under the headline: “Hey, Obama boys: Back Off
Already!” about women reporting “the sexism they felt
coming from their brothers and husbands and friends and
boyfriends [who supported Obama over Clinton]; some
described the suspicion that their politically progressive
partners were actually uncomfortable with powerful women.”
Even
in the 2016 election, there were glaring inconsistencies
in the application of this reasoning. Had Sanders won, for
example, he would have become the first Jewish president
in U.S. history: quite an impressive and important feat,
given the mistreatment of Jews in the West generally and
the U.S. specifically. Yet few accused Clinton supporters
of refusing to support him due to latent anti-Semitism,
and it’s unlikely that — as these same Clinton supporters
continue to find others to support in the 2020 primary
against Sanders — they’ll face such a grave
accusation now.
But
despite the inconsistencies, one of the dominant
themes that emerged in Democratic Party discourse
from the 2016 election is that it is critically
important to support female candidates and candidates of
color, and that a failure or refusal to support such
candidates when they present a credible campaign is
suggestive evidence of underlying bigotry.
BUT
ALL OF THESEstalwart,
bedrock imperatives of identity politics seem
strangely absent from the 2018 election cycle. These
professed beliefs, in fact, seem to have vanished
from Democratic Party politics almost entirely.
Over
and over, establishment Democrats and key party structures
have united behind straight, white male candidates
(including ones tainted by corruption), working to defeat
their credible and progressive
Democratic opponents who are women, LGBT people,
and/or people of color. Clinton herself has led the way.
In
New York state, Cynthia Nixon is attempting to become the
first female governor, as well as the first openly
LGBT governor, in the state’s history. She’s running
against a dynastic politician-incumbent, Gov. Andrew
Cuomo, whom the New York Timesdenounced
this yearfor being “tainted” by
multiple corruption scandals.
But
virtually the entire Democratic establishment has united
behind the white male dynastic prince, Cuomo, over his
female, LGBT challenger. That includes Clinton herself,
whoenthusiastically
endorsed Cuomo last month, as well as
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who — despitestarting
a political action committeewith
the explicit purpose of supporting women running for
office — also
endorsed Cuomo over Nixon in March.
The
same dynamic is now driving the Democratic Party
primary campaign in New York’s 14th Congressional
District, a district that is composed of 70 percent
nonwhite voters. The nine-term Democratic incumbent, Joe
Crowley, is aclassic
dynastic machine politician. His challenger, a
28-year-old Latina woman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has
generated nationwide excitement for her campaign after herinspiring
introduction video went viral. At a fundraising
event, Crowley accused his opponent of playing identity
politics,saying
shewas trying to make the
campaign “about race.”
Despite
all that, virtually the entire Democratic establishment
has united behind the white male incumbent, and virtually
none is supporting the woman of color who is challenging
him. Yesterday, the very same Gillibrand who has a PAC to
support female candidates and who endorsed Cuomo over
Nixon announced that she was supporting Crowley over
Ocasio-Cortez. That led to
this tweet from Ocasio-Cortez upon hearing this
news:
Across
the country, the Democratic establishment has united
behind white males at the expense of their female
challengers and candidates of color.
In Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, for
instance, a pro-choice Democrat, Kara Eastman, is running
against a former GOP male candidate, Brad
Ashford, who has a history of support for abortion
restrictions.
Yet
national Democratic Party organizations, such as the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,have
rallied behind Ashford, while the most well-funded
women’s groups and pro-choice groups — often accused of
putting party loyalty ahead of their ostensible
causes — have strangely ignored the race. When Chelsea
Manning, who would be the first-ever transgender senator,
earlier this year announced her intention to challenge the
white, straight, male Democratic Senate incumbent and
American Israel Public Affairs Committee favorite Benjamin
Cardin of Maryland, centrist Democratsmaligned
herbefore the dust on her
announcement had even settled.
A
similarly bizarre dynamic asserted itself in the race for
Senate in New Jersey, where theDemocratic
establishment united behindincumbent
Bob Menendez despite his having been indicted on multiple
bribery felony counts by the Obama Justice Department
and, when that trial ended in a hung jury, was “severely
admonished” by the Senate ethics committee and ordered to
pay back gifts.
Uniting
behind Menendez, from an identity politics perspective, is
somewhat different than the other examples, given that
he’s the son of Cuban immigrants, but this uniting behind
him despite his serious corruption problems had the effect
of driving his young
African-American challenger, Michael Starr
Hopkins, out of the race, and then made itimpossible
for his female challenger, Lisa McCormick, to win.
IT
IS POSSIBLE,of course, to argue
that uniting behind a white male against challengers who
are female or people are color is justified by
ideological, policy, and strategic preferences. And
there’s likely a great deal of truth to that in these
cases: The candidates challenging Cuomo, Crowley,
Menendez, and Ashford are running to their left. They are
advocating things like abolishing U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, “Medicare for All,” an end to the war
on terror, and a far higher minimum wage.
The
Democratic establishment tends to despise progressive
platforms like that — such views, after all, are a direct
threat to the interests of the corporate, Wall Street, and
weapons manufacturing funding base that sustains the party
— and so it’s not just plausible but likely that their
opposition to those candidates really is driven by
ideology, rather than demographic preferences or bigotry.
But
that’s not the ethos or philosophy that the Democratic
establishment embraces when it’s their centrist,
pro-status-quo candidates who are women, LGBT people, or
people of color, at which point it becomes a moral
obligation to support them and evidence of bigotry if
one refuses to do so. Indeed, supporters of Sanders
throughout 2015 and 2016 endlessly and
vocally insisted that their preference was due to
ideology, not misogyny, yet they still had the label
“Bernie bro” affixed to their forehead.
That’s
why it is truly disorienting to see Democratic leaders
such as Clinton, Gillibrand, and others line up so loyally
behind white men at the expense of their female and
minority challengers. It’s not that doing so is inherently
wrong if one finds those candidates more ideologically
appealing or strategically wise. It’s that such behavior
seems very much at odds with the prevailing ostensible
views within Democratic Party politics about which
candidates one should prefer.
As
I discussed with Ocasio-Cortez in the interview I
conducted with her,published
earlier todayby The Intercept,
“identity politics” does not mean that one should
automatically support a woman or person of color over a
white male. That’s the right wing’s caricature of the
theory. (Though it’s also quite arguably the theory
advanced by Clinton supporters in 2016 against Sanders
supporters.)
What
it does mean in its most convincing rendition, though, is
that gender, race, sexual orientation, and other
demographic factors should be a significant factor in
evaluating competing candidates on the ground that
diversity is inherently good and also a better guarantor
of actual representation:
At
the very least, in light of all this seemingly
conflicting conduct in the 2018 election cycle, real
clarification is needed for what Democrats believe about
these matters.
Otherwise,
people may start suspecting that the Democratic Party
establishment does not have any genuine belief in these
lofty principles of diversity and identity politics it
likes to invoke. It may start to appear that party
leaders instead only cynically and opportunistically
embrace these precepts when doing so helps their
preferred candidates, only to ignore and violate
them when they want to rally behind centrist white men
like Cuomo and Crowley, at the expense of more leftist
challengers like Nixon and Ocasio-Cortez.