Might Democrats stop turning the other cheek?
Joe Biden aroused a frenzied debate with his most recent careless linguistic excursion. In an effort to prove his bipartisan chops, he noted his successful liaisons with two notorious segregationist senators, James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia. I suppose moderation and bipartisanship are arguably useful traits in a presidential candidate, but you’d think there would be less outrageous examples to cite. Proving you have a diverse group of friends does not require pulling a picture of yourself and Jeffrey Dahmer from your photo album.
Biden aside (please) the issue of reaching out to the other side is a constant question as Democrats look toward the 2020 election. One faction implores the Democrats to understand President Donald Trump’s supporters, feel their pain, stop being so judgmental and try to win some of them back. To others, Trump supporters are so deeply mired in the GOP fiction that there is no convincing or persuading to be done.
Many who support the “listen to their concerns and try to win them back” strategy are tacitly acknowledging that Trump supporters have legitimate concerns and that liberals and progressives should get off their high horses. These Democrats join the chorus bemoaning “identity politics” and political correctness. They believe that it is the smug certainty of the “elites” that Trump supporters rejected and that it is the strident rhetoric of diversity and democratic socialism that divides America. Why can’t we all just get along?
For decades, Democrats have been giving the political organization formerly known as the Republican Party an inch — and they have taken a mile. Beginning with St. Reagan, the doddering father figure who sought to drown American institutions in the bathtub, America has been pulled so far to the right that it is no longer a legitimate democracy. The GOP, particularly since the takeover by the Tea Party, has gerrymandered election districts, attacked voting rights, invited lobbyists to run the country, allowed virtually unfettered monopolization of the economy, defunded and privatized education, allowed our health care system to be a fully owned subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry, virtually destroyed labor unions, and applauded the greatest economic disparity since the Roaring ’20s. That was before Trump.
Trump and his cronies have attacked the press, undermined the FBI, obstructed justice, torn children from parents, stacked the courts, demeaned intelligence agencies and told one baldfaced lie after another. According to The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, Trump alone has lied more than 10,000 times thus far in his presidency. So, we should make nice with people who think this is just fine? That this is how we Make America Great Again?
I am particularly grated by the concessions many so-called liberals make on the “identity politics” front. If we didn’t have all these people playing the “victim card” they say, maybe we could get some of those good Americans in the heartland on our side.
The only advantageous form of “identity politics” in America is white identity. Folks of color in America have suffered incalculable harm because of their “identity.” They have been enslaved, denied the vote, prevented from accumulating capital, redlined in real estate, relegated to inferior schools and asthma-plagued communities, incarcerated at six times the rate of whites, shot on the streets, profiled in stores, stopped disproportionally for “driving while black,” suffered employment discrimination, had their water poisoned by lead and more. All because of their “identity.” But they dare not point it out, for fear of being accused of practicing “identity politics.”
Perhaps black citizens “play the victim card” because it’s the only card they’ve been dealt.
Women, gay people, people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming, immigrants and others are singled out because of their identity, denied rights, attacked in the streets and then are admonished to stop with the “identity politics” so that more of those good old white folks in the Midwest will feel better.
We are a divided country to be sure, but the divide is not because Democrats have moved to the left. For goodness’ sake, as Noam Chomsky and others have pointed out, today’s progressives are yesterday’s Eisenhower Republicans. The divide is because Republicans have systematically undermined decades of hard-won gains toward equity and the promise of justice for all.
The erosion was gradual and relatively civil until Trump’s election. It is now an overt and catastrophic destruction of the values on which this nation was founded. Resistance, not accommodation, is the only path to salvage what remains of a once admirable nation.
Those who support what Trump is doing to America are deplorable. Turning the other cheek is a bad idea when you’re just going to get punched in the face again.
Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@gmail.com.