Idpol is result not cause--is actually an ad hoc working class politics and basically the only one we've got right now--is one of those insights so basic and fundamental it's genuinely surprising how little representation it gets in the wider discourse.
I don't think this is giving nearly enough credit to the need for both racial and gender based progress and reform *within the labor movement.* It's not just a matter of liberal identitarian fracturing that leads to racial minorities and women to form and turn to organizations that promote their interests, but a straightforward material complaint: their interests weren't/aren't represented by Left-labor organizations and politics that are inevitably imbued with the racism and misogyny of the broader culture. To say that they shouldn't do so - that it's a fracturing that gives away the game to the forces of conservatism and resentment - comes pretty close to buying in to the broader social hierarchies proposed by those forces.
I don't think that's really a fair reading of what I'm saying at all and I am of course in favor of that. I can't get into every detail in the piece. I didn't say it was "identity politics" doing the fracturing either, I said it was a material issue.
And I think this line "comes pretty close to buying in to the broader social hierarchies proposed by those forces" is pretty egregiously unfair, actually.
Talking about moving from representing fragmented interests to "national leadership" makes me concerned! Are those interests representations of false consciousness? Should groups subordinate their interests to other groups who haven't necessarily shown the inclination to consider them? The *default* assumption in our society should be that any organization or movement that isn't actively anti-racist and anti-misogynist in both its own politics and operations will recapitulate those elements of our culture.
I pretty much explicitly say they are not representations of false consciousness and they are actual material interests represented through these groups and litigation.
I'm not saying you wrote it! I'm saying these are the questions that are downstream of what you wrote. It makes me concerned when groups advocating for their interests are written off as fragmented or just side effects of structural constraints, and contrasted with what would be a real social democracy. Possibly we disagree on what the latter looks like! But the way you have structured the argument here sets up advocacy organizations as, if not villains, then at least things that will be obsolete in a better world. I'm not sure I'm as optimistic as you that there's the necessary humility or self-reflection to bring such a world into being.
I'm sorry, but you clearly did say what I wrote implied your "concerns." And then you say here once again I make advocacy organizations look like villains or obsolete. No I was not. That's your projection. *Everything* is a side effect of structural constraints, that's not a moral judgment. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it Also at first you are saying that I wasn't taking it materially seriously and then when I said that actually the argument is material, you wave it aside as as me saying it's t just he "side effects of structural complaints."
I said it right there above, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THESE GROUPS ADVOCATING FOR THEIR CONSTITUENCIES, and "I’m strongly in favor of the Civil Rights Acts and the protection of minority employees." I just don't think that interest group liberalism, albeit necessary—quite literally *necessary* because of the nature of the system—and important, is the be all end all of politics. But it's honestly pretty infuriating that you are implying that I am low key endorsing racial and gender subordination thereby.
Idpol was an effect of the fracturing, not the cause.
Ezra Klein is the most prominent proponent of what can be called the Great Sundering. The theory postulates that the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the political equivalent of the Big Bang and set the course of American politics to what it became today. Nixon and Reagan were both beneficiaries of a white racial backlash.
Nixon was the beneficiary of the initial shock of the Civil Rights Act; this swing constituency would later be known as the neoconservatives. Their origin story is rooted in '64 CRA; Irving Kristol's dog whistle "A neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality" is a fog horn.
Reagan was the beneficiary of the second shock, which was the desegregation and busing of the 1970s. Who were the "Reagan Democrats"? The modal Reagan Democrat was a working-class white parent of a school-age child who lived in an urban county and within an urban school district's boundaries.
Nixon Democrats and Reagan Democrats became permanent Republicans. It's the classic definition of reactionary to a tee.
The influence of Movement Conservatives and the Religious Right was happening independently of these trends, although a core bloc of the Religious Right was disaffected segregationists.
Idpol is result not cause--is actually an ad hoc working class politics and basically the only one we've got right now--is one of those insights so basic and fundamental it's genuinely surprising how little representation it gets in the wider discourse.
Though it does explain why the right wing mobilizes against it so vehemently.
I'm just repeating your argument.
Absolutely here for the TNR villain cameo.
I don't think this is giving nearly enough credit to the need for both racial and gender based progress and reform *within the labor movement.* It's not just a matter of liberal identitarian fracturing that leads to racial minorities and women to form and turn to organizations that promote their interests, but a straightforward material complaint: their interests weren't/aren't represented by Left-labor organizations and politics that are inevitably imbued with the racism and misogyny of the broader culture. To say that they shouldn't do so - that it's a fracturing that gives away the game to the forces of conservatism and resentment - comes pretty close to buying in to the broader social hierarchies proposed by those forces.
I don't think that's really a fair reading of what I'm saying at all and I am of course in favor of that. I can't get into every detail in the piece. I didn't say it was "identity politics" doing the fracturing either, I said it was a material issue.
And I think this line "comes pretty close to buying in to the broader social hierarchies proposed by those forces" is pretty egregiously unfair, actually.
Talking about moving from representing fragmented interests to "national leadership" makes me concerned! Are those interests representations of false consciousness? Should groups subordinate their interests to other groups who haven't necessarily shown the inclination to consider them? The *default* assumption in our society should be that any organization or movement that isn't actively anti-racist and anti-misogynist in both its own politics and operations will recapitulate those elements of our culture.
Where did I say or even imply *any* of that. You are just reading this into what I wrote.
I pretty much explicitly say they are not representations of false consciousness and they are actual material interests represented through these groups and litigation.
I'm not saying you wrote it! I'm saying these are the questions that are downstream of what you wrote. It makes me concerned when groups advocating for their interests are written off as fragmented or just side effects of structural constraints, and contrasted with what would be a real social democracy. Possibly we disagree on what the latter looks like! But the way you have structured the argument here sets up advocacy organizations as, if not villains, then at least things that will be obsolete in a better world. I'm not sure I'm as optimistic as you that there's the necessary humility or self-reflection to bring such a world into being.
I'm sorry, but you clearly did say what I wrote implied your "concerns." And then you say here once again I make advocacy organizations look like villains or obsolete. No I was not. That's your projection. *Everything* is a side effect of structural constraints, that's not a moral judgment. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it Also at first you are saying that I wasn't taking it materially seriously and then when I said that actually the argument is material, you wave it aside as as me saying it's t just he "side effects of structural complaints."
I said it right there above, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THESE GROUPS ADVOCATING FOR THEIR CONSTITUENCIES, and "I’m strongly in favor of the Civil Rights Acts and the protection of minority employees." I just don't think that interest group liberalism, albeit necessary—quite literally *necessary* because of the nature of the system—and important, is the be all end all of politics. But it's honestly pretty infuriating that you are implying that I am low key endorsing racial and gender subordination thereby.
Idpol was an effect of the fracturing, not the cause.
Ezra Klein is the most prominent proponent of what can be called the Great Sundering. The theory postulates that the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the political equivalent of the Big Bang and set the course of American politics to what it became today. Nixon and Reagan were both beneficiaries of a white racial backlash.
Nixon was the beneficiary of the initial shock of the Civil Rights Act; this swing constituency would later be known as the neoconservatives. Their origin story is rooted in '64 CRA; Irving Kristol's dog whistle "A neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality" is a fog horn.
Reagan was the beneficiary of the second shock, which was the desegregation and busing of the 1970s. Who were the "Reagan Democrats"? The modal Reagan Democrat was a working-class white parent of a school-age child who lived in an urban county and within an urban school district's boundaries.
Nixon Democrats and Reagan Democrats became permanent Republicans. It's the classic definition of reactionary to a tee.
The influence of Movement Conservatives and the Religious Right was happening independently of these trends, although a core bloc of the Religious Right was disaffected segregationists.