Posted on 02/20/2017 4:16:50 AM PST by RoosterRedux
This shift from the ideal of the melting pot to the triumph of salad-bowl separatism occurred, in part, because the Democratic Party found electoral resonance in big government’s generous entitlements and social programs tailored to particular groups. By then, immigration into the United States had radically shifted and become less diverse. Rather than including states in Europe and the former British Commonwealth, most immigrants were poorer and almost exclusively hailed from the nations of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, resulting in poorer immigrants who, upon arrival, needed more government help. Another reason for the shift was the general protest culture of the Vietnam era, which led to radical changes in everything from environmental policy to sexual identity, and thus saw identity politics as another grievance against the status quo.
A half-century later, affirmative action and identity politics have created a huge diversity industry, in which millions in government, universities, and the private sector are entrusted with teaching the values of the Other and administering de facto quotas in hiring and admissions. In 2016, Hillary Clinton ran a campaign on identity politics, banking on the notion that she could reassemble various slices of the American electorate, in the fashion that Barack Obama had in 2008 and 2012, to win a majority of voters. She succeeded, as did Obama, in winning the popular vote by appealing directly to the unique identities of gays, Muslims, feminists, blacks, Latinos, and an array of other groups, but misjudged the Electoral College and so learned that a numerical majority of disparate groups does not always translate into winning key swing states.
Thanks...yes, that’s it. THIS was it, even more, in spades, I think.
I have been saying this to anyone who will listen. Identity politics with a large mmajority only works if you can split the majority and keep them from not forming their own tribe. That is what the charges of racism and white privelege are all about.
If enough of the “white tribe” unite, the democrats are done. It won’t be because of racism, but because of white people in effect embracing the democrats identity politics.
I think VDH’s ‘salad bowl’ vs ‘melting pot’ is a correct prism to view this through, and I think it is important for this country to throw the ‘salad bowl’ in the trash and embrace a ‘melting pot’.
As VDH correctly points out, America has been successful for so long because of the’melting pot’ approach, contrasted to the ‘salad bowl’ approach which has been the source of wars, strife, poverty, and genocide over the centuries.
The left is going through a dying process.
I guess what I meant was, it is good that these identity politics may have backfired on the Democrats and resulted in the election of Donald Trump, but those identity politics are toxic, and should be cosigned to the dustbin of history if we know what is good for us!
It will never be over. I have lived long enough to see cycles where we have declared final victory, and so have they at different times.
Liberalism is like corrosion in a plane or ship that has to be constantly battled and fought. Once it stops being fought, it gains a foothold and begins to grow anew, winning victories until forces are marshaled to fight it again.
Better to put our foot on the neck of liberalism and keep it there, always, so it can’t surprise us and bite us like the snake in the grass that it is.
Good article exposing more Americans to what is going on...divide and govern. End to it? Doubtful. No shortage of criminals/collectives, especially aggrieved.
BUMP!
Bingo!
Concur.
Agreed, identity politic is tribal and doomed to end in conflict. The markeplace of ideas is where there should be debate, not on who is being oppressed by who.
The one thing we all have in common is the desire to be free and to retain our natural rights. These natural rights are enshrined in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. If we hammer on individual rights and insist on their survival the society will eventually homogenize.
The Dems rode a 25-year wave by promising each disaffected group that they’d be #1 in the grievance pecking order.
Eventually they all came to collect.
But the show was oversold by 400%.
Very well put.
The first rule of analogies is “there are no perfect analogies.”
+10
Identity politics are here to stay and will become MUCH more powerful in the years to come.
It's gonna be a mess.
Thanks, polymuser!
Yup, and whitey's jumping in big time!
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