Posted on 11/25/2016 3:21:50 AM PST by randita
For Democrats, the Road Back
The GOP shows that it’s possible to win elections by appealing to all Americans.
By Charles Krauthammer — November 25, 2016
One of the more salutary outcomes of the recent election is that Democrats are finally beginning to question the wisdom of basing their fortunes on identity politics. Having counted on the allegiance of African Americans, Hispanics, gays, unmarried women, and the young — and winning the popular vote all but once since 1992 — they were seduced into believing that they could ride this “coalition of the ascendant” into permanent command of the presidency.
They’re reconsidering now not because identity politics balkanizes society, creates state-chosen favored groups, and fosters communal strife; they’re reconsidering because it’s not working.
Democrats read the 2008 and 2012 election results as a harbinger of the future. Then came 2016. They now realize that the huge turnout of their constituencies was attributable to Barack Obama, a uniquely gifted campaigner whose aura is not transferable.
And why assume that identity politics creates permanent allegiances? Take the Hispanic vote. Both Mitt Romney and Donald Trump won less than 30 percent, but in 2004 George W. Bush won 44 percent. Why assume that the GOP cannot be competitive again?
As these groups evolve socioeconomically, their political allegiances can easily change. This is particularly true for the phenomenally successful Asian-American community. There is no reason the more entrepreneurial party, the GOP, should continue to lose this vote by more than two to one.
Moreover, the legitimation of identity politics by the Democrats has finally come back to bite them. Trump managed to read, then mobilize, the white working class and to endow it with political self-consciousness. What he voiced on their behalf was the unspoken complaint of decades: Why not us? All these other groups, up to and including the relatively tiny population of transgender people, receive benefits, special attention, and cultural approbation, yet we are left out in the cold, neglected and condescended to as both our social status and our economic conditions decline.
For all the embrace of identity politics at home, abroad Obama has preached the opposite. Here is a man telling a black audience in September that he would “consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy” if they didn’t turn out for the Democratic candidate in November. Yet on his valedictory tour abroad just nine weeks later, he lectured anyone who would listen on the sins of parochialism. His urgent message for the nations of the world, including his own, is to eschew “tribalism” in the name of a common universalism.
This doctrine of global consciousness found its photographic expression just two weeks ago. There was parka-bundled John Kerry on a visit to the Antarctic, where he had dropped in to make a point about global warming. Three days later, Vladimir Putin, thinking tribally, renewed the savage bombing of Aleppo and then moved nuclear-capable missiles into Kaliningrad to remind Europeans of the perils of defying the regional strongman.
Putin is quite prepared to leave the Antarctic ice sheets to Kerry while he sets his sights on Eastern Europe and the Levant. Our allies, meanwhile, remain amazed that Obama still believes the kinds of things he said in his maiden U.N. address about the obsolescence of power politics and national domination — and acts accordingly, as if his brave new world of shared universal values had already arrived.
Seven months ago, Obama went to Britain to urge them — with characteristic unsuccess — to remain in Europe. Now he returns to Europe to urge everyone to resist the siren song of “a crude sort of nationalism, or ethnic identity, or tribalism.”
This is rather ironic, given that what was meant as a swipe at both European and Trumpian ethno-nationalism is a fairly good description of the Democratic party’s domestic strategy of identity politics.
To be sure, ethnic appeal has been part of American politics forever. But the Hillary Clinton campaign was its reductio ad absurdum: all segmented group appeal, no message. Even Bernie Sanders is urging Democrats to “go beyond identity politics” if they are ever to appeal again to the working class. As for foreign policy, there has always been and always should be an element of transcendent mission to American actions. But its reductio ad absurdum was the Obama doctrine of self-sacrificial subordination of U.S. interests to universal values. That doctrine is finished. The results, from Ukraine to Aleppo to the South China Sea, are simply too stark.
For the Democrats, the road back — from tribalism at home and universalism abroad — beckons.
they trashed Bush, gained power in 2006 and held some of it through 2016.
Run the script again.
Meanwhile, Stevens and Souter, 2 GOP Justices, gave their seats to the Commies. And of course, federal insolvency has hit.
Once again, like nearly all of the pundit class, Krauthammer talks about his own lesson just learned on Nov. 8th 2016 as though he knew it all along.
No, no road back for a democrat, move to Cuba ya bunch of commie rats.
“The GOP shows that it’s possible to win elections...”
Laughable isn’t it? He credits the GOP, the same GOP that fought tooth and nail against Trump and his voters.
It wasn’t the GOP that showed how to win. It was Donald J Trump.
Hey Charlie why don’t you run for DNC chair?
It wasn’t the GOP that showed how to win. It was Donald J Trump.
Is paved with land mines.
IS Kraut identifying as a Repub again? Is he ok with Trump now?
Pray America woke
I doubt he meant the analogy, but it would seem fitting.
Erich Maria Remarque, author of “All Quiet On The Western Front”, two years later published a sequel, “The Road Back” (Der Weg zurück). It was about the same group of soldiers in chaotic Germany after the war, as the German economy crumbled.
The climactic scene in the book is a depiction of a protest parade of horribly wounded war veterans demanding their pensions lest they starve. They marched in blocs specific to their injuries, each more horrifying than the last, many because of the poison gases used as weapons.
If this is what Krauthammer meant, the Democrats are in a sorry state indeed.
The left doesn’t believe it’s over for identity politics. On one of the election night programs I heard someone opine that this was the last time white Americans would be able to prevail. The changing demographic was a recurrent theme on all the programs I have seen (thanks to youtube that would be Fox, msnbc, nbc, cbs, abc, cnn and pbs).
That white Americans are a diminishing species, all took for granted. The Van Jones explosion (”this was a whitelash”) was tellingly received by white, white old Jeffrey Lord with benumbed silence.
It’s too soon for the media to begin grooming the next Democrat president, but in a month or so they will scour the rolls of Hispanic politicians for suitable material. In 2020 it’ll be an ethnic pick.
Brings to mind another good quote I heard: "When Trump is winning he doesn't lose."
They’ll be back. Elections and power are cyclical. Sometimes the cycle takes a long time to turn however.
Keith Ellison is the answer! Under his leadership the DZNC will prevail in 2020. Pass it on.
I agree they’ll likely go after an ethnic pick, seeking to rival Obama’s success. But I think it will fall flat. People have observed that under Obama, racial tensions and identity politics have deepened our divide.
Also, Obama was a once in a lifetime phenomenon. He didn’t prevail solely because he was half-black. He is also an incredibly gifted politician with terrific oratory skills.
It will be difficult, if not impossible to find someone with those gifts. But there might be someone out there that hasn’t risen to prominence yet. Obama’s rise was meteoric and it could happen again.
At this point, it appears blacks won’t deliver their votes in huge numbers WITHOUT a black candidate - a crippling limitation for the Dems. We have been more polarized over the past eight years, and if Obama had any of the magic or popularity attributed to him by the enemedia Hillary would have destroyed Trump.
Obama’s legacy is Republicans in control of all segments of government, and someone as flawed/erratic as Trump in the White House. All the mud slung at Trump over the past year by libs now has to be re-examined as they come to terms with the fact that he beat their anointed candidate - the heroine of the left.
Since they were lib Justices though, there was no change to the ideology of the court.
Ugh...just imagine how many nasty rulings could have been prevented if GOP Presidents didn’t F up those picks, though IIRC, Ford defended Stevens to his dying day.
What Sanders says is tone down the BLM/Feminazi stuff and just stick to good old fashioned class warfare, sorry that’s still “tribalism” and certainly not “appealing to all Americans”.
Agreed
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