Is Woke Broke, or Is There Hope?
"Democrats should . . . acknowledge how the vast majority of those who work for a living have been screwed by the 1% . . ."
By Gregg Robinson
The defeat of Kamala Harris in the Rust Belt and among working-class Latino men raises serious questions about the strategy of the left in the Democratic Party. We must honestly confront the fact that identity politics as constituted by some of us does not have the impact we thought. The focus on cultural issues that has been the hallmark of the left as it emerged out of the 1960’s has been questioned by many progressives from Bernie Sanders to Robert Reich, to Painter’s Union President Jimmy Williams Jr. All these progressives have agreed that it is the working-class that should be put at the center of the Democratic Party.
The Democrats have not ignored class issues entirely, but these issues have been placed at the bottom of an “intersectionality” column along with race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. If all of these commitments are to survive, the order of that column should be reexamined. There needs to be a move from the identity intersectionality metaphor to the kind of class synthesis suggested by Ian Haney-Lopez (see below). Democrats should be wary of the “who is more exploited sweepstakes” and instead acknowledge how the vast majority of those who work for a living have been screwed by the 1% who have pushed economic policies that weakened our unions, shipped our jobs abroad, and hammered our communities. This is not only the “broken record” Bernie Sanders referred to, but the evidence of polls and elections.
Like any movement, identity politics can take some positions to extremes. I once went to a Democratic Party club meeting (not one representing LGBTQ folks by the way) that spent over an hour discussing the importance of each of us learning the various categories of sexual orientation. When the list reached way into double digits, I was lost. Now take this kind of orientation to a low-income person who works as a day laborer and see what kind of results you get. It is a language not so much out of LGBTQ politics, but rather out of the university. It is the sense that the road to power lies in defining how we speak rather than in how we work.
I also believe in calling people what they want to be called. I am of the 60’s generation and if someone who used to be Jane wanted to be called Starlight, I tried to oblige, but I would make mistakes. And that is the point: using pronoun usage as cudgels to hammer people doesn’t move us any closer to the kind of society that respects ALL people. We need to respect what people want to be called out of common decency, but our focus politically needs to be not on pronouns but on the profoundly difficult lives our trans and other LGBTQ siblings face. We need to target their vulnerability as children to bullying, harassment and the risk of suicide; and as adults focus on their rights to a good job free of discrimination and access to quality healthcare.
The goal then is not to abandon our principles and descend into opportunism, but to find a synthesis that recognizes how working people AS A WHOLE have been hammered by economic changes over the last half century.
The model, as I have previously said, comes from the U.C. Berkeley researcher, Ian Haney Lopez:
López confronts the culture issue head on, but in a way that does not scapegoat identity issues. He admits that there is cultural traditionalism inside working-class communities, but there is a way around it that does not involve capitulating to it. The author of Dog Whistle Politics and Merge Left, Haney López argues that progressives must confront cultural traditionalism with what he calls a “Race-Class Narrative,” I would broaden this approach to a Class/Identity Narrative that would include a common-sense concern for issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation in a wider approach that focuses first on the way class issues unite the vast majority of Americans.
Haney-Lopez juxtaposes this kind of position not only toward those who now want to abandon concerns for identity issues in general, but also on those he calls the “Race-Left.” Portions of the Democratic Party and some progressives more generally have pushed a response to working-class traditionalism by attacking the people that hold these beliefs. However, this “Race-Left” attack on “white privilege” is counterproductive, as Haney López observes: “(C)ondemnations of white supremacy backfire, losing support from voters across racial lines and thereby making justice for communities of color less likely….” He argues instead for an approach that fuses identity concerns and class.
In politics, Haney López says, there are two crucial questions: who is on our side? and who is our enemy? Any effective politics must answer both of these. The “Class-Identity Narrative” does so by telling working-class people that racism, sexism, and anti-immigrant campaigns are being used to divide us so that wealthy elites can prosper.
This does NOT retreat to cultural traditionalism, nor does it merely guilt-trip men, straight folks, and white people as the source of problems, but rather unites working-class people of all backgrounds and gives them an enemy to oppose. In Haney López’ polling this approach to politics is THE most popular approach for all groups: not just among white workers but African-American and Latino workers as well. A more detailed description of what this approach involves can be found here This also relates well with what polls both before and after the election have told us about the attitudes of those crucial working-class voters of all ethnicities.
Haney López’s work must be taken seriously if we are to effectively respond to the weaknesses of the Democratic Party that were demonstrated in this election WITHOUT abandoning our principled concern for equity. This perspective allows us to approach the inevitable stock taking inside the Democratic Party without forming the usual circular firing squad. We must be clear-headed about our failures, especially in regards to the working-classes, but do so in a way that creates unity and solidarity among all those exploited by our economic elites.
Gregg Robinson is a long-time activist, retired Grossmont College Sociology professor, San Diego County Board of Education member, and a member of the AFT Guild, Local 1931 Retiree Chapter.