Identity Politics and the Right

Damon W. Root | September 25, 2009

Writing at the website Secular Right, the Manhattan Institute's Heather MacDonald has a provocative post on how "Republicans denounce identity politics, except when they engage in it themselves." A snippet:

Is it too much to hope that Republican criticism of Obama stay within a zone of rationality and dignity?  Yes, the Democrats demonized Bush, but that doesn't mean that Republicans have to respond in kind.  Why not be icily factual and coldly respectful, rather than hysterical and hot-headed?  Both parties seem to have forgotten the Clinton and the Bush eras.   Democrats, in portraying right-wing hyperventilation over Obama as a manifestation of covert  hostility to blacks, forget the insane Clinton conspiracy theories that grew like kudzu even in the highest reaches of Republican opinionizing.  Only this year has the right-wing obsession with the Clintons appeared to have finally and thankfully petered out.  But Republican pundits, in portraying Obama as an unprecedented danger to the country-on Wednesday, Mark Levin announced: "We've never been in this situation before at least in modern times . . . They intend to use the system against you"-forget their own dire warnings about the Clintons as the end of civilization.

Whole thing here. Jesse Walker on how conservatives learned to stop worrying and love political correctness here.

Comments

AssWipe|9.25.09 @ 4:05PM|#

"rather than hysterical and hot-headed?"

[citation needed]

Joe M|9.25.09 @ 4:09PM|#

Okay, yeah, they're all hypocrites, but your quote has nothing to do with identity politics. You should've quoted the Michael Steele bit at the top of the piece.

¢|9.25.09 @ 4:10PM|#

Seeking approval from the punchables as a "thoughtful conservative" is identity politics.

AssWipe|9.25.09 @ 4:12PM|#

Victoria Hutter, of the National Endowment for the Arts' Office of Communication: "This afternoon Yosi Sergant submitted his resignation from the National Endowment for the Arts. His resignation has been accepted and is effective immediately."

|9.25.09 @ 4:17PM|#

A large military spending bill moving through Congress contains a little-noticed outlay for Boston that has nothing to do with national defense: $20 million for an educational institute honoring late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.The earmark, tucked into the defense bill at the request of Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, requires US taxpayers to help the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate realize its goal of building a repository for Kennedy's papers and an accompanying civic learning center on the University of Massachusetts at Boston campus in Dorchester, next to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/09/25/watchdog_groups_rap_20m_earmark_for_kennedy_institute/?page=full

|9.25.09 @ 4:18PM|#

"Republicans denounce identity politics, except when they engage in it themselves."

No duh.

So do Democrats too.

Identity politics are as old as, well, politics.

|9.25.09 @ 4:19PM|#

Heather is always getting the vapors about something. All and all Rush Limbaugh using language that offends McDonald's delicate sensibilities is pretty far down the list of the country's problems.

|9.25.09 @ 4:20PM|#

This just in, Heather McDonald reports that ideologues say nasty things about their opponents.

MNG|9.25.09 @ 4:22PM|#

I think libertarians and conservatives owe Obama a bit of gratitude. He could have embraced and pushed much more "socialist" methods of dealing with, say, the financial crisis (actually nationalizing industries) health care (single payer) or global warming, but he did not. If he had done so with his incoming popularity the goal posts would have shifted to the left of where they are now. Just like FDR got called a socialist for proposing reforms to the right of what many were calling for in his day, so too Obama gets denounced as Stalin even though he could have tried to push a much more "socialist" agenda.

MattXIV|9.25.09 @ 4:23PM|#

Why not be icily factual and coldly respectful, rather than hysterical and hot-headed?

Because stoking irrational fears and making shit up is a quicker way to the desired policy results and thus nearly universally practiced. Next Question.

ghost crabs|9.25.09 @ 4:30PM|#

It would seem that women, are really just crippled men.

http://www.techfemina.com/entry/standing-tall-gadgets-that-allow-women-to-pee-like-men/

|9.25.09 @ 4:31PM|#

Why not be icily factual and coldly respectful, rather than hysterical and hot-headed?

Because that shit don't work? Mike Pence was being icily factual and coldly respectful criticizing the health care bill for months. That got him jack squat.

Sarah Palin and Joe Wilson exaggerate or are rude and that gets instant policy results.

|9.25.09 @ 4:33PM|#

John Thacker,

McDonald is an egghead and thinks everyone else is one to. So, she thinks political discourse should be conducted in the way eggheads would do it.

|9.25.09 @ 4:40PM|#

"""Because that shit don't work? Mike Pence was being icily factual and coldly respectful criticizing the health care bill for months. That got him jack squat."""

Ok, but, if we low-brow politics (like it's not), and our government looks like a bunch of chumps, we shouldn't dismiss them for it and understand why it can't be civil.

We really do end up with the government we deserve.

|9.25.09 @ 4:47PM|#

I agree a little with MNG's post. But I don't expect the gop to give him any praise. Today's politics says it's wrong and treasonous to agree with your enemy.

When Bush does it, the gop grumbles. When Obama does it, the gop shouts.

We have disrupted a real terrorist plot this week, where is the gop praise? If Bush was in office, it would have been more proof on how good Bush's war on terror is going, and used it to justify their anti-terror efforts.

|9.25.09 @ 4:48PM|#

We really do end up with the government we deserve.

Yes we do. I regret it, I really do. I agree with you-- it's no mystery why the government can't be civil. People don't want it, at least according to their revealed preferences.

The government has hardly been civil for its entire history. Anyone pretending that there's been some historical decline in decorum is completely ignorant of the 19th century.

|9.25.09 @ 5:01PM|#

I think half of the Hitler/Facism comparisons are really motivated by the fun of giving Democrats a taste of their own medicine. Conservatives were asked to put up with ChimpyMcHitler (imagine the response if someone put Obama's head on a monkey) comments for eight years, so they are enjoying giving some fits of apoplexy to the Democrats in turn.

Or in other words, I don't they are really making these comparisons as part of any attempt at a serious debating point, but just to poke a stick in the eye of progressives and liberals.

|9.25.09 @ 5:06PM|#

MNG,

He could have embraced and pushed much more "socialist" methods of dealing with, say, the financial crisis (actually nationalizing industries) health care (single payer) or global warming, but he did not.

Actually, he couldn't have. Hell, they tried to ram the public option through initially and that foundered almost immediately. The reason he didn't try any of that is that he isn't an idiot.

FDR was just stupid and so were many of his advisors. See his disastrous regulatory policy for one reason why one should come to that conclusion.

Now the reason why FDR did not nationalize the stock market was due to significant push back by Wall Street and the public generally (FDR actually tried to nationalize initially). When FDR did shit people didn't like - think NIRA here - people told him to piss off and those programs either died for failure to renewal or when they were overturned by the Supremes, Congress did not try to find a way around such (because the Supremes largely invalidated measures that the public didn't like). It is just flat out ahistorical to think that FDR had anything like universal support; that is just one of the great myths about his administration that is easily deflated by any sort of inspection of the period.

And oh yes, nationalizing industries, creating a single payer system, etc. is socialism; there is no reason to put quotes around the word.

CalebHowe|9.25.09 @ 5:09PM|#

You say the right is engaging in identity politics and then write a post about ... well nothing. Where's the identity politics part?

Plant Immigration RIghts Suppo|9.25.09 @ 5:09PM|#

"Yes, the Democrats demonized Bush, but that doesn't mean that Republicans have to respond in kind. "

Politicians deserve no respect of any sort.

"Why not be icily factual and coldly respectful"

I agree with being factual. But what have politicians ever done to be the slightest bit deserving of a single shred of respect?

"rather than hysterical and hot-headed?"

False alternatives.

|9.25.09 @ 5:11PM|#

I think libertarians and conservatives owe Obama a bit of gratitude. He could have embraced and pushed much more "socialist" methods of dealing with, say, the financial crisis (actually nationalizing industries) health care (single payer) or global warming, but he did not. If he had done so with his incoming popularity the goal posts would have shifted to the left of where they are now.

His polling would also be far worse if he had acted in such a manner contrary to all his campaigning. In addition, he would have alienated factions of the Democratic Party; do not think that such more radical plans could have been rammed through Congress the way that more gentle ones can.

The fact that Baucus and others balked at a public option doesn't make you think that Blue Dogs and Senate moderates would balk on that plan? The fact that Bush (both of them) had enormous popularity at times in their Presidency really didn't allow them to push anything that wouldn't have passed regardless. 90% approval rating GWB was forced to accept Democratic amendments creating the TSA because of public polling, and got no momentum whatsoever with Social Security.

What praise does Obama get for not engaging in a politically impossible plan that would likely cost him Congress? He's being tactically smart. Conservatives and libertarians should prefer overreach so great that the Senate wouldn't be able to pass it.

|9.25.09 @ 5:16PM|#

John, some people think I'm batshit crazy because I blame ourselves for our problems.

The problem isn't so much the people in office, but the people that keep putting people like that in office. Few actually get it.

Plant Immigration Rights Suppo|9.25.09 @ 5:20PM|#

"I think libertarians and conservatives owe Obama a bit of gratitude. He could have embraced and pushed much more "socialist" methods of dealing with, say, the financial crisis (actually nationalizing industries) health care (single payer) or global warming, but he did not. If he had done so with his incoming popularity the goal posts would have shifted to the left of where they are now."

This is like praising a bank robber for not also killing every single person in the bank.

|9.25.09 @ 5:20PM|#

TrickyVic,

Politics has always been a nasty contact sport. Go back and look at the campaign LBJ ran against Goldwater sometime. Or go back and look at the horrible things the founders said about each other. Nothing being said about Obama today is any worse than what was said about John Adams.

The idea that politics are worse or more personal now than they ever were is just bullshit.

Tony|9.25.09 @ 5:22PM|#

There are some good people in public office. And some bad. What's the point of engaging in political nihilism and accepting nothing other than the impossible dream of throwing all the bums out? Hurts too much to think that hard?

|9.25.09 @ 5:30PM|#

MNG,

Not at all. He and Congress lurched leftwards, and the public said, "WTF?" Now he and they can either pull a post-1994 Clinton or start putting out the welcome mat to the Not-Democratic Party.

There is very little evidence that the country has moved away from its general right-center viewpoint of politics and economics. Obama campaigned as a moderate in any number of ways, then turned left as soon as he got a chance. Big mistake.

|9.25.09 @ 5:31PM|#

Tony,

Actually, it really doesn't matter whether they are "good" or "bad," indeed, the deal is that political actors are motivated by the same things that private actors are motivated by. It isn't nihilism to argue that this is the case. So the most important thing anyone one can do is to stop romanticizing politics.

|9.25.09 @ 5:32PM|#

Pro Libertate,

Right, Obama campaigned on the notion that health care should not be mandated by the government.

24AheadDotCom|9.25.09 @ 5:38PM|#

I don't think she entirely got Rush's comments, and she doesn't seem to have mentioned things like Newt Gingrich trying to profit from identity politics. Of course, that's just the latest of many; there are literally too many examples to list, but here's Senator Lindsey Graham telling a racial power group what they want to hear.

MNG|9.25.09 @ 5:41PM|#

Seward
The Democratic majorities in Congress actually tried many ways to come up with things that would pass through SCOTUS under FDR. Wall Street was in little position to "push back."

If Obama has used his immediate political capital to push single payer it would have moved the goalposts, and he could have moved to nationalize much of the financial sector at the time as well. Remember "the Left" was very disappointed at he and his "conservative" agency heads chosing to do what they did...

MNG|9.25.09 @ 5:43PM|#

I think the right certainly has their own identity politics, i.e., the "she/he's one of 'us'" stuff with W and Palin, the "anti-Catholic/anti-Christian bigotry" charges, etc. They have their own "we are victims" memes as well...

|9.25.09 @ 5:45PM|#

I'm not saying he never said anything crazily left-wing; I just meant that he tried to sound moderate or spun less-than-moderate statements as moderate. Easier to do when you aren't in power. Now he's got to decide whether he likes leftist ideology more than the White House. He can't have both.

MNG,

Nationalizing financial services would've created an insane backlash of biblical proportions. Even if voters didn't react badly, the entire business world would've. Just the stuff Bush/Obama/Congress did deepened the recession by freaking everyone the hell out.

Paul|9.25.09 @ 5:47PM|#

"We've never been in this situation before at least in modern times . . .

...since the Great Depression!

|9.25.09 @ 5:51PM|#

MNG,

The Democratic majorities in Congress actually tried many ways to come up with things that would pass through SCOTUS under FDR. Wall Street was in little position to "push back."

Sure they did. The record on this very clear; Wall Street firms fought back efforts to make capital investment in the U.S. a government affair. And thank goodness for that. What a nightmare world that would be.

The Democratic Congress did not try to re-authorize anything that looked like the AAA, NIRA, etc. because they were so unpopular.

If Obama has used his immediate political capital to push single payer it would have moved the goalposts...

That is a claim that makes no sense whatsoever on its face. Politicians are rational actors like everyone else. And Obama rationally understood that a single payer system will never fly in the U.S. Then again, as we watch Canada's single payer system get dismantled by their courts we can be happy that Obama is a rational actor.

Remember "the Left" was very disappointed at he and his "conservative" agency heads chosing to do what they did...

The "Left" and the "Right" are always disappointed by the folks that they help elect. See Reagan's unwillingness to really push "Right to Life" issues.

|9.25.09 @ 5:56PM|#

Pro Libertate,

BTW, I remember back in 2002 someone making a statement about Bush and his popularity; as in if he had really wanted to, he could have just declared martial law, etc.

|9.25.09 @ 6:02PM|#

I agree--that view's a load of crap. We may not be full of revolutionary fervor anymore, but we're not quite dead yet, either. The public can be surprisingly sensitive to blatant power grabs. It's the more subtle ones that seem to be causing the problem.

Plant Immigration RIghts Suppo|9.25.09 @ 6:08PM|#

"There are some good people in public office. And some bad."

Name someone in a high political office who has a first name other than Ron and a last name other than Paul who is not a corrupt, statist asshole.

"What's the point of engaging in political nihilism"

It is not "political nihilism. It is political individualism.

"and accepting nothing other than the impossible dream of throwing all the bums out?"

It is not impossible. I may not see it in my lifetime but I am a long term thinker. I would rather strive for philosophical consistency than compromise my principles.

MNG|9.25.09 @ 6:30PM|#

Seward
Dude, they passed a second AAA a few years later. When the NIRA failed they later got through the NLRA, the FLSA, etc. Times were desperate when FDR came in, he could have got some real deal socialism passed if that was what he really wanted. The dude saved capitalism from implosion.

PLant IMmigration RIghts Suppo|9.25.09 @ 6:36PM|#

"Times were desperate when FDR came in, he could have got some real deal socialism passed if that was what he really wanted. The dude saved capitalism from implosion."

Wrong. He killed what was left of Capitalism. If both Hoover and FDR had simply let the markets alone there would have been no "Great Depression" it simply would have been a minor blip on the economic radar screen and probably not even been remembered. Yes, it was Hoover's fault, but not for the reasons leftists claim. Hoover tried to medle in the economy. One of the things that contributed to the mess was the Smoot-Hawley Tarrif.

|9.25.09 @ 6:56PM|#

MNG,

The NLRA was nothing like the NIRA, and the AAA of 1938 was substantially changed from what came into being 1933.

The dude saved capitalism from implosion.

That is just a beyond stupid statement. Many of FDR's policies added to unemployment and this was acknowledged at the time and is acknowledged by the bulk of economic historians today. Indeed, economic historians, etc. have basically decided that his one public policy measure that did some good was getting the U.S. off the gold standard. Since Fed policy was the primary cause of the Great Depression - and not capitalism - it is no surprise that changes in monetary policy were important in getting us out of the government created mess. We are similarly victims of a Fed policy that created a bubble which they expected that they could clean up easily.

|9.25.09 @ 7:03PM|#

Pro Libertate,

What I find interesting is how Obama spent a crap load of international political capital to help a couple of thousand of U.S. tire workers.

Plant Immigration RIghts Suppo|9.25.09 @ 7:12PM|#

"What I find interesting is how Obama spent a crap load of international political capital to help a couple of thousand of U.S. tire workers."

The labor unions basically own him. Not just SEIU, though they do own a large share of Obama stock, the AFL-CIO also owns many, many shares of Obama stock too.

|9.25.09 @ 11:20PM|#

Identity Politics on The Right = Sarah Palin

|9.26.09 @ 10:16PM|#

""Politics has always been a nasty contact sport."""

Oh yeah. Even before Columbus sailed this way.

Chad|9.27.09 @ 10:43AM|#

Is it too much to hope that Republican criticism of Obama stay within a zone of rationality and dignity? Yes, the Democrats demonized Bush, but that doesn't mean that Republicans have to respond in kind.

The problem is that only some Democrats launched wild, idiotic attacks on Bush, while most Republicans are launching wild, idiotic attacks on Obama. This is because almost all moderates have been driven from the Republican party.

In any case, it is everyone's responsibility to denounce wild, idiotic arguments...even when they support what you are arguing for.