The frequently (and often justly) maligned Joe Klein has done it again. He written something in Time magazine which he ought to regret -- although, of course, he never will.
He's written a piece in which he, magnamiously, afflicts the comfortable Democrats because we "must give up identity politics". (http://www.time.com/...) He mentions the civil rights movement, and the gay rights movement (feeling some need, along the way, to condescendingly define "LGBT" for the folks in the peanut gallery), and feminism. Then he informs us that "[w]e have only one caucus -- the American caucus."
So, no, Joe, I've got to tell you what I know -- it aint so. And, worse, despite your perfunctory concern, you also know it aint so.
Identity politics is as old as American politics, Joe. Remember Prohibition" Did it entirely escape your notice that Prohibition was essentially an anti-Catholic movement? What about the Know Nothings? Going back to the initial European settlements: the indigenous folks here in the United States were aware of the ethnic identity of the new settlers -- they certainly would have it shoved in their face often enough.
Yet, suddenly, the Democrats need to "give up" identity politics because we've let "inclusion [become] exclusive" via special pleading. After all, who's going to speak for the white working-class men? What will they see in the Democratic Party?
I'm not making that last line up -- it's a direct paraphrase from Klein's article:
But if I'm a plain old white insurance salesman, I look at the Democratic Party and say, What's in it for me?
And then Joe goes on to pontificate that
These feelings are clearly intensifying in this presidential campaign. They are bound to increase, perhaps dangerously, as the white electoral majority (currently about 70%) diminishes over time.
Did anybody see the Joke Line in that paragraph? Did anyone except me notice that he shifted the discussion from White Males to Whites in general? And, in fact, from White Non-professional Males to Whites in general? Immediately
after he listed a variety of groups which the Democrats have been winning precisely because they may be White, but they aren't White Non-professional Males?
But, Joe, what you're really saying is that we need to be nice to those poor losers. After all, they won't be nice to us if we aren't. And, heaven knows, they've been so very supportive of us over the years.
Joe, go clutch your pearls somewhere else.