The DLC is making a comeback. Yes, the same old centrist apparatus is rebuilding. And they want Dems to minimize their actions and speech about social justice, i.e., reproductive rights, anti-racism, transgendered folks, other GLBTers, anti-sexism, defense of the undocumented and immigrants in general, etc. They want to appeal more to those with “traditional values.”
To be sure, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have been trying to offer the sort of economic agenda items that can appeal to voters in Iowa as well as California, targeted at working class voters who abandoned Democrats for Trump.
But some centrists fear this populist message will get tuned out by heartland voters if it is accompanied by the party’s increasing embrace of staunch liberal positions on cultural matters, from abortion rights to transgender issues.
Marshall helped launch similar efforts as Democrats lost three straight presidential elections in the 1980s, under the auspices of the Democratic Leadership Council and its offshoot, the Progressive Policy Institute.
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New Democracy’s mission statement is even more blunt, warning that both parties have engaged in “a civically corrosive form of identity politics” and Democrats should “avoid vilifying people whose social views aren’t as ‘progressive’ as we think they should be.”
“For many working class and rural voters, the party’s message seems freighted with elite condescension for traditional values (especially faith) and lifestyles,” the group says.
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It remains to be seen how much efforts like New Democracy really will supplement the party’s efforts to reach new voters — and how much of this turns into a deep fight with the liberal wing.
WaPo
“Lifestyles?” Who you love is not a “lifestyle.” Who you are is not a “lifestyle.” We should not abandon our GLBT compatriots in favor of pandering to “traditional [mostly bigoted] values.”
And their website reveals an urge to demean the undocumented and “low skill immigrants”:
On immigration, for example, Democrats should stick to their guns in supporting a humane path to legalization. But we also should take seriously public concerns about the breakdown of public order, the impact of low-skill immigrants on native workers’ jobs and pay, and what many fear is a dilution of our national identity.
New Democracy
The “dilution of our national identity?” F..k that. That is just reinforcing racism and xenophobia. That is Republican turf. America has always been a land of immigrants. Our “national identity” is just fine.
The “breakdown of public order” is a FoxNews fantasy. Again, pandering to bigotry and hate.
And most studies show the impact of low-skill immigrants on native workers’ jobs and pay to be minimal. So these folks want to scapegoat the undocumented and immigrants in general. A trifecta of bigotry.
No. NO! That is the way backwards, and not the way forward.
I stand with Representative Keith Ellison is believing that we must not pick one or the other, but must support both economic and social justice. Ellison correctly says that if we try to trade one for the other, in either direction, we will lose both.
Well, the party needs to be very clear that we have to stand for a strong, populist economic message and we have to care for everybody’s rights and uphold everyone’s human dignity. If we try to trade one for the other, we’re going to lose both.
The way the working class is always controlled is that it’s divided. When you don’t stand together in solidarity, the other side starts picking off groups, and they end up hurting everybody.
So we are all better off when we have solidarity. We need to unify because if we’re together, we can make a common demand for more fairness and more prosperity.
Ellison quoted in my December 2016 Post
I say NO to the DLC. We don’t give up our support for reproductive freedom, transgendered rights, anti-racism, anti-sexism. Nor do we back off on fight for economic justice. Both, not one or the other.
[I used their depiction of “identity” politics in the title because that was how they described a constellation of human rights issues. I’m not sure social equality is that much better, but I needed something to shorthand the issues.]