Prop 8 in California in 2008 proved that lots of blacks and Latinos are actually “populist.” It carried them, and lost the Anglos and to a lesser extent the Asians, and won because California is not a “white” majority state. I’d say the majority of California populists are not white!
There is a great deal of wisdom in advocating for downplaying the racial equity implications of policies that would be disproportionately beneficial to black folks for fear that broadcasting those implications might activate resistance among certain quarters of the persuadable electorate. I won’t speak for all black people, but I feel comfortable saying that a great many of us get this intuitively. “how will this play with ‘middle America’” is, as you noted, the impetus for Joe Biden’s popularity among black people last spring. But it goes back further than that. There is reason Rosa Parks lay in state when she died and Claudette Colvin will not. There is considerable merit to your argument if made well.
I was completely with you up until the moment I read about “woke” capitalist. Given that writing about politics is either your job or aspiration, it is your responsibility to understand the implications of your word choice. At this point in history, there is no cohort of people who describe themselves as “woke” and the term is used almost exclusively in a sarcastic/derogatory/dismissive way by people who actively oppose the hopes and aspirations of black folks or by people who are for some reason anti-anti-racists. I mean, in a post that is arguing that white Democrats (this article pretty clearly ignores the existence of would be black readers) should deemphasize the “blackness” in issues that impact black people, it seems odd that you are borrowing framing from folks like that. Most black folks, even those of us who might see extreme folly in many of the tactics of more progressive activists, will react with a skeptically ear when we hear people complaining about “wokeness.”
This is not to say you shouldn’t use that word. If that’s what you mean, say it with your chest. I certainly have a much better sense of who you are given your word choice. I think it is a shame, because it’s an important point and it would have been just as easy to not pour poison in your argument. It’s also ironic since at its base, your essay is about being correct on the merits and losing people because of the framing.
I only used "woke capitalist" in an effort to accurately describe those who are socially liberal in questions of race but economically conservative. It was not meant to deride them. I didn't argue that "white Democrats should deemphasize the blackness" in issues. I argued that Democrats of all races should speak about the universal benefits of their good economic policies, instead of emphasizing how they play in terms of racial gaps. I certainly did not intend to ignore the existence of black readers. I hope my argument could stand on its own despite the use of the word "woke." If I may ask, is there a term that I should've used to discuss those that are progressive when it comes to racial issues but conservative on economic ones? It was difficult to come up with a good term, but I'd love to hear a better one if you have one
Perhaps that was your intent, and leaving aside that there is no commonly accepted meaning /boundaries for the term (would everyone agree on that term’s application to Barack Obama? Pete Buttigieg? MLK?), as I said before, it is not a particularly useful term except for as a pejorative which incidentally is how it, is at this point, almost exclusively ever used. It is similar to if someone had written that, “The Democrat party should speak about the universal benefits of their good economic policies…” Surely that opening phrase would capture your attention and maybe color how you read the rest.
The reason I think you arguing about what white Democrats should do, as opposed to all Democrats, is contained in the parenthetical in my original response. Your post clearly doesn’t consider the existence of black readers. Or else you would never write “it’s useful in intra-progressive status competitions to say that your pet issue has a racial equity angle.” Read as a black man, this is a odious sentence that scrubs out of existence real challenges in our real lives, but may be cutting and accurate description of some white liberals.
As for a better term, I don’t know, man. Your basic thesis (which again I think is correct) has been around in some form for at least a hundred years before anyone ever coined, popularized, or refurbished the word woke. Surely someone came up with something. Alternatively, you could maybe ask some of the people who you believe fall into that bucket and ask them how would they describe themselves.
FWIW, Equity expansionist probably gets the job done.
Eventually, an enterprising (hopefully young) Democrat will eventually follow this smart playbook. When that happens, they'll be lauded as an innovative visionary, just for using something that was obvious to Obama in 2008.
I think this is useful pragmatic advice but it also shies away from a more important point, which is that purely social justice policies are just worse policies, irrespective of how much more or less divisive they might be. In a liberal society we’d want to measure the levels of inequality, choose the best policies to help, then measure their impact, then readjust. If we did that we’d likely discover that to the degree race inequality exists it’s decently captured by class, and that it’s improved markedly since even the early 2000s. But the social justice lens is that of permanent intersectional categories that are that way because the activists say they are, and any attempt to measure or question them is a white supremacist discourse. I don’t want to travel in an airplane built by somebody who says that Bernoulli’s principle is white supremacist, and I don’t want to make policy with no scientifically valid way to measure its impact.
The most pessimistic view of this issue is that wokies don't make race neutral arguments because they don't actually want to help the white poor and working class. This may not be true across the board, but often enough the woke left adopts a tone of condescension and even contempt towards less affluent whites. If a desire to feel superior is what's actually driving them, the careful reasoning in Marc's admirable article isn't going to sway them.
I hope team Biden is listening. Biden’s tweet about support for small business could have said “everyone but white men”. When I saw Joe say this I thought “maybe the Republicans will come to their senses and run someone like Romney again?” (Wishful thinking - I know) but if they did I would vote for him over WokeJoe. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them run Nimrata Nikki Randhawa - a women of color. What do woke Dems do then? She’s smart. She will appeal to educated people of all races in a way the last guy didn’t.
But Marc is not really criticizing the substance of the programs, he’s criticizing the rhetoric and salesmanship. He’s promoting a universal program by saying it’s good for minorities. People who like these universal programs should say great program but you aren’t selling effectively rather than I would vote for a guy who has different programs. In fact if you are the racial equity promoter who wants targeted programs for minorities you should be the one that is disappointed and saying hey we want programs targeted to this underserved or struggling group this is just a universal program dressed up as pro-black.
Can anyone explain why Democrats (elites? activists? idk) are so focused on racial equity recently? I am not very sympathetic to this concern (just help poor people; who cares what the aggregations by race are?), so I have trouble understanding it (I kind of understand the concern, but not why it should be so dominant).
Has this just always been a big focus of activists, and they've gained more power recently? Or Democratic elites have decided that the big problem with Republicans/America is racism, so Democrats need to be as not-racist as possible?
I am working on starting a Substack on this very topic (yeah, I know). In short, many (not all) secular liberal elites were looking for higher purpose in this life, a transcendental call to collective action and a constructive outlet for their human drive to help others. The cause of anti-racism was ready for them, with the complementary messages that racism is evil, that racism is the primary cause of enormous and unjust racial disparities, that being "not racist" is not good enough and one must be "anti-racist," and that any people who raise objections to this worldview are themselves racist and part of the problem. I think it's been gradually growing in depth and influence over the last two decades but it really came to a head last year. It's all genuine (ok, most of it), but painfully counter-productive.
I also have theories about why last year- the Trump years certainly drove many liberals to feel justified in despising the right. I think Covid led many privileged people to see how their choices could impact people far beyond themselves. And the George Floyd video was a visceral window into the "lived experience" of oppression. People wanted to DO SOMETHING to help make things better, and Kendi and DiAngelo were ready to at least sell them a book to read (though neither offers any tangible solutions).
Democratic politics are focused on racial equity because black voters are now the swing voters in the party, and political activists who claim to represent black voters (and can exact a price if insufficiently groomed) care about these policies.
Long winded way of saying "handing out free stuff gets votes". The political comic Mark Russell once said the that the Democratic Party platform was just six words: "You want it? You got it!".
I am proud to be counted among the 5% or whatever the percentage is of libertarian voters. Yep, who you marry or what you smoke is your own business and I also believe that most of the social and economic problems that cause many of us to instinctively look for government help have in fact either been caused or made a lot worse by heavy handed government intervention.
History has shown that going deep into debt to have a lot of people either working for the government or on welfare (often a subtle distinction) is not the path to prosperity. Our 1930s New Deal (apparently the inspiration for the Green New Deal) did not work. In 1940, after seven years of the New Deal, unemployment was still over 15% as the economy stagnated under "populist" measures such as protectionist trade policies. Only wartime conscription and weapons production brought down unemployment.
Marc, this was great, thank you! I will say, one thing I think people might under-appreciate is how deeply and sincerely people in the lower left boxes feel that achieving racial equity is a moral imperative. And I know you are saying “hey, if you feel that strongly about it, play the political game better!” And I agree! But they feel *so* strongly that treating it like a game is *also* immoral. The fact that there are so many people in the top left box is a moral problem, and they feel like acquiescing to them is akin to abetting racism. They are ok with pissing them off because they think they need to be shamed into conversion. And the lower left dominate the Democratic leadership right now. So before we can make this case to play the game better (or “pander” as Matt argued this week), we have to make the case to the Democratic Party influencers that being in the top left box is not an inexcusable moral failing.
Or maybe I’ve just got the order of operation of persuasion wrong.
As a parallel, imagine telling pro-life advocates that if they want to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, they should really avoid the abortion thing since it’s so divisive and just focus on cutting government spending since that’s more popular. I think you’d get crickets.
Marc I think you are failing to understand why Dems are doing this. They are framing a moderate and smart policy to appear like its all about race because progressives care very much about race and D politicians can't afford to upset them.
Biden is threading a needle here. He wants to focus on popular moderate policies that will (hopefully) win swing districts in the midterms and actually help people while also trying to keep the progressive left happy and on board the Team Biden Train.
Think of the pressures on Dem politicians. Chuck Schumer fears a primary from AOC next cycle. AOC herself is under pressure to somehow push house leadership to the left.
The regular guys in swing states aren't reading/hearing every politician's comment - they don't care that much - but the very engaged super-woke activists are paying close attention. So this is bullshit pandering but it is smart politics.
Hypothesis: Biden is trying to secure his left flank against https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7592.html and will protect his right flank later. This fits with Amanda Gorman's star billing.
Prop 8 in California in 2008 proved that lots of blacks and Latinos are actually “populist.” It carried them, and lost the Anglos and to a lesser extent the Asians, and won because California is not a “white” majority state. I’d say the majority of California populists are not white!
There is a great deal of wisdom in advocating for downplaying the racial equity implications of policies that would be disproportionately beneficial to black folks for fear that broadcasting those implications might activate resistance among certain quarters of the persuadable electorate. I won’t speak for all black people, but I feel comfortable saying that a great many of us get this intuitively. “how will this play with ‘middle America’” is, as you noted, the impetus for Joe Biden’s popularity among black people last spring. But it goes back further than that. There is reason Rosa Parks lay in state when she died and Claudette Colvin will not. There is considerable merit to your argument if made well.
I was completely with you up until the moment I read about “woke” capitalist. Given that writing about politics is either your job or aspiration, it is your responsibility to understand the implications of your word choice. At this point in history, there is no cohort of people who describe themselves as “woke” and the term is used almost exclusively in a sarcastic/derogatory/dismissive way by people who actively oppose the hopes and aspirations of black folks or by people who are for some reason anti-anti-racists. I mean, in a post that is arguing that white Democrats (this article pretty clearly ignores the existence of would be black readers) should deemphasize the “blackness” in issues that impact black people, it seems odd that you are borrowing framing from folks like that. Most black folks, even those of us who might see extreme folly in many of the tactics of more progressive activists, will react with a skeptically ear when we hear people complaining about “wokeness.”
This is not to say you shouldn’t use that word. If that’s what you mean, say it with your chest. I certainly have a much better sense of who you are given your word choice. I think it is a shame, because it’s an important point and it would have been just as easy to not pour poison in your argument. It’s also ironic since at its base, your essay is about being correct on the merits and losing people because of the framing.
I only used "woke capitalist" in an effort to accurately describe those who are socially liberal in questions of race but economically conservative. It was not meant to deride them. I didn't argue that "white Democrats should deemphasize the blackness" in issues. I argued that Democrats of all races should speak about the universal benefits of their good economic policies, instead of emphasizing how they play in terms of racial gaps. I certainly did not intend to ignore the existence of black readers. I hope my argument could stand on its own despite the use of the word "woke." If I may ask, is there a term that I should've used to discuss those that are progressive when it comes to racial issues but conservative on economic ones? It was difficult to come up with a good term, but I'd love to hear a better one if you have one
Perhaps that was your intent, and leaving aside that there is no commonly accepted meaning /boundaries for the term (would everyone agree on that term’s application to Barack Obama? Pete Buttigieg? MLK?), as I said before, it is not a particularly useful term except for as a pejorative which incidentally is how it, is at this point, almost exclusively ever used. It is similar to if someone had written that, “The Democrat party should speak about the universal benefits of their good economic policies…” Surely that opening phrase would capture your attention and maybe color how you read the rest.
The reason I think you arguing about what white Democrats should do, as opposed to all Democrats, is contained in the parenthetical in my original response. Your post clearly doesn’t consider the existence of black readers. Or else you would never write “it’s useful in intra-progressive status competitions to say that your pet issue has a racial equity angle.” Read as a black man, this is a odious sentence that scrubs out of existence real challenges in our real lives, but may be cutting and accurate description of some white liberals.
As for a better term, I don’t know, man. Your basic thesis (which again I think is correct) has been around in some form for at least a hundred years before anyone ever coined, popularized, or refurbished the word woke. Surely someone came up with something. Alternatively, you could maybe ask some of the people who you believe fall into that bucket and ask them how would they describe themselves.
FWIW, Equity expansionist probably gets the job done.
congrats, marc. Nice work.
"Why target the 3% while alienating the 31%?"
Because it's popular with woke twitter of course...
Eventually, an enterprising (hopefully young) Democrat will eventually follow this smart playbook. When that happens, they'll be lauded as an innovative visionary, just for using something that was obvious to Obama in 2008.
I think this is useful pragmatic advice but it also shies away from a more important point, which is that purely social justice policies are just worse policies, irrespective of how much more or less divisive they might be. In a liberal society we’d want to measure the levels of inequality, choose the best policies to help, then measure their impact, then readjust. If we did that we’d likely discover that to the degree race inequality exists it’s decently captured by class, and that it’s improved markedly since even the early 2000s. But the social justice lens is that of permanent intersectional categories that are that way because the activists say they are, and any attempt to measure or question them is a white supremacist discourse. I don’t want to travel in an airplane built by somebody who says that Bernoulli’s principle is white supremacist, and I don’t want to make policy with no scientifically valid way to measure its impact.
Excellent article - looking forward to the next one!
The most pessimistic view of this issue is that wokies don't make race neutral arguments because they don't actually want to help the white poor and working class. This may not be true across the board, but often enough the woke left adopts a tone of condescension and even contempt towards less affluent whites. If a desire to feel superior is what's actually driving them, the careful reasoning in Marc's admirable article isn't going to sway them.
It's the wokies who adopt a ton of condescension you say. Cool, cool...
Marc, I think you are ready to graduate from intern to resident.
I hope team Biden is listening. Biden’s tweet about support for small business could have said “everyone but white men”. When I saw Joe say this I thought “maybe the Republicans will come to their senses and run someone like Romney again?” (Wishful thinking - I know) but if they did I would vote for him over WokeJoe. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them run Nimrata Nikki Randhawa - a women of color. What do woke Dems do then? She’s smart. She will appeal to educated people of all races in a way the last guy didn’t.
But Marc is not really criticizing the substance of the programs, he’s criticizing the rhetoric and salesmanship. He’s promoting a universal program by saying it’s good for minorities. People who like these universal programs should say great program but you aren’t selling effectively rather than I would vote for a guy who has different programs. In fact if you are the racial equity promoter who wants targeted programs for minorities you should be the one that is disappointed and saying hey we want programs targeted to this underserved or struggling group this is just a universal program dressed up as pro-black.
Can anyone explain why Democrats (elites? activists? idk) are so focused on racial equity recently? I am not very sympathetic to this concern (just help poor people; who cares what the aggregations by race are?), so I have trouble understanding it (I kind of understand the concern, but not why it should be so dominant).
Has this just always been a big focus of activists, and they've gained more power recently? Or Democratic elites have decided that the big problem with Republicans/America is racism, so Democrats need to be as not-racist as possible?
I am working on starting a Substack on this very topic (yeah, I know). In short, many (not all) secular liberal elites were looking for higher purpose in this life, a transcendental call to collective action and a constructive outlet for their human drive to help others. The cause of anti-racism was ready for them, with the complementary messages that racism is evil, that racism is the primary cause of enormous and unjust racial disparities, that being "not racist" is not good enough and one must be "anti-racist," and that any people who raise objections to this worldview are themselves racist and part of the problem. I think it's been gradually growing in depth and influence over the last two decades but it really came to a head last year. It's all genuine (ok, most of it), but painfully counter-productive.
I also have theories about why last year- the Trump years certainly drove many liberals to feel justified in despising the right. I think Covid led many privileged people to see how their choices could impact people far beyond themselves. And the George Floyd video was a visceral window into the "lived experience" of oppression. People wanted to DO SOMETHING to help make things better, and Kendi and DiAngelo were ready to at least sell them a book to read (though neither offers any tangible solutions).
Democratic politics are focused on racial equity because black voters are now the swing voters in the party, and political activists who claim to represent black voters (and can exact a price if insufficiently groomed) care about these policies.
Long winded way of saying "handing out free stuff gets votes". The political comic Mark Russell once said the that the Democratic Party platform was just six words: "You want it? You got it!".
I am proud to be counted among the 5% or whatever the percentage is of libertarian voters. Yep, who you marry or what you smoke is your own business and I also believe that most of the social and economic problems that cause many of us to instinctively look for government help have in fact either been caused or made a lot worse by heavy handed government intervention.
History has shown that going deep into debt to have a lot of people either working for the government or on welfare (often a subtle distinction) is not the path to prosperity. Our 1930s New Deal (apparently the inspiration for the Green New Deal) did not work. In 1940, after seven years of the New Deal, unemployment was still over 15% as the economy stagnated under "populist" measures such as protectionist trade policies. Only wartime conscription and weapons production brought down unemployment.
Without the New Deal the 1940 unemployment rate would have been 30%*.
* in reality without the New Deal the American Bund or the Communists would be in charge and unemployment would have been 0%.
Marc, this was great, thank you! I will say, one thing I think people might under-appreciate is how deeply and sincerely people in the lower left boxes feel that achieving racial equity is a moral imperative. And I know you are saying “hey, if you feel that strongly about it, play the political game better!” And I agree! But they feel *so* strongly that treating it like a game is *also* immoral. The fact that there are so many people in the top left box is a moral problem, and they feel like acquiescing to them is akin to abetting racism. They are ok with pissing them off because they think they need to be shamed into conversion. And the lower left dominate the Democratic leadership right now. So before we can make this case to play the game better (or “pander” as Matt argued this week), we have to make the case to the Democratic Party influencers that being in the top left box is not an inexcusable moral failing.
Or maybe I’ve just got the order of operation of persuasion wrong.
This is exactly my take on what’s happening - but you’ve articulated it so much better than I ever have, even in my own head. Thank you!
As a parallel, imagine telling pro-life advocates that if they want to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, they should really avoid the abortion thing since it’s so divisive and just focus on cutting government spending since that’s more popular. I think you’d get crickets.
Marc I think you are failing to understand why Dems are doing this. They are framing a moderate and smart policy to appear like its all about race because progressives care very much about race and D politicians can't afford to upset them.
Biden is threading a needle here. He wants to focus on popular moderate policies that will (hopefully) win swing districts in the midterms and actually help people while also trying to keep the progressive left happy and on board the Team Biden Train.
Think of the pressures on Dem politicians. Chuck Schumer fears a primary from AOC next cycle. AOC herself is under pressure to somehow push house leadership to the left.
The regular guys in swing states aren't reading/hearing every politician's comment - they don't care that much - but the very engaged super-woke activists are paying close attention. So this is bullshit pandering but it is smart politics.
I'm a big fan of Matt's, but this piece by Marc the Intern is one of Slow Boring's best. You might find some additional data from a slightly different angle at the Working-Class Perspectives blog at https://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2021/01/25/racial-justice-class-justice/ .
Jack Metzgar
Hypothesis: Biden is trying to secure his left flank against https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7592.html and will protect his right flank later. This fits with Amanda Gorman's star billing.