That quote is almost certainly bad political strategy, but it’s also correct.
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Strange take when it’s the Republican party that’s been very explicitly appealing to identity politics since day one of the Trump Era.
I assume “our gay man” is that Pete guy from about a decade ago?
Good job! You’re doing it great.
Remember, just keep attacking anyone who doesn’t agree with our corporate-friendly politics as sexist, racist or a homophobe!
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Really not sure at all what you’re getting at.
I remember the eDems waiting until 2012 to be officially pro-gay marriage, and after losing in 2024 the Democratic consultant class guys all said they lost because they were too pro-trans rights. They had that one gay dude who came in third place in a primary ten years ago? Meanwhile the GOP has been explicitly running on white nationalism for a decade and somehow turned trans kids playing sports into the foremost issue of 2024.
It kinda seems like
A. The GOP is the party of identity politics, and
B. Identity politics is working out well for them
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It only works because both parties do nothing for anybody but the richest assholes so then people fall back to the side that’s at least giving them a coherent reason for why things suck and a plan to do something about it even if those reasons and plans are both stupid and evil.
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The IRA was a massive handout to exactly the type of person to vote Republican and they did not give a shit. The 2024 election was a massive defeat for this line of thinking
Agree. The GOP is doing identity politics in lieu of policy at least as hard as Dems for the past 10 years. The effectiveness of this is going to be very dependent on demographics (i.e. how many people share that identity).
The IRA doesn’t disprove my point, it kind of proves it. If the benefits are indirect or hard to see, people don’t connect it to their own lives. They still feel squeezed, so they go with whoever gives them a clear story about why. Republicans have one, Democrats mostly don’t. You need stuff people can actually feel, not 50-point plans no one understands.
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You mean like when the Democrats included the Butch Lewis Act as an amendment to the ARP to bailout the Teamsters pension and every Republican voted against it. That probably got Teamsters leadership and membership to support Dems in 2024, right?
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Surely no rank and file Teamsters member would vote for a party that wanted to prevent literally thousands of dollars a month from hitting their bank accounts in perpetuity. That’s too directly connected to their own lives and material condition.
Chuck Grassley (Senator, IA):
“Do you believe taxpayer dollars should be committed in perpetuity such that the government would effectively finance this private-sector pension system? … [This plan] provides unlimited taxpayer-funded bailouts without any reforms to the system to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Mike Braun (Senator, IN):
“It is a fundamental question of fairness. Why should a taxpayer in Indiana, who might be struggling to save for their own retirement in a 401(k), be forced to subsidize the retirement of a private union member in another state whose plan was poorly managed?”
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Not endorsing doesn’t really tell you much about whether the policy mattered or how members voted. Leadership decisions, internal politics, and strategic neutrality are a different layer than voter behavior. My argument is about what actually moves mass perceptions, not endorsement outcomes.
The Teamsters leadership cited internal polling from rank and file Teamsters members that showed far greater support for GOP than the Dems as the primary reason for not endorsing. So either they didn’t understand how the relative policies connected to their lives, or they decided that other issues were more important than thousands of dollars a month in perpetuity.
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Five words to win in perpetuity:
Cheap Rural Hi-Speed Internet
Whoever does that owns the keys to our Monarchy.
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A pension change doesn’t affect their pocketbook or their circumstances today, so I can see why it wouldn’t have much impact politically.
Hopefully short but definitely more serious answer.
- Since the 1970s American politicians gravitated to economic thinking that is all the same: Mitt Romney and Bill Clinton have essentially the same economic beliefs and people like Bernie we’re considered basically rubes for strongly supporting unions and being wary of free trade, etc.
- With no meaningful differences in their economic agendas, the D, traditionally the party of the people, could only differentiate themselves on social issues. They always did that marginally at best as you point out. Obama on gay rights is a great example: only in support of gay marriage once it was overwhelmingly popular. But always slightly more supportive than republicans. People like me (and maybe you) saw through this BS and realized the D are no great civil rights leaders but …
- Less educated voters saw no meaningful differences between parties and the outcomes they delivered for their lives. But they saw one party, in the most annoying and transparent ways, pretending to care about civil rights by policing what they could say, setting up benefits that only applied to certain groups, etc. and, as their lives got worse bc of the economic policies of the ruling parties…
- This left an opening for the blatantly racist MAGA stuff where they pretended to care about workers AND said it’s okay to hate other people and in fact blamed them. Despite being total BS, it was effective bc of 1-3.
- With polls showing bad days ahead for MAGA, many modern Ds want to continue the old playbook. Don’t change any failed economic ideas but run gay people or women (mostly not trans people yet!) who support the agreed upon economic ideas. See we’re the good party! Others, including many on this board, want the Dems to just pick any white dude bc the racists will never vote for a woman and they, rightly, see Trump as a threat to democracy.
- I posted this study showing people actually vote on issues to say both of those groups are wrong! We should support people who want to meaningfully change the system bc people do vote on issues. And the identity stuff only worked bc there was no difference on meaningful issues for a very long time.
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Ok, then I think we have a drastically different perception of what kinds of policies “connect with peoples lives”.
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This sums it up better than my incoherent babbling. A million hearts!
You said this much more briefly than I did below! But, yes, this.