How many even know what intersectionality is?
I’m disputing that it can do very much more than diagnose certain issues. In terms of generating actual policy, it seems to have proven useless at best.
I’d imagine 60% of voters have no idea 30% are like me and have a vague idea what it means but if someone asked me I’d say I dunno really, go ask the triggered meme lady or AOC, and ten percent or less actually know what it is and care about it.
I mean I think if you were to generate, say, a reparations policy for black Americans, you’d want to be sure to address issues unique to black women, or black LGBTQ folks, or black disabled folks, or black homeless folks. Those people face challenges that are unique among the black community.
It’s no different than if you were crafting a broad economic policy and you recognize that, as part of that, special attention should be paid to places like west Baltimore or rural Appalachia. Everybody is hurting, but people in certain circumstances are uniquely hurting because of their combination of having no money and ALSO x, y, or z.
My main problem with all of this discussion is that nobody with any legislative power has any intention of helping anyone, ever. Like if we had President Sanders and Warren somehow sprouting arms and ruling the senate with an iron fist, then I’m all in on getting input and making the basic necessity stuff (free healthcare and college, affordable housing, massive redistributive policies) more specifically tailored to help communities that are sometimes left as a blindspot even to well meaning people. My main problem is that there is a large segment of Democrats and the left that sees more value in talking about identity or intersectional issues than in fighting for any kind of progressive legislation.
I think I’d broaden Flynn’s complaint about intersectionality and apply it to pretty much all progressive thought in 2020. We have gotten very good at diagnosing problems. Even centrist Dems give lip service to those same problems. Everyone agrees income inequality is bad, racism exists and is bad, gay people have unique challenges, women are just treated like garbage, etc.
The problem is that all of these people have figured out voters will 100% give you a pass if you say “yeah sorry Bob, I recognize your wife can’t afford her cancer meds and that is a SERIOUS FAILING of our healthcare system, but just these fucking republicans man, I can’t do anything to help.”
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Right, the problem with the left broadly is that they are good at thinking but not very good at actually doing stuff. The right, who typically have people in their ranks like businessmen, entrepreneurs, managers, tradesmen, military types etc etc, are good at doing stuff, less good at thinking.
The battle with the left is always actually getting things accomplished, which is why I think questions like “how will this help people get healthcare” are a good litmus test as to whether things matter. There’s nothing wrong with intersectionality as like a sociological idea, the problem with it is that it’s the latest attempt to drag the left in the direction of more academic conceptualizing and away from focusing on achieving things. It was the same with the Rogan endorsement, Rogan supports universal healthcare and immigration reform and is thus broadly an ally of the left, but never mind all that when we can have Neera Tanden lecture us about the proper opinions on trans participation in sport. Fine to end up with a candidate who is a lifelong drug warrior, has questionable behaviour around women and has no intention at all of achieving any progressive policy as long as he has one of his staffers dash off a cynical tweet about trans rights.
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Holt shit this is going to be awesome!
Incredibly well said. I could not agree more.
To segue back into podcasts a little bit, I listened to a number of episodes of this podcast “Behind the Bastards”, I’m sick of it now but I started following the host, Robert Evans, on Twitter. He’s into anti-fascist organising and it’s kind of fascinating because it’s the same thing in terms of someone having convinced themselves that some tiny corner of things is important. The battle between fascist organising and anti-fascist organising involves probably on the order of hundreds of people nationwide, but it’s posted about like it’s a top threat to the nation. Not that the right’s drift into fascism isn’t a huge problem, but the revival of actual fascism is more a symptom than a cause. It’s sort of fascinating to see another example of someone convinced they are Doing Politics and Making A Difference when in fact they’re mired in one near-irrelevant issue to the detriment of broader political action.
Edit: Think back to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, for example. No doubt it was horrible having people marching in the streets with swastikas and that one woman being killed etc, but if you look back on it and contextualise it in everything else that’s going on, you’ll see it’s a total irrelevancy in national politics broadly. If you smash those groups and scatter them to the four winds, so what? Trump and McConnell are still running the country. Joe Biden is still the nominee. Eyes on the prize, big picture thinking.
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Ha, I remember when he was making dick jokes on the Cracked podcast.
The eight part Gangster Capitalism series on the NRA, it’s history and current woes, is quite good. Nice hate listen. Gangster Capitalism with Andrew Jenks | Cadence13
The NRA is in the process of mass layoffs and I would assume won’t be donating $60M to Trump this time around. As I note repeatedly about the GOP, be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
The best podcast continues to be the Weeds. Chapo is mostly bad.
I used to listen to them all the time and I still think they’re really smart intellectual people, I’ve just found myself listening to them less and less because they’re the best of the whole genre of left leaning news outlets where they’re just so suffocatingly wonky. Like every person has to take a turn giving keen, deeply researched, insightful angles and I know I should want that, but after so much it just feels so bloodless and technocratic that I feel my interest waning in spite of myself.
Yglesias and Ezra Klein are obviously smart, but their political instincts are awful and there is absolutely no value in discussing the perfect versus the good in a world where Donald fucking Trump is in charge.
New Inebriated Past from Chapo, yes more of this, less tepid watchalongs of schlocky movies please and thank you.
Yeah, last Chapo was really good. I maintain Matt is the only actually insightful Chapo. His rant on the “protestors” was perfect.
Is there a way to get the paywalled episodes for free?
r/blackwolffeed
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+1 to latest Chapo. More episodes like this. Fewer episodes with Hayley (latest ep with her is unlistenable).