How to Fight It
My personal belief is that liberals always want to pivot away from substantive policy to diversity, double standards, civility, privilege and personalities because they’re actually afraid of defending their heroes on a policy level—though not always for the same reasons. Some of these liberals won’t defend the problematic policies and connections of a Harris, Booker, or Patrick because they don’t find them problematic. In fact, they outright support them, and don’t want to openly say so. Others can’t defend the problematic policies and connections of a Harris, Booker, or Patrick because they don’t actually know enough about the policies and connections of their faves to defend them on that level—even if they were inclined to try. They only engage with them on the level of fans and celebrities.
And it’s precisely because they can’t argue politics on a policy level that they always want to get leftists to discuss the criteria that matter to them…bourgeois feminism, superficial diversity, civility, and incrementalism. Since they can only critique on those standards, they try to force others into defending on the same standards, and shift the entire discourse. When you know you can’t win the debate on policy grounds, there are some definite advantages to using this alternate strategy instead.
First, by constantly returning the focus to identity politics, the hope is to get leftists to respond on the same grounds, which subtly reinforces their premise that these are the things politics should be about. Therefore, even if you as a leftist are responding just to say “no, we’re not white racists silencing people of color and women” and “no, we’re not uncivil,” you’re validating their premise that those are the most important issues at stake simply by defending yourself. Suddenly, you’re on trial, and the politicians in question—along with their policies and political connections—are secondary. But if a leftist refuses to answer at all, she will appear to be tacitly admitting to racism, misogyny, and other forms of toxicity. It’s the classic
loaded question gambit gambit: “Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?”
That’s why the best response is to always pivot back to policy, even when choosing to answering the identity politics accusations. If, as a leftist, you choose to defend the left’s track record on race, be sure to include policies you support that help oppressed identities, and contrast them with centrist policies that hurt those same people. Whenever liberals get roped into policy discussions, they usually end up defending fallacious arguments that are easy to pick apart. Often, liberals will end up in ludicrous positions—badmouthing single payer, defending Hillary’s Arkansas slave labor, defending the Clinton crime bill, etc.
That’s why Cooper’s article was so effective and triggered so much defensiveness: it moved them out of their comfort zone and onto their opponent’s field of battle. Pivoting back to superficial identity politics, civilities, and litigating popular personalities is their attempt to regain home court advantage. In response to claims that the left dislikes Harris because she’s black and female, Cooper responded with pure policy, rather than just saying, “hey, we
do like women and people of color, and here are examples of some who rock with us”—which is exactly the response they want. If you go that route, they’ll ignore you anyway, and will view it as validation of the idea that politics is just a head count of tokens.
Even if you do respond with policy, note that a liberal’s only defense is to revert to superficial identity politics, which is why you have to remain vigilant and stick to policy no matter how often they force the pivot. It’s not that identity politics and feminism don’t matter; it’s just that they’re using these topics as shields, and no matter how much you accept and respond to their framing, they’ll ignore the answer anyway. Furthermore, the superficial way they frame feminism and identity politics isn’t particularly helpful to women and minorities anyway. It’s optics and incrementalism—utterly bourgeois in its concerns and solutions.
I feel liberals ignore policy concerns that people like Ryan Cooper,
Briahna Joy Gray, and
Zoe Samudzi bring up because either they fully support said crappy policies and know saying so looks bad, or because they aren’t engaged on policies at all, couldn’t defend them intellectually even if they wanted to, and may not even know what they are.
Oh, and don’t forget personalities. They also want to keep topic on personalities (Hillary, Kamala, Bernie, certain leftist podcasters, pundits, and writers) and not on systems and the needs of voters. They get hung up on people, and not ideas. That way they can dwell on things like
Bernie Sanders the person, his wife’s legal case, and the cost of his house, and
not on socialism and its
growing appeal with the populace, especially young people. If this sounds like a Republican smear tactic, that’s no accident—a continued focus on policy is kryptonite to liberals, whose only recourse is to act, and sound, just like conservatives.
T. Beaulieu is the host of the Champagne Sharks podcast. You can also find him on Twitter @rickyrawls.
