William McGurn Gets It

Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by columnist William McGurn, and I enjoyed it so much that I'm going to reproduce it here because it corroborates much of what I've been saying over the past six months: namely, that if the Democrats want to rebuild after the absolute thrashing they received in November, they need to do several key things. One, they need to abandon identity politics. Period. Full stop. Two, they need to realize that treating Trump voters with utter contempt doesn't get them any votes. And three, they need to move away from their blue strongholds on the East and West Coasts and focus on reconnecting with working- and middle-class citizens in the American heartland. McGurn makes a persuasive argument for all three, and I shall reproduce his article here in its entirety because it's just too good to pass up. It reads as follows:

"Nine years after Barack Obama accused small-towners of clinging to guns or religion, nearly three years after Jonathan Gruber was shown to have attributed ObamaCare’s passage to the stupidity of the American voter, and eight months after Hillary Clinton pronounced half of Donald Trump’s voters “irredeemable,” Democrats are now getting some sophisticated advice: You don’t win votes by showing contempt for voters.

In the last week or so a flurry of articles have appeared arguing for toning down the looking-down. In the New Republic Michael Tomasky writes under the heading “Elitism Is Liberalism’s Biggest Problem.” Over at the New York Times , Joan C. Williams weighs in with “The Dumb Politics of Elite Condescension.” Slate goes with a Q&A on “advice on how to talk to the white working class without insulting them.” Stanley Greenberg at the American Prospect writes on “The Democrats’ ‘Working-Class Problem,’ ” and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones asks for “Less Liberal Contempt, Please.”

None of these pieces are directed at Trump Nation. To the contrary, they are pitched to progressives still having a hard time coming to grips with The Donald’s victory last November. Much of what these authors write is sensible. But it can also be hilarious, particularly when the effort to explain ordinary Americans to progressive elites reads like a Margaret Mead entry on the exotic habits of the Samoans.

Mr. Tomasky, for example, informs progressives that middle Americans—wait for it—“go to church.” They have friends (“and sometimes even spouses”) “who are Republicans.” “They don’t feel self-conscious saluting the flag.” Who knew?

Most of these writers allow that there is at least some fraction of Trump voters who are not deplorable. What they do not appreciate is how condescending they can be while advising their fellow Democrats to be less condescending. Exhibit A: Mr. Drum’s recommendation that Democrats can “broaden [their] appeal” because these are “persuadable, low information folks.”

Still, Mr. Drum comes across as Gandhi when set against the writer at Slate who interviews Ms. Williams. The following question conveys the tone: “What attitude should we be taking toward people who voted for a racist buffoon who is scamming them?”

Ms. Williams, a University of California law professor who has written a new book on the white working class, generously avoids telling her interviewer he is a perfect instance of the problem. But the larger progressive dilemma here is that contempt is baked into the identity politics that defines today’s Democratic Party.

When Mrs. Clinton labeled Trump voters deplorable (“racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it”) she was simply following identity politics to its logical conclusion. Because identity politics transforms those on the other side of the argument—i.e., Americans who are pro-life, who respect the military, who may work in the coal industry—from political opponents into oppressors.

Which is precisely how they are treated: as bigots whose retrograde views mean they have no rights. So when the Supreme Court unilaterally imposes gay marriage on the entire nation, a baker who doesn’t want to cater a gay reception must be financially ruined. Ditto for two Portland women who ran a burrito stand that they shut down after accusations of cultural appropriation regarding their recipes.

No small part of the attraction of identity politics is its usefulness in silencing those who do not hew to progressive orthodoxy. This dynamic is most visible on campuses, where identity politics is also most virulent. It’s no accident, in other words, that the mob at Middlebury resorted to violence to try to keep Charles Murray; after all, he’s been called a “white nationalist.” In much the same way identity politics has led Democrats to regard themselves as the “resistance” rather than the loyal opposition.

The great irony here is that this has left Democrats increasingly choosing undemocratic means to get what they want. From President Obama’s boast that he would use his pen and phone to bypass Congress to the progressive use of the Supreme Court as its preferred legislature to the Iran and climate deals that made end runs around the Constitution, it all underscores one thing: The modern American progressive has no faith in the democratic process because he has no trust in the American people.

Here it helps to remember the tail end of Mr. Obama’s snipe about guns and religion: it was a crack about voters clinging to “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.” Sounds like a pretty accurate indictment of contemporary American liberalism, judging by all these articles begging progressives to be a little more broad-minded.

So good luck with the idea that the Democratic Party can restore its relationship with Middle America without addressing the identity politics that fuels it. Especially when it starts from the premise that the Americans they are condescending to will remain too stupid to figure it out."

Indeed, as Mr. McGurn laments, the left continues to resists any and all attempts to reform it from within. However, I do have a quibble with the usage of "unilaterally imposes" when the author refers to the issue of gay marriage. The case was brought before the Court and the Court ruled that gay marriage was legal. There's nothing unilateral or authoritarian about that. I do, however, agree wholeheartedly with the examples the author cited afterward of the left's gross overreach in the name "social justice" and "inclusion."

Right, because driving business owners into bankruptcy for not towing the line is so inclusive.

And I do wish to emphasize that liberalism, in the classical sense, is something I can actually get behind. It is actually the rock on which our republic was built. But modern American liberalism? Not so much. Indeed, I would even go so far as to claim that modern American liberalism cannot even be called liberalism because it is not, and has not been for some time now, anything even remotely resembling liberal. Classical liberalism is defined as follows:

"The ideology advocating private property, an unhampered market economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and international peace based on free trade."

Yet modern American liberalism advocates a market economy hindered by excessive regulations and government interference, the reallocation of private property, the use of "freedom of press" to exempt the press of all accountability and ethical standards, exclusion of religion from as many spheres of life as possible, and free trade that benefits large corporations rather than the American people.

I can't say that any of this is a big surprise to me. Can't say I'm all that bothered by the plight of the Democratic Party, either. I mean, it's not like there weren't people on the left who were arguing for years prior to the 2016 election that things were going to badly for the Democrats if they did not fix this. You cannot treat people with this kind of utter contempt and expect them to just fall in line afterward. Telling an unemployed auto worker from Michigan to "check your privilege" after he's lost his job and been forced to take a second mortgage out on his house tends not to go over very well.

But they didn't listen, and they don't care, and because they didn't listen and they don't care, we're stuck with Trump. That's why they've lost, that's why they're probably going to keep losing in 2018, and it's why I don't spend my time policing Donald Trump's every action. I'm not going to watch Donald Trump's every move, because that's what our media does all day, every day, and they lie about it. For God's sake, I feel obligated to actually point out the good stuff he's doing, not because I'm a diehard supporter of Trump but because I'm not sure if anyone else will. And every time I see yet another hysterical article decrying his latest tweet or absurdity, I always ask two questions:

"Okay, but did it break the law? Did it take your rights or someone else's rights away?"

If the answer to both is "no," buck up and stop whining. The Democrats did more than anyone else to enable the rise of Donald Trump, and their situation is not going to get any better until they change. And until they change, they can expect nothing but defeat from now and into the distant future, because they will not be able to present a viable alternative to the Republican Party. What the riots at Berkeley represent, what ANTIFA and the far left represent, is worse to more people than not having free healthcare. Imagine how awful the American left must be: voters knew Trump and the Republicans would try to repeal and replace Obamacare the first chance they got, but they still went and voted for them anyway because the left has become so repellent to many average Americans. Honestly, I would like to vote Democrat one day. I call myself a Republican because I strongly believe, first and foremost, in the idea of small government, but on many other issues I'd probably be considered a classical liberal. I'm not a hardcore Republican by any stretch. Politically speaking, I'm just a bit right of the middle. So while I would like to be able to vote for the Democratic Party one day, that day is not anywhere close to arriving. Until the Democrats get their act together, I will keep pressing the "R" button at the voting booth. Not because I agree with everything the Republicans want to do, but because I agree with them more than I disagree (it's about a 60-40 difference, respectively). But more importantly, at the end of the day I want to keep the far left out of power as much as humanly possible.

Source article: www.wsj.com/articles/why-elite…