Did liberals’ reliance on so-called identity politics cost them the presidential election? It doesn’t matter, suggested Slate’s Michelle Goldberg in a Tuesday piece. Goldberg has no use for “the more illiberal aspects of social justice politics,” but thinks that in general Democrats stand for exactly what, and who, they should stand for.
“There can be no going back on defending the tenuous gains of women and people of color, or foregrounding their demands for full equality. They are the base of the party,” wrote Goldberg, adding that “the focus of left-of-center politics in the dark years to come must be on protecting the groups of people who are targets precisely because of their identities…If Democrats standing up for diversity makes Trump voters feel disrespected, the best response is a slogan popular among enemies of political correctness at Trump rallies: Fuck your feelings.”
This is a reactionary era, Goldberg warned, and “liberal assumptions that had become part of the atmosphere -- that female leadership is desirable, that dismantling racism is an urgent social imperative, that diversity in gender expression constitutes progress -- will likely fall out of fashion. In the 1970s, feminism seemed unstoppable; after Ronald Reagan’s election, it was treated as an embarrassing anachronism. If you haven’t lived through a cultural backlash before, you will be stunned by how quickly and how profoundly the intellectual weather can change. And none of us has lived through a backlash as severe as the one we’re facing.”
As for Trump voters’ motivation, Goldberg played up culture and played down economics, noting that “among the dozens of Trump supporters” she interviewed during the presidential campaign, “not one mentioned NAFTA, but many -- perhaps most -- complained about political correctness. Again and again, people told me how much they resented not being able to speak their minds, though none of them wanted to articulate what exactly they were holding in.”
Goldberg went on (bolding added):
The spasms of unchained bigotry we’ve seen post-election suggest that some Trump supporters were simply longing to howl NIGGER! KIKE! CUNT! FAGGOT! Among those I spoke to, however, some felt bullied for violating more arcane speech rules they neither assented to nor understood…
…Trump seems to understand that a good portion of his followers are more inflamed by assertive cosmopolitanism than by capitalists luxuriating in their wealth, power, and access.
Trump offers his followers the fascist bargain that Walter Benjamin described[:] “Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate,” he wrote. “Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves.”
