Democrats are in an identity crisis about identity politics.
Just weeks after the Trump administration, Democrats are working on ways to stand up to diversity and defend marginalized groups attacked by the White House.
President Trump pushed for days to race to unleash diversity, equity, inclusion – at an astonishing speed. Potomac River.
At the same time, he calls gender care for trans youth “chemical and surgical amputations,” ordered trans women in federal prisons to be transferred to men’s prisons, and transgender athletes from women’s sports. They made a series of aggressive moves against transgender rights, including banning them. .
But Democrats struggle to marshall effective responses. They are debating publicly and personally, when to push back, how to push back, and what exactly to push back.
Some say most of the discrimination, especially rank racism, should not be unanswered. Others are pushing the party to be more selective and engaged only in cultural battles that are more likely to win. And even when Republicans seem to open themselves to a fierce counterattack, others are urging the party to avoid identity politics altogether.
“The party is shaking,” Rashad Robinson said.
For years, Democrats believed they held moral and political highlands to defend diverse and multicultural American values. They assumed that Trump’s racial dissatisfaction exploitation would inevitably lead him to a demographic dead end, by throttling his appeal to growing non-whites. However, the 2024 election disrupted these assumptions as Trump not only won the White House, but also greatly improved his position among non-white voters.
Now, the Democrats are in a period of uneasy reevaluation.
Robinson urged the party “more than they could give up on identifying and eliminating discrimination and leading them out of the water.” However, he argues that Democrats need to recalibrate their diversity debate and focus on demonstrating the practical benefits of having people of color in the room for important decisions. did.
“If we simply make a point through a moral lens, we’re losing,” Robinson said. “Now we have to create a business case.”
Democrats hope that the Trump administration will expand aggressive workers every day, consume gender-identifying pronouns, suspend DEI-related contracts, put workers on administrative leave, and end federal recognition in Black History Month They say they feel they will put pressure on anti-men to settle down to attack.
Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat among those making the most completely corrupt cases for Day, provided Tart’s explanation as to why it led to a white backlash. She said this week on CNN.
Others hope that the parties see the politics of identity as a minefield and avoid it as much as possible.
“I grew up with a white working class child and joined the Democrats as a teenager. “Working class whites, blacks, and Latinos are the ones who have a good job, health care and equal rights. When we fought together for, we thought there was a better chance in America. For some reason, we made ourselves the most of America and the evaluation agent. It breaks my heart.”
Party split
How far the party is from the consensus was revealed in a recent election for the Democratic National Committee chairman. The candidate was asked to pledge to expand transgender representation and add a new Muslim caucus, and declared that racism and misogyny contributed to the defeat of former Vice President Kamala Harris I did.
Last Saturday, DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison departed, striving to explain the party’s dizzy and complicated gender clauses. The remaining six officers must be gender-balanced. ”
Republicans were willing to play clips of the moment to portray Democrats as hopelessly insensitive.
There is plenty of evidence that party brands are deemed to be in touch with national concerns. Voters in the recent New York Times and Ipsos polls said they believe that the two most important issues for Democrats are abortion and LGBTQ policies.
Some Democrats not only benefit, but also increase qualified people who may be left behind in other ways, but also to combat racism, sexism and transphobia sufficient for the anti-DEI movement. claims that protecting diversity, equity and inclusion programs is essential. .
“They believe in their white supremacy,” Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar said hegemony was the target of repeated attacks of bias. “The pendulum swings, whether we make progress or regress, and I think it’s up to us as Democrats to continue fighting for progress.”
But others believe that the party must be more selective in its battle.
Brianna Wu, a transgender woman and a Democratic strategist who ran for Congress in 2018, said activists have been pushing for extreme views on transgender rights in recent years. She accused the party leader of embracing voters, like girls’ participation in sports, and said this supported the Republican efforts to roll back transgender rights more widely.
“It won’t help that marginalized people won’t win the election,” Wu said. “The Democrats’ aim is to win elections. They don’t have to babysit the emotional state of activists.”
Changing political terrain
The politics of inclusion have changed significantly over the past five years.
The energetic resistance movement that emerged to oppose Trump’s election in 2016, and the House of Representatives delivered to Democrats in a landslide in 2018 — has more hands on progressive aspirations for racial and gender equity I don’t think it’s reachable.
The #MeToo movement has ousted abusive men out of power, and even ideas as vast as slavery reparations, which have not been dismissed by the party mainstream, were deemed worthy of research. By early 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr. had pledged to place black women on the Supreme Court and choose women as vice president.
George Floyd’s 2020 murder by Minneapolis police officers focused on systemic racism. Once elected, Biden has made racial advances the rhetorical cornerstone of his agenda, historically investing in black universities, expanding loans to black-owned small businesses, and diverse judicial appointments. I trumpeted sex.
But Republicans were quickly forced to rebel, turning the former academic concept of critical racial theory into a rallying cry for what portrayed as counter-discrimination, and Trump’s more aggressive efforts We have laid the foundation for a more aggressive push.
“The party has always adopted a tone of tolerance and tenor,” said Rahm Emmanuel, a longtime democratic operative and former White House chief of staff. “In the last four or five years, it has become advocate from tolerance and acceptance, and a corresponding response has been rejected.”
Harris rarely spoke about her chances of becoming the first woman, first black woman and South Asian president as a Democratic candidate. However, her campaign continued to emphasize race and gender. This included ethnic outreach such as the “Latin Men’s Opportunity Agenda” in the end of the race.
It didn’t work. The exit vote showed that Trump had a majority of Latinx men.
By comparison, Trump and Republicans have put on a cultural battle at the forefront of their campaign, with some of the most devastating GOP ads focusing on trans rights rather than the economic struggles of Americans. He’s throwing the Democrats out there.
Now that Trump has taken office, his overwhelming conflict strategy – rolling back measures on race, DEI and LGBTQ rights, in the succession of lightning and succession – has left Democrats breathing for the air .
Some of the most powerful pushbacks actually come from outside the traditional political field.
“Day is not a threat,” artist Alicia Keys declared at the Grammy Awards Sunday. “It’s a gift.”
ESPN sportscaster Stephen A. Smith has mounted his own defense on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program by meditating on running for president and laughing at Pete Hegses’ qualifications.
“When you’re the US Secretary of Defense who is the host of Fox News weekend and now oversees 3.5 million people, that’s not qualified!” he said.
The challenge for Democrats may not be unanimous in opposition to Trump’s attacks on DEI, according to Hakeem Jefferson, a Stanford professor who studies the role of identity in American politics. .
“Not every Democrat is opposed to arguments from the other side on these issues,” he said. “This is about liberalism in this country. When race and identity are involved, it often falls apart.”
Some black leaders in Congress have urged Trump to stand up as a racist.
“We can’t let it go,” said California Democrat Maxine Waters. “But that’s not our only message.”
Veteran Democratic strategist James Kerrville, who spoke openly about what he calls the more “awakening” element of the party, said it’s important for Democrats to avoid lectures.
“It’s easy to say that this country is merely misogynistic and racist,” he said. However, he also pointed out Elissa Slotkin, Tammy Baldwin, Jackie Rosen and Reuben Gallego. “We’re not going to stop women’s nominations. We’re not going to stop non-white nominations.”
At a recent forum held during the DNC Chair race, former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir opposed the idea of including another seat for trans people in the party’s leadership structure. Muslim Caucus.
Shaquille said many DNC members quietly pulled him aside and thanked him for speaking up, but he only won two votes in the chairman’s race, including himself. Not there.
“We divide ourselves from collective power,” he said in an interview. “Instead of us talking about our program and mission, what we actually want to achieve – we slap our heads. Identity.”
