Ironic, right? The Party of ‘identity politics” has no cohesive identity of its own. Wow, such insight. Much wisdom. Many smart. Award wave for everyone. But as asinine as this observation is, it lies at the core of the problem we face in the GOP.
Cuz they have a whole ass identity. Boy, do they have identity. They got identity coming out of every hole they got.
And they are compelled to perform and validate that identity every second of every day, whether through truck flags, screaming thought terminating cliches on social media, those fucking red hats, yelling at anyone even remotely ethnic to “go back to their country”, or a million other ways these anger addicts try to pwn the Libz, or find some way to be victimized by the legions of imagined enemies like furries in the bathrooms, or bravely facing the tyranny of those trying desperately to keep these science-denying shitbags alive while figuring out a novel coronavirus pandemic.
Look, we know it’s a cult. Academics know it’s a cult. Journalists, media figures, pundits, everyone knows it’s a cult. Cults look at them and say “damn, now THAT’S a cult.” And the weird black hole that is narcissism eating every aggrieved dipshit’s sense of self to replace it with this performative Nazi goonery is a topic for another day.
Now, I am in no way saying we need our own cult. We had one for a hot minute, and it didn’t work out well for us. At all. Cornel West (who I love) and Glenn Greenwald (who I absolutely do not) are still broken from that election. And the number of people who simply transferred their cult affiliation to Trump is not insignificant. Weirder still how many came FROM the Ron Paul campaign in 2012. But again, topic for another day.
Identity is a really, really powerful thing, both as personal sense of self, and the solidarity of political identity. Political identities often exist solely in contrast to the idea of a “hegemonic normal” defining an inherently hierarchical system in which anything outside of accepted default identities is marginalized. If the “hegemonic normal” is straight, white, cis male, monied, then it creates and enforces identities on folks that aren’t that: BIPOC, LGBTQIA, poor/working class, etc. It’s important to note that all of these identities are fabrications, that have no basis in anything real or essentialist. Including the “hegemonic normal”. It is purely the oppressors’ way of structuring power.
If I may be indulged in some oversimplification…If I bring a box of kittens into the office, well, we all love kittens. They’re all just kittens. Even if you’re allergic, you’re allergic to all kittens. The defining taxonomy is kittens. Now, say some psychopath says, “you know, orange kittens are the best. Tabby kittens are the worst.” Congrats, you’ve just invented kitten racism, you fucking knob. And our impulse for some reason is to start defending various kittens within the taxonomy. “No, tabby kittens are great!” “I don’t like orange kittens!” Yet this plays into the division itself. It may challenge the hierarchy within it, but in defending these fabricated identities, they are tacitly validated, and boom, you’re stuck with kitty racism.
Matt from The Majority Report namechecked a wonderful book on the topic not too long ago, and we’ve loved it here at the K.I office. “Race isn’t real, racism is” is a powerful challenge to political identity itself, and very challenging to a zeitgeist that holds that “the personal is political”. When your entire experience is run through a lens of political identity by an oppressive, hegemonic hierarchy, it is impossible to not integrate political identity with self. It is not who you are, or what defines you, it is what the world says you are, and how it defines you, and you still have to interface with that every fucking day.
This is a deep, deep topic, and this is such a glancing blow at it. Attachment to identity and how we see ourselves and the world are the subject of entire behavioral sciences, entire disciplines of philosophy and political theory. One shitty kitten metaphor isn’t liberating anyone today. However, it is vitally important to understand this as a basis of the job in front of us.
What’s a Democrat?
There are coalitions, shared interests, groups in solidarity, traditional role-players, etc, that seem to make up the Democrat base, but we lost a metric fuckton of those people to a vision of America that hates them, because they were sold on this fascist narcissism cult that, again, promises nothing but delulu fantasies of power and cruelty. A cult that succesfully leveraged metastasized patriarchy to overcome solidarity to any other identity. It defined the opposition (us) as “literally the worst”, and then said “why are you siding with those losers? Don’t you want to win, like ALL THE TIME?” They defined both sides, the rulers and the droolers, and we had no answer for them except “NUH UH YOU”.
That John Fetterman and AOC are in the same Party is bonkers. Cory Booker and Cori Bush. It’s clear there are divisions, and competing visions of what Democratic power looks like, what it should accomplish, and what we should strive for. Every now and then, we get behind legislation or policy as a team, but just as often, the Party leadership snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, shows their belly to the powers that be, and sandbags any real change, their fearful shivering visible from fucking space.
So what’s a Democrat?
In these times of rising fascism, we have let ourselves be defined by the fascists, our political identity existing solely in contrast to theirs. Without a solid anchor to which we are all tied in some way, they sweep us all into their fearmongering bugbears and armies of strawmen. Having no unifying framework of ideology, policy, or legislative goals makes “Democrat” open to interpretation, and easy to dismiss with “well, I usually vote Democrat, but they left me with the [insert rabid GOP lies and culture war nonsense here]”.
A house divided cannot stand. And a strong sense of shared struggle and overarching political identity, core values, and policy/legislation goals is an excellent bulwark against the GOP cult and their constant demonization. This isn’t just feel good drum circle and flowers in gun barrels, this means that those of us who want progress need to seize the reins of the Party, work to elect like-minded folks at every level, primary out some boat anchors, and work to redefine Democrat as something that stands for something – freedom, prosperity, sensibility, teamwork.
A Party we can be proud of, that works from courage and integrity, and is defined by the good we do and the successes we have. A Party with courage and conviction, unafraid of power because it can be trusted with it.
The Tea Party changed the entire political landscape in 8 short years. We have two short years to fire the first broadside. We need to get our shit all the way together, and we can do this, for today, for the future. We have better ideas, better people, and better plans. We just need to get out of our own fucking way, and bring our people home.
So what’s a Democrat?
Whatever the fuck we want. And we will shove it down their fucking throats until they get it or choke.
Kelsoland.Institute 