We podcasted in the aftermath of the Unthinkable.

My views have not changed very much, but I have devoured lots of perspectives on The Solution in the aftermath.

Generally speaking, the Democrats and the Left are settling into two nebulous camps: Reach Out To White Working Class being one, and the other, Stay The Course.

If you listen closely, most of the folks in these groups want the same thing and only the most radical want something like outright abandonment of ‘identity politics’ or calling the Trump voters irredeemable.

I see the pragmatism in reaching out to the white working class that voted for Trump, or the former Obama voters that did not turn out for Clinton. Doing so at the expense of the cultural and social gains made in the last decade are a non-starter. They should be at least.

There is real concern that abandonment of minorities to regain elections will happen again, as it has so many times before in this country.

I am worried that in the rush to “understand”, and “empathize” with the “humiliated” white worker runs the risk abandoning the fight for simple humanity.

Because they voted for Obama in 2012, that makes them not racist?

It is in this area that I struggle to square the two competing ideas. This is an ongoing conversation – especially in my twitter timeline. I understand the need for politics in that the nature of the idea is compromising for common good and achieving mutually beneficial outcomes together that would be near impossible separately.

It sounds an awful lot like saying “it is not personal, just business”, which is a convenient way of ignoring the fact that all business has personal aspects to it.

Some interesting things I have read

  1. Bernie on where the party goes from here
  2. Jamelle Bouie on the racism aspects that cannot simply be ignored, and must be grappled with.
  3. Jacobin Mag on how to square the racism/practical approach. Interestingly, the editors of this magazine really dislike Jamelle Bouie and vice-versa. They think Bouie and those who think like him brought the Trumpining upon us by focussing too narrowly on identity politics rather than the broader class-based approach of say, a Bernie Sanders.
  4. Jacobin Mag Politics Is The Solution. This is really the article that has more than a few folks upset. I’ve seen some people recoil at the cynicism.

  5. Vann Newkirk on America, and how This Is Who We Are.

    While the election Tuesday seemed an endorsement of everything divisive about America today, with a squint it also becomes a look at the right things: the activists and activated people, the young people thinking of new ways to make democracy work, and the coalitions of people building an America whose greatness will not be measured in which people are walled out of prosperity, but how many people are allowed in.

  6. Chris Arnade has been one of the voices detailing the lives of Trump’s America.

    We need to find alternative ways to provide people with meaning, humiliated, white, working men with meaning, rather than racial identity politics.

The most frequent response to “wow, that was pretty racist to vote DJT in” is “These folks voted for Obama; are they racist??”

The answer? Because they voted for Obama in 2012, that makes them not racist?

Ol’ Donny ran on a campaign of obvious ISMs that made it cool to say what you were really thinking. I mean, the big draw was him telling it like it is and saying what ‘we’ all were thinking.

Also, there is this:

Politics are ugly and elections are really glorified popularity contests, but that does not mean the results do not have real consequences.

Donald Trump just installed a white nationalist. However distasteful it is to reach out to people who tacitly let this slide, it is important that the Dems do everything in their power to prevent this.

Next time, that may mean running a candidate whose name reminds people of losing jobs.