Dems and identity politics
When I visited it in early June, Hillary Clinton’s campaign website featured about 30 issue-specific pages focused not on a nation with problems to be solved but on discrete victim groups with wounds to be salved. The site illustrates the left’s descent into crass identity politics. The federal government is the heaviest of policy equipment, best used sparingly for big jobs; but for Democrats, it has become a courtesy car, always on call to drive chosen constituencies from one point to another. Put me behind the wheel, Clinton seems to promise, and I’ll put you on my route.
Based on an examination of Clinton’s website, “racial justice” is her campaign’s organizing principle. Not only is her racial justice page the most expansive on the site but it links to nine other sections, including those devoted to criminal justice reform, LGBT equality, higher education, climate change, and energy.
Wherever racial linkages weaken, gender stands ready to pick up the slack. The section devoted to “women’s rights and opportunities” equals in length those for national security and the economy. Clinton’s economic plan promises to “break down barriers to joining the workforce —
YOUR VIEWS especially for women.” Her Social Security plan calls for “enhancing it to meet new realities — especially for women.”
On an issue page devoted to college, Clinton invites supporters to take a three-question quiz on “How will Hillary’s plan help you?” and then emails them custom results titled “Hillary’s College Compact for (your name).” Someday soon, a candidate’s website might consist simply of such surveys: “Tell me about you, so I can tell you what I will do for you.” A database of dismaying information could deliver whichever statistics make someone feel most victimized.
Hidden from this prospective voter could be all the promises made to everyone else, the total cost of delivering on those promises, and their aggregate toll on a free society. And the site might crash if given the profile of a suburban white male for whom the left’s identity politics has no agenda to offer.
Or perhaps it would redirect to another survey designed for such submissions, hosted at donaldjtrump.com.