I was polled recently in NYC. I rarely get polled, so I jumped at the chance. The pollster listed a number of issues and asked me to pick two that I felt most strongly about - my picks - affordable housing and police brutality. She then asked me a long series of questions on an affordable housing initiative put forward by Mayor De Blasio and some amendments that were being offered in the City Council. Every question was framed to pit union labor against advocates for affordable housing. After the first couple of questions, I just stopped and said, wait a minute, this is not an either/or. I then preceded to answer every question with the caveat that the premise of the question itself was false. She got quite a kick out of it & I think realized herself how the manner in which the entire debate was framed was farcical on its face. We can have both better paying union jobs and more affordable housing. To say otherwise is to present a false choice. They even had questions about who one trusted more, union leaders or the NAACP - classic baiting to try to bring identity politics into the issue. This of course, is exactly what the pollsters wanted to create - a false dichotomy to divide constituencies against each other. The grand irony was that the entire poll was about the most universal issue in NYC, one that effects workers, union or not, and people of all colors and creeds.
She really got a kick out of my answers. And when the poll came to an end, I said, wait, aren't you going to ask me about police brutality? She laughed and said, 'No, I really wish I could though'.
This poll is emblematic of dynamics that have gone on in this country far to long. And unfortunately, directly mirrors a dynamic that has been developing in the early primary season here on Dkos - the supposed divide between identity politics and economic populism. It is a false dichotomy. It needs to stop.
Identity politics are about economic justice and economic populism is about identity politics. They are intertwined on the most basic level, namely, the creation of equality before the law, equality of opportunity, and, yes, equality of results. There have been popular diarists here who have opined about the fracturing of the Democratic coalition due to identity politics in the 1960's and 1970's. They are not entirely wrong in their assessment that the coalition collapsed with the rise of identity politics, but they are wrong that identity politics caused this collapse. The collapse was caused by the failure of the Democratic party leadership to embrace, explain and campaign on the interstices between identity politics and economic populism.
They failed to argue that abortion rights are an economic boon, not just to women, but families and the country as a whole - not to mention how equal pay, access to education and support for laws like Title IX would expand economic opportunities for everyone. They failed to argue that affirmative action creates a more vibrant economy because expanded access to education and jobs in minority communities allowed the economy to grow in ways that benefitted everyone. They failed to combat the drug war which was not just disastrous to the African American community, but has impoverished all communities. They failed to explain how social acceptance of and legal protections for sexual preference would open economic doors for everyone. On every level, the Democratic leadership failed to link critical issues of identity politics to the classic 'kitchen table' issues of economic populism.
Into this space, willingly vacated by the party, the far right swooped - and they used identity politics to divide us. That is the history of the last 40 years. Most of my lifetime.
It must end now. And it must end with us. We cannot be tricked into fighting against each other when we all share the same interest: we are all invested in a society that shrugs off the inequalities rampant at every level, effecting every human being. We seek to create a more just union, socially, economically, environmentally, ethically. Our ends are the same ends and the public policy by which we achieve those ends is identic: we must end the financial corruption of the political system that undermines actual democracy; we must end the corruption in police forces that disproportionately harass, jail and murder people of color; we must rein in the corporate abuses that treat everyone as chattel, women and minorities even moreso; we must advocate for a world of equal opportunity for all, equal protection for all and strive towards equal outcomes for all; we must espouse the diversity of our history and population and celebrate the unique contributions all have made.
We must be united to create a just world.
I believe that Bernie Sanders is uniquely qualified to carry on this message - to put back together a fractured coalition that the Democratic leadership has so long let languish. I believe that if we can come to understand the underlying problems we all face are linked, we can stave off the onslaught by economic, media, corporate and political forces that fight so strongly against solidarity.
We must have solidarity. We must stand together, or we will all fall.