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Considering that in the hundreds of years since the US was founded there has never been a woman of color as VP candidate (or Presidential candidate with a major
by jeromegv 6y ago
Considering that in the hundreds of years since the US was founded there has never been a woman of color as VP candidate (or Presidential candidate with a major party), isn't that identity politics to always pick the white guy? Are white guys always the most competent or are we just pandering to the white electorate?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoIt's identity politics if he picked her because she is black (just like it's identity politics if he picked her because she's female). Which, cynically, I suspect is the case. But it's not that black and white (no racial overtones intended). If you have N approximately-equally-qualified people from whom to select your vice presidential candidate, the choice will almost always come down to some edge in voting - either because they're from a particular state, or (in this case) a particular demographic. If they're all approximately equally qualified, I don't see that as "identity politics" in quite the same way. If you pick for ability, with political considerations around the edges, that to me is different from picking from political considerations, with ability being secondary. And in this case, I think Biden is picking based on political considerations. He said (what, a month ago?) that he was going to pick a woman. He didn't make any kind of a case that all the most qualified candidates were female. No, he made that decision based on what would get him the most political mileage. That's identity politics.