2 ms·

You have it exactly backwards. Centrists center class privilege while leftists center race/gender/etc privilege. For example, when discussing racial inequality,

You have it exactly backwards. Centrists center class privilege while leftists center race/gender/etc privilege. For example, when discussing racial inequality, leftists will tend to argue “disparity thus discrimination” while centrists (and moderates of all stripes, really) will argue that the mechanism is classist but it manifests as a disparity because the class distributions aren’t uniform across races. I certainly agree that historically leftists were very concerned about class, but that hasn’t been the popular analysis among American leftists for a decade.

camgunz 5y ago
Eh, I think he's right. On the ground, the "centrists" are mostly the Clinton/Obama wing of the party who are very fluent in identity issues and the "leftists" are mostly the Sanders wing of the party who are more focused on economics. Maybe ironically, as one of them I wouldn't say "centrists" center anything. We tend to see the whole thing as a milieu. Not that economic issues aren't super important, but there's no serious way to analyze the US without taking both economic and identity issues into account.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Agreed that centrists (or more precisely, "moderate Democrats") are more aligned to Clinton/Obama wing, but the idea that Clinton/Obama are the identitarians rather than the progressive wing (Warren, AOC, Pressley, Tlaib, Omar, etc) is beyond belief. Clinton and Obama might've capitalized on their identities in pandering to the progressive wing, but that's the point: the identity stuff is coming from the far left side of the party which is absolutely breathless about identity stuff (Sanders here is the exception to the rule). On more than one occasion, Obama explicitly cautioned against left wing identity extremism while "The Squad" cheerleaded the BLM riots. Do you think Warren, AOC, Omar, etc are really "moderate Democrats" or do you disagree that they are committed identitarians?
  - camgunz 5y ago
    I guess I disagree with your taxonomy, and I think The Squad has wrestled with being progressives while also being unwilling to let identity issues go. I'm very pro-Warren, but I think if you look at the policies pushed not just by her but by the other women you named, you'll find a lot of economic and climate policy (I mean Green New Deal, come on). The right-wing propaganda machine is very hard on ambitious women (as a former Hillary staffer I can attest to this), and it's definitely part of the plan to smear these folks in particular. I think we should be asking why there's a concerted, well-funded messaging effort against these women and not against people saying similar things like Hakeem Jeffries or Bernie Sanders. My personal view is that it's raw misogyny. And, frankly, I think you're repeating a lot of it here. In particular your use of the word "cheerleaded" is a pretty gendered criticism. We're all misogynists, we're all racists, we're all homophobes, because of the culture we grew up in. But by introspecting on this, we're able to fight against it and create a fairer society.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      The right has plenty of criticism for Sanders but they don’t criticize him for being an identitarian because he largely isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with gendered language, but that wasn’t how I was using “cheerleading” and if we want to lob accusations it seems pretty sexist to imply that men oughtn’t be cheerleaders.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        Weird. I used the edit button to add a sentence and HN converted it into a second comment.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      The right has plenty of criticism for Sanders but they don’t criticize him for being an identitarian because he largely isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with gendered language, but that wasn’t how I was using “cheerleading” and if we want to lob accusations it seems pretty sexist to imply that men oughtn’t be cheerleaders. (: Anyway, I reject most identity doctrine, including that we are all racist, sexist, etc.

camgunz 5y ago

Eh, I think he's right. On the ground, the "centrists" are mostly the Clinton/Obama wing of the party who are very fluent in identity issues and the "leftists" are mostly the Sanders wing of the party who are more focused on economics. Maybe ironically, as one of them I wouldn't say "centrists" center anything. We tend to see the whole thing as a milieu. Not that economic issues aren't super important, but there's no serious way to analyze the US without taking both economic and identity issues into account.

throwaway894345 5y ago
Agreed that centrists (or more precisely, "moderate Democrats") are more aligned to Clinton/Obama wing, but the idea that Clinton/Obama are the identitarians rather than the progressive wing (Warren, AOC, Pressley, Tlaib, Omar, etc) is beyond belief. Clinton and Obama might've capitalized on their identities in pandering to the progressive wing, but that's the point: the identity stuff is coming from the far left side of the party which is absolutely breathless about identity stuff (Sanders here is the exception to the rule). On more than one occasion, Obama explicitly cautioned against left wing identity extremism while "The Squad" cheerleaded the BLM riots. Do you think Warren, AOC, Omar, etc are really "moderate Democrats" or do you disagree that they are committed identitarians?
- camgunz 5y ago
  I guess I disagree with your taxonomy, and I think The Squad has wrestled with being progressives while also being unwilling to let identity issues go. I'm very pro-Warren, but I think if you look at the policies pushed not just by her but by the other women you named, you'll find a lot of economic and climate policy (I mean Green New Deal, come on). The right-wing propaganda machine is very hard on ambitious women (as a former Hillary staffer I can attest to this), and it's definitely part of the plan to smear these folks in particular. I think we should be asking why there's a concerted, well-funded messaging effort against these women and not against people saying similar things like Hakeem Jeffries or Bernie Sanders. My personal view is that it's raw misogyny. And, frankly, I think you're repeating a lot of it here. In particular your use of the word "cheerleaded" is a pretty gendered criticism. We're all misogynists, we're all racists, we're all homophobes, because of the culture we grew up in. But by introspecting on this, we're able to fight against it and create a fairer society.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    The right has plenty of criticism for Sanders but they don’t criticize him for being an identitarian because he largely isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with gendered language, but that wasn’t how I was using “cheerleading” and if we want to lob accusations it seems pretty sexist to imply that men oughtn’t be cheerleaders.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Weird. I used the edit button to add a sentence and HN converted it into a second comment.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    The right has plenty of criticism for Sanders but they don’t criticize him for being an identitarian because he largely isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with gendered language, but that wasn’t how I was using “cheerleading” and if we want to lob accusations it seems pretty sexist to imply that men oughtn’t be cheerleaders. (: Anyway, I reject most identity doctrine, including that we are all racist, sexist, etc.