Woke race theory is killing Democrats

Trump gained popularity with Black voters and Hispanic voters. Yes, really.

Democrats may need to choose between the university wing of their Party and the voter wing.

Joe Biden was the least woke of the Democratic candidates. He got the nomination because Black voters preferred him.

There is a way of thinking and talking that has become necessary for survival in progressive Democratic Party circles. It requires "woke" thinking about race and social justice. The "correct" thought is that race isn't about personal prejudices but rather that all relationships of power (teacher-student, employer-employee, lawmaker-citizen) are reflections of deep endemic racism. Understand and integrate the idea that race is central to understanding America and its politics. It is everywhere. There are no innocent bystanders.

Click: Miami for Trump

Led by academics, there are certain words that are polite and respectful. Capitalizing Black and White when referring to races are examples, which this blog adopted. Easy and respectful. Why not?

Another is the use of the word "Latinx" as the broad term for Americans from Latin America and Spanish language or culture, which this blog has tried, even though the word "Latinx" is a word invented by academics which is rarely used by the community described and is objected to by some.

The university wing has influence in thought leadership. They are writing the books and magazine articles. They are the deep thinkers and policy people. They are the ones scolding and shaking fingers of accusation at verbal slips which expose objectionable thought. (Did you know that the term "sexual preference" was objectionable?  I didn't. Sexual attraction is properly understood as orientation, not preference. People don't choose; they are expressing true selves. Apparently I should have known that.)

Rank and file voters have day jobs doing the work of the world and lag behind the tip of the spear in social justice orthodox thinking. Candidates cannot make that mistake. In 2019, while in New Hampshire and Iowa, I watched Democrats squeeze to the left on Medicare for All, on climate, on taxes, on gender issues, on immigration, to be in sync with the  energy of the Twitter Democrats, the Facebook-group Democrats, and more generally the Bernie Sanders-oriented progressive Democrats. They had the energy. They talked, wrote, protested, while mere voters sat back and watched. 

No one wanted to be a White Democrat who failed to get the message on racial justice. if you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem. Ignorance and silence are tools of oppression, as understood when race is central to understanding power. Protests over the killing of George Floyd created a crisis. Protests gave cover for people--just a few, but enough to get on TV and to make trouble--arguing that violence was speech of the oppressed, necessary speech to get through to White America that there was a policing problem in America. If silence is oppression per se,  and violence is speech, then violence is the legitimate response to injustice. So we had a hundred-plus nights of violence in Portland, and Biden said the right things, but not loudly and clearly enough, and he looked helpless or unwilling to do anything meaningful.

The 2020 election was a rejection of something Democrats represent. They did poorly in places they thought they would win. Democrats assumed that some broad constituencies would vote their identity: Blacks would vote like Blacks, for Biden and against a guy who regularly belittles Blacks. Democrats thought Hispanics would vote for Biden and against a guy who said that Mexico didn't send their best and that immigrants from there were mostly thieves, rapists, and gang members. 

It didn't work that way. Trump did surprisingly well with voters in Miami, especially with voters with roots in Cuba. Democrats can shrug that off if they insist, thinking the disappointment was really just Trump calling Biden a "Socialist." But Trump also did surprisingly well in El Paso and along the normally bright blue Rio Grande border region. Trump actually carried Zapata County, which is 84% Hispanic.  What? The guy who insults Mexican immigrants and who proudly opposes immigration from Mexico actually won votes in heavily Hispanic counties? Yes. 

Academic theory of race and oppression has an explanation. Whites enjoy racial privilege but are blind to it; the oppressed, likewise, assume their oppression is simply the way of the world. Maybe that is at work in race theory, but on the ground with real voters something else is top of mind. Many Black and Hispanic voters  perceived themselves as Americans, who wanted work, prosperity, safety. Black voters do not want to "defund" the police. That is the dream of White liberals in safe communities who think that is what Black voters should want. 

To be voters, people of Hispanic ethnicity are citizens, perhaps for generations, either by birth in this country or by working through a slow immigration system. Those voters have every reason to question mass immigration. Newcomers may share a cultural and ethnic connection, yes, but they are also competitors for jobs and burdens on schools and other social services paid by taxpayers like themselves. 

My observation of immigration in my own family of immigrants from Greece was that for a few decades the first generation was deeply rooted in an ethnic community (Greek neighborhoods, Greek friends and relatives, Greek church) but that the second generation was bi-cultural and by the deaths of their parents became fully "Americanized." My second-generation aunts and uncles were anti-immigrant. After all, they were American taxpayers. 

The Democratic notion that Republicans face a demographic catastrophe as America becomes more diverse due to immigration from Latin America and Asia misses an important point. Immigrant families settle in. They are assimilated and vote like taxpaying Americans. 

Democrats heard Trump say that he did more for Black Americans than anyone since Lincoln, and maybe even more than him. This was classic Trump, with his trademark grandiosity and exaggeration. He also said he was the "least racist" of people. Democrats scoffed. But there is a deep message inside what Trump said. Trump talked to Blacks and Hispanics like "regular" American citizens and taxpayers, which meant he said openly that some of them are criminals and that newcomers here work for cheap off-the-books and steal your jobs. He assumed they would identify with native born White American voters in their attitudes. 

Is it possible to read "Low IQ Maxine Walters," "shithole countries" rather than Norway, and his criticism of Black Lives Matter as anything but coded race messages? Apparently yes, and for both White and Black voters. People can dislike Maxine Walters because she is a woman, a Democrat, a liberal, or that she is part of a coalition in Congress that raises taxes.  People can simply agree that Haiti and Uganda are places they wouldn't want to live. People can think Black Lives Matter imbeds a notion that Black Americans need special attention and they resent that idea.  

You do not need to be racist to like Donald Trump. You can be Black and be concerned about Black criminals and want more policing, not less. You can be Hispanic and want much tighter border controls. You can be Black and Hispanic and like Trump.

California voters--California!!--voted NO on affirmative action. The vote was 56%-44% on Proposition 16, which would have repealed a Constitutional ban on consideration of race and ethnicity in state colleges and other government programs. There is a message here, if Democrats will pay attention. The same people who wholeheartedly rejected Trump personally also rejected a central element of Democratic Party orthodoxy, the idea that social justice is achieved by tracking race and ethnicity and giving adjustments to achieve equity.  

Many readers will believe the California voters are wrong and making a moral error. California voters just didn't "get it" about racism or they got it and didn't care. There is another way to look at that. Possibly Black and Hispanic voters don't want the moralizing universities telling them who they are and how to feel. If Democrats are out of sync with California voters they need to recognize that they are hugely out of sync with voters nationally. And apparently they are indeed. If their policies are so unpopular that they cannot convincingly defeat a narcissist, divisive, impeached tweeter like Donald Trump in the middle of a recession and a pandemic, then they cannot win elections in a normal environment ever.

But what about the supposed demographic wave that will help Democrats? As time passes and there are Hispanic voters everywhere and everyplace looks like Miami, guess what? They vote like socialist-fearing Americans.