A recent piece on Voices of the Revolution, ’The Siren Song of Identity Politics,’ properly attempts a critique of liberal identity politics, but rather than effectively addressing the issue, veers disastrously towards the basic operating assumptions of white supremacists. This is a shame; the question is a very important one. The Democratic Party has yet, after all, to properly account for the inability of their candidate to beat a troglodyte like Donald Trump.
In the name of such, Frank Doyle argues that basic problem with modern liberalism lies in a paradox apparent in the dynamics between the “Black Lives Matter” movement and the “counter-cry,” ‘All Lives Matter.” This paradox, he claims, derives from the fact that ‘cultural attention is a zero-sum game, and that since ‘the news can only push so many stories,’ and ‘the public only has so much time to think about societal problems,’ the necessary result is that, ‘For one group to get more attention, another must get less.’
Progressives must return the public focus to the universal validity of progressive policies and principles, not to the inherently divisive issue of who gets the most out of them. We should prioritize based on the significance of the ideal in its own right, not on the count or demographic of those it affects . . . We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of this election. We cannot afford to alienate a massive demographic due to divisive rhetoric a second time.
Why for that matter did he not mention Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy record during the Obama years, which was nothing if not amenable to privileged elites — the fossil fuel and armament industries in particular? As Gary Leupp points out,
The “surge” in Afghanistan; the winding down of the Iraq occupation; the huge increase in drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, killing hundreds of civilians and terrorizing whole regions; the total failure of the Obama administration to end U.S. client state Israel’s illegal settlements on the West Bank and indeed a general deterioration in high-level U.S.-Israeli relations; various U.S. interventions during the “Arab Spring;” the U.S./NATO assault on Libya that destroyed that modern state, etc.? Hillary was a key player in all these events. It’s all in her record, for all to see.
