Okay, here we go…..get ready to down vote in 3….2…..1..
The Women’s March is all we have? I’ve had friends ask me if I was going. Aside from the fact that I’ll be working that day, I replied “Well, you see, I am not a woman. When’s the Men’s March? I’ll see if I can take the day off!”
Yeah, I get it. This is all to get Tiny Hands Trump to shake in his boots and think twice about what he plans to do next (as if he actually thought once or had an actual plan).
It’s this “Women” thing that tells me we STILL don’t get it.
Trump won with 62% of the non-college educated white female vote.
Clinton only beat Trump by 4% with the female vote in Florida.
And there is this handy anecdote. In my town of Franklin, there were only six people holding Trump signs at the polls, all women.
Hello? Bueller? Anyone?
Hillary Clinton placed most of her chips on the woman’s vote…….and lost.
Now we want to double down?
Clearly, not all women are against Trump. The data suggests that in certain demographics, a majority of women are for Trump.
So why muddy the waters, weaken the argument, and divide the resistance with “The Women’s March” when we could have gone with “The People’s March” or even better “The Workers March!”
Footnote: I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal reporting that the new contract between the union workers at a manufacturing plant in Kentucky has resulted in the workers accepting a $12 an hour wage. These are the people we need marching. These are the people who voted for Trump and most felt abandoned by our party and it’s “Woman’s March”.
…that you are not specifically always catered to. For the record, these marches are the result of grassroots organizing and are technically not political. The Democratic Party is not organizing or sponsoring these events.
You know what? If you want to organize a march, go ahead! There will be plenty of opportunities. You can call it what you like.
Here is a clue: If you wait around for the Most Perfect Official Reponse to Trump, you will be sitting on the sidelines fuming for a long time.
Or you could be grateful that someone is doing something in the meantime, and that the something seems to be taking hold!
Easy for me as a white male to say the election was all about class, especially since the class I was raised in arguably is the one that put Trump over the top. My wife has had a totally different reaction as a woman of color and is getting far more overtly political than she’s ever been. I don’t think I’d be betraying the white working class by joining this march as a male ally, nor do I think this march is sufficient to beat back Trump. But it’s shameful we elected a rapist instead of a woman, and I think this march is an important way to articulate that shame and hopefully convert it into empowerment.
Lots of actions are being planned all over the country, over many concerns. There have been *hundreds* of rallies on the ACA. For everyone. As just one example.
This is a march primarily (but not exclusively) for women, who were persecuted this campaign and who have been threatened over everything from Planned Parenthood funding to who can control their bodies, and on and on and on.
In what universe is it a bad thing that they would stand up for their rights?
If this was the 60s, would you be writing angry and bitter posts about Dr. King marching on Selma — and why they weren’t marketed as being primary for white men? That’s how ridiculous this kind of post appears to me.
I’m very empathetic to your POV and it’s one that we share; the Democratic Party has failed to give reasons for working class voters to support it. I understand why these issues are so important to you, because they’re the same reasons why they’re so important to my family, as well. (As you may remember, what happened to you is very similar to what happened to my mother.)
But that doesn’t mean we decry our sisters and brothers who march with just cause, because their causes aren’t precisely our biggest priority at the moment.
And, good news: the issues you care about are gaining ground within the democratic party, in great part through efforts of Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren and their collective supporters. But we are more effective when we’re loud and organized, as opposed to whining and picking unnecessary fights with allies.
Instead of getting angry that others are airing their grievances, maybe you should march with them and make common cause? You may just get more of them to march with you when it’s issues you care about that are being organized around.
We Democrats undermine ourselves in this way all the time to our detriment.
John, do yourself a favor ? Listen to the wisdom of your fellow Democrats expressed eloquently in their comments on your post.
As for me, I want to associate myself with their sage advice to you moving forward and thank them by name : christopher, trickle–up, jconway, ryepower12.
Can we all just get along ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Hey John, when you organize your “Workers March” I may join you. Sadly, my children are too young to work so are ineligible, and thankfully my parents have retired, but that means they can’t come either.
… somebody grabs your dick without permission feel free to march about it.
Until you learn the meaning of ‘solidarity’ and ’empathy’ you are specifically and forthrightly DIS-invited to the womens march on the grounds that you can’t join a protest against yourself…
And all received as expected. Identity Politics and the mistakes of the past 40 years that have delivered the house, senate, the White House and two thirds of state governors are deeply rooted in this community. “Push ON!”, you say. Bad habits are hard to break, it seems. This party needs an intervention.
Trump WON without all of the votes of all the people who will be marching…..so why would he bother to listen or care about them? Shouting loudly and clever signs ain’t going to do it. We need new faces in the crowd. Ask Setti Warren.
About the working class.
You’re manufacturing an issue.
since 62% of non-college educated white women voted for Trump, what does this “Women’s March” tell them? Are they stupid for voting against their own self interests? Are we to tell them that all women must think alike and have the same priorities? Are they to think, “Gee, I am a woman and I voted for Trump, those women are telling me I can’t make up my own mind?”
Democrats consistently make the mistake of assume uniformity across the demographic categories and then design different messages to appeal to different demographic groups. This march is a prime example of it. It does a great job preaching to the choir. It helps re-enforce the bubble, a bubble that does not include the working class as a all encompassing group, regardless of identity.
You’re totally correct about bubbles and disconnects but I don’t see how reacting to that by silencing the people marginalized by this administration helps move the ball forward. No, this march won’t reverse decades of abandonment and alienation over night but it’s a start. We aren’t beating this guy in a month, frankly in the shape we are in now, we won’t be beating him in four years.
What we can do-is invest in our grassroots again. This is a grassroots march organized by ordinary people and not the alphabet soup of interest groups you think t is. Will they be present? Sure, but this idea was organize and bottom up and something we need more not less of. It’s just a start.
Bottom line: They have a right to be angry and they deserve to be heard.
and I do agree with them 100% on their points.
What’s bizarre is that any constructive criticism of this sort of thing is met with such anger and pushback.
Did I miss concrete suggestions somewhere in this post?
There are still voices on the other side of this internal debate blaming the Russians, FBI and everyone but Hillary for her loss and insist she stood up for working people but they were too stupid, too racist, or too sexist to listen. I think that attitude is just as self defeating as reacting to every legitimate cry for justice from the marginalized as something that hurts white males and their precious feelings.
Both sides need to get over themselves and work towards a both/and strategy that recognizes that working class voters of all colors and genders are facing an uphill battle to stay ahead, though it’s even more uphill for non-whites and when due to racism and misogyny. Dr. King marched for jobs and living wages for all workers alongside his fight for integration and fair housing. Because it’s the same fuckin fight!
That’s the moment. Right up until that very moment everybody, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and yourself included, thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win. Every poll had her up. Every major news outlet were predicting a Trump defeat. The word landslide was used.
Why was it a surprise? Why was it such a shock? What about Trump’s victory escaped the national conversation UNTIL THE EXACT MOMENT it was upon us? How did it sneak up on us?
Because we were unwilling to believe that enough Americans were racist and sexist. Because we were unwilling to believe it, we were unwilling to see it. It’s just that simple.
I will admit that i was wrong. I said that there were not enough racists and sexists to make a victory for Trump. I was wrong. There are. We didn’t see it coming because we didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it then. You don’t believe it yet. But it was our unwillingness to believe that was our undoing and any shock at the result is a straight function of our unwillingness.
I get that you don’t want to be believe it. But you must. It’s true.
Dr King knew also, better than you, that working class voters of all colors and genders can easily be turned against each other… yet another reason he made the moral, and not the economic, case.
The working clas has been turned against itself and been divided by race. This didn’t suddenly become true this election-its always been true. Racists voted for Reagan too, so did a lot of Roosevelt Democrats who felt their party under the neoliberal Carter had abandoned their class. It’s the latter category we can win back by appealing to economics-and we can keep them without moving an inch on racial justice and equality. You and John continue to make this both/an discussion an either/or one and it’s growing tiresome.
I’ve never disagreed with you about racists and sexists voting for Trump. Every racist and sexist voted for Trump, but not every Trump voter is racist or sexist. This really isn’t as hard as you and John are making it from opposing sides.
I said I was wrong. I didn’t say I was ‘mostly mistaken’ and that means I’m slightly correct. I was wholly and drastically wrong. You want to admit to being slightly wrong, but mostly correct. Not gonna happen that way. We were ambushed. All bets are off about what we thought we knew then. Actively and overtly racist is one thing, but those in bed with them don’t get the benefit of the ‘not racist’ doubt.
But when every public utterance is in Clintons favor, and yet Clinton lost…. well, then, she lost on the private utterances: those things that can’t or won’t be said in public. When every public action is in Clintons favor, and yet Clinton lost…. well, then, she lost on the private actions: those things that can’t or won’t be done in public. When we are all shocked by the ambush that this created, it is because of what we now know about what people are thinking and doing in private.
I’m very sorry you’re growing tired of it but too fucking bad. You have to ask yourself why you think it’s not possible that nearly 63 million people in America are either racist, sexist (including women) or both? I’m trying to help you. I once believed exactly that myself. I can no longer believe it. I have to go by what I see. Certainly, if you asked Martin Luther King in 1968, just prior to his assassination, if he thought that over one fifth of the population was racist he’d have given you an unqualified ‘that is correct’ That was within my lifetime. I had hopes that we’ve come farther than, it appears, we have but the election of Donald Trump after the egregiously sexist and racist campaign that he ran is all the proof you need that nearly 63 million Americans are decidedly racist and/or sexist.
I will work just as hard to oppose racism and misogyny as I will to support a middle class economic agenda. If anything, I find these twin fights mutually reinforcing and not mutually exclusive. I’ve been pretty consistent in this belief.
That and the polling. The reams of polling that said she was going to win. That was kinda what had me planning for a Hillary win.
intended or otherwise. Good work!
This kind of action will mobilize women and get them to stay invested in the political process. A ton of labor groups will also be going. This to me is a sin that the party is embracing the people it wants to protect. When I think of women being oppressed in America, it’s not Hillary or Cheryl Sandberg I worry about, but the waitresses working multiple shifts and enduring harassment just to put food on their table.
Women like my wife juggling a full time job and full time student schedule to find a better career, women in her class who don’t have the family support she does and have children of their own tot she care of on top of everything else. Women like my sister who have been in and out of the welfare system trying to keep their head above water and a literal roof above their head.
Working women deserted our party and this march should be a signal to them that we care about them and economic justice cannot happen without social justice. Anyone who looks at this as an either/or problem is embracing false choices and asking for defeat.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
(And, also, things are a bit more complicated than you described. For example, gerrymandering and attacks on voting rights have had as much a role to play as any in where things are today, and no simple switch in tactics will cure the party’s problems. Crafting the party’s message toward working class issues will help, with more Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren style candidates, but engaging on “identity politics” issues with democratic constituencies won’t hurt so long as we’re still focused on the other issues. Warren and Sanders have both made major issues of the environment, women’s issues, LGBT rights, etc. It’s not either/or when it comes to how to engage with the electorate. It’s *and.*)
It’s now longer “LGBT”, it’s “LGBTQIA” seems like we’ve added three more identities. No, I do not know what they are. I suppose I will learn over the next few days. It’s difficult to keep. Not doing so puts one in the position of coming across as rude or bigoted.
Workers rights are everyone’s rights. The Working Class includes all people who work for a living and while that excludes .1% of us, I’d say a small portion of that .1% is sympathetic to our cause.
Oh what’s that, it doesn’t. Women’s rights are workers rights and vice a versa. This is all the same fight man!
…when it assumes that all women think alike and ignores entire groups of voters? I can tell you this much: It causes enough harm so much fracturing of message and balkanization of one political party to allow the other to take control of the house, senate, White House, courts, ….and that hurts working people. Heck, it hurts all people.
All workers think alike then?
John, you’re not helping anything going down this road.
the odds of all working class people thinking alike on economic issues is are fairly high. However, I would not say that all women agree on all issues. Would you?
We KNOW (even if we don’t understand) that plenty of women voted for a practically-admitted misogynist. Nobody is forcing those women to participate in these marches. If they want to rally and tell the world why they think Trump is good for them, well, it’s a free country (at least for now).
Queer Intersex Asexual
Although I always thought you got yelled at if you used “Queer”, it is hard to keep up.
People are allowed not to be sure.
Strictly speaking, only about 58% to 63% of a population is employed. The rest is too young, too old, too infirmed, or otherwise not able to find a job.
The Working Class doesn’t exclude 0.1%. It excludes more than a third of Americans.
But just as getting economic opportunity right is important for *all* Americans, so too is getting equal opportunity for women.
I’m not sure why this seems so complex john…
Strictly speaking, the old were once younger workers and the young will grow into working adults, and while they are old or young or infirm, they are being cared for and supported by a working class individual. I’m not sure why you want to make it so complicated, divided, in opposition to one another. Of course equality is important. Who said otherwise? I wish men’s college enrollment was equal to that of women. I wish men’s life expectancy was as long as women’s. But I am trying to work with all and not pit one against the other. The only group I want to fight is Trump and his ilk. We can’t do that working alone, apart from each other, assigned to separate groups based on what we look like.
backhanded slights against persecuted minorities.
Because, that’s actually rude and bigoted.
There was *no* reason for this comment other than to try to insult and dehumanize LGBT peoples.
When this is how you treat someone who has for years fought for the working class, personally and professionally, maybe — just maybe — you should consider taking a step back and a deep breath.
You are useless to the cause lashing out like this. Worse than useless, actually.
How dare you make such a comment. When it comes to rude and bigoted you ought to look up the term “projection” and anyone who approved of your post ought to do the same.
and felt dehumanized by your rude and bigoted remarks.
But I’m sure you’re just going to keep digging the hole you’ve got yourself into.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Who has an ax to grind. There was nothing rude or bigoted in my comments. I corrected the previous person’s post, informing him that the term had been changed. I informed him that I was not clear as to what it all meant. Scott12Mass appreciated the updated information.
So clearly, you do not know what bigotry or rudeness is. I would invite you to prove your assertion if you think you can. If you cannot, while I am sure you will continue to attack my character, please try to be more accurate with your language.
to persecution no assistance.”
GEORGE WASHINGTON letter to Rhode Island Jews he visited
Fred Rich LaRiccia
we’re not going to get anywhere. I’ll extend this olive branch. Due to my work schedule and location, I find it difficult to attend the monthly gathering at the tavern. If you (or anyone else on matters like these) would like to meet in person, over lunch or coffee at a location easily accessible to both parties and speak in person (minus the keyboard courage and misunderstandings that arise from texts and emails and such), I’m in.
I’m moving on, otherwise, and limiting my discussions to working class politics.
Thanks.
“updating” Congressman John Lewis on black history.
And, I’m sorry, but in a diary where you lambast any and all forms of identity politics, and then presume to lecture a gay man about terminology that’s applied to him, while saying things like, “No, I do not know what [the terms mean]” to describe the specifics of that term, then you are speaking like a bigot.
When you use words that drip in sarcasm like “I suppose” and offhanded comments like “we’ve added three more identities,” while decrying identity politics, prepare for others who belong to that identity group to feel like they’ve been dehumanized.
And when you decry identity politics, presume to lecture others about a term you openly admit to not understanding, and end your paragraph by implying anything other than “working class” is “exclusionary” be prepared for people to read your comment as the bigoted, homophobic comments that they are.
And, finally, bear in mind that bigotry need not depend on intent. Plenty of bigots do not mean to be bigoted. I can not see how you could have intended your comments in any other way than attempting to malign the LGBT community for, you know… being a community…. but say that you did… it doesn’t change the fact that the comments were bigoted.
You could walk them back and chalk it up to a moment of ignorance or frustration or both, and I’d let bygones be bygones… or you could dig down and really show your colors. I hope you’ll do the former, but you’re your own man.
It is easy to find a stick to beat a dog, as you and those who upvote you have demonstrated.
Nope, it looks like you will not.
I saw this coming.
No wonder our party is having trouble reaching out to working class people.
brothers and sisters. And me, personally. You are a class act !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Not going to take the bait. That’s all.
Get off it, John.
You are beyond obnoxious, insulting not only just an ally — but one of the few people on this thread that has frequently come to your defense throughout the years on issues you were otherwise in the very small minority on this site.
Do you not like having friends?
EOM
The left seems to be uniting against Trump far more easily and quickly than it did uniting around Clinton. This march gives me some that people will finally get off their asses and campaign, lobby, and protest for their rights and for the right policies. It certainly took long enough to mobilize.
Not going to take the bait. That’s all.
And please, keep your feelings about me off this group. It’s rather rude. I have posted earlier, if anyone has an issue with me on a personal level, I will meet them face to face and try to resolve that.
This is not the place for your personal vendetta against me or any other participant on BMG.
at this point, you’re basically gaslighting me.
” Malefactors of great wealth…economic royalists…they are unanimous in their hatred of me and I welcome their hatred. There is nothing I like better than a good fight.”
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Reading from the book of FDR. FDR State of the Union, 1941. And FDR spaketh:
“We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.”
Everything old is, indeed, new again…
How about this one from his 1936 Inaugural Address : “Better the government that lives in the spirit of charity than suffers in the coldness of its own indifference.”
Fred Rich LaRiccia
The right to a useful and remunerative job…
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security
and he would have denounced Trump AND his apologists.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
the two had much more in common.
it was never about being comfortable. He would never have endorsed in a contested Democratic primary. He would have endorsed the most ELECTABLE progressive — Clinton — the Democratic nominee, for one reason and one reason only; to BLOCK the election of the Fascist Twitler.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
….? Um, she was hardly that, as the results have proven. On paper., she was progressive, but not while serving with her husband during his two terms (eight years of her political career that her supporters embrace while calling her “most qualified”) , nor was she progressive while serving as NY Senator and voting in favor of the banks. In the end, she lost by more than 70 EC votes, not a landslide victory for Trump, but a huge loss when compared to her predicted double digit victory. And so, because of her failed campaign, her election team and the DNC providing enough dirt for the Russians to use against her, we now have the orange one.
You’ve exposed the inanity of the campaign to do away with “identity” politics. Everyone has some vague, comforting example in their head about what identity politics is–it’s someone else’s identity, not theirs.
When you put the idea of identity politics in practical terms, as you did in your post, everyone can see that anti-identity politics is a contradiction in terms.
Identity Politics as implemented by the Democratic Party nationally and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts excludes the identity of “Working Class”. So long as it does, I will work to change that.
I think John’s post misses the point (of course a Women’s March is okay!), but this thread ignores the elephant in the room: the Women’s March is apparently not open to all women’s groups, and in particular to pro-life women’s groups. Even from a purely instrumental, tactical, political perspective, this seems crazy, since I would think that in light of the election results, evangelical women are an important group to try to bring within the Democratic Party tent. I don’t see that purges and purity tests are the way to go.
Republicans and Democrats routinely make the mistake of thinking religious voters are monolithic and in the bag for the right. My brother and sister in law are evangelicals who are essentially politically moderate. They are both unenrolled and vote for Democrats nationally and Republicans locally and statewide (and really only in 10′ and 14′ since they liked Baker). Many in their extended community are moving to the left on economics, race and immigration and are just as tired of waging the culture war as you or I.
In terms of reducing abortions Obama has been the most pro-life president in American history, due almost entirely to the birth control mandate. The abortion rate is at 14%, a 45 year low and the lowest recorded number since abortion was first legalized. I see no reason why Democrats can’t run on this record and go on the offensive, especially since the rate will increase under Trump who will undo all this progress.
when your fundamental basis for organizing is values and principles rather than ethnic or gender or other identity.
Proof if you need it that the Women’s March is not about having ladyparts.
I’ve long been a skeptic about identity politics but this isn’t.
I doubt the organizers can stop pro-life women from joining them, and I agree that if the thrust of the message is respect for all women they should absolutely be welcome.
was mainlined identity politics, straight to the vein.
If you find a march called a Woman’s march a threat or a snub, or somehow excluding workers and you presume to call yourself a progressive…you really need to look in the mirror. Real men support women and are not afraid to use the word.
How “Make America Great Again” or for that matter “Change we can believe in” or “Forward” are mainline identity politics. I can understand how “I’m With Her” does so, but not the others mentioned.
And I am very much a real man who supports all working class citizens without regard to their sexual identity. How about you?
when your fundamental basis for organizing is values and principles rather than ethnic or gender or other identity.
Proof if you need it that the Women’s March is not about having ladyparts.
I’ve long been a skeptic about identity politics but this isn’t.
will try again upthread.
While I’m here I just want to say I really like women. They’re much better than men in so many aspects.
You two ought to compare notes.
…starting with the fact that:
Getting beyond bigoted definitions of class, here’s the overview:
The problem is that politics done correctly is a social affair embedded in communities; and hence totally out of the frames of reference of too many Democratic operatives, who think that (incompetent) marketing is synonymous with electioneering.
Re: Identity Politics.
Back when I was learning the trade, there were ethnic-specific Democratic operations (Italians, Irish, Serbians, etc.), and there was no problem integrating these groups into larger Democratic campaigns. Identity politics have been hard-wired into Democratic campaigns since Andrew Jackson.
So, while you are right that attention must be paid to white working class males, there are no conflicts of interest between working class folk of either gender and the primarily middle class demonstrators in the women’s march.
Class versus identity (however one might want to define either) is a red herring, and gets in the way of getting stuff done. We have to do outreach to all parties concerned in this political climate.
That will have to be done from the ground up, and I would hope that the condescension you occasionally receive on this site doesn’t get in the way of you being a necessary addition to the building-from-the-rubble efforts that will be necessary to get this done.
Just “working class”, with NO subdivisions. Just one message, one of solidarity, of one group. Not “white” not “women” not “black”, not ….
Just “Working Class”.
Do that and anyone will feel comfortable and invited into the party. Insist on other things to define ones identity, and you fragment, divide, and exclude some, while empowering others. And from what I have seen of those empowered others, they are not going to give up power easily. This is going to be the next struggle for the Democrats.
These marches all across the world and the planet seem to be a resounding success. Far more people attended them than any inaugural festivities and it seems to have united our movement. Workers rights, raising minimum wages, and fighting for unions were highlighted by Sen. Warren in her fantastic remarks and in remarks across the country by other speakers. Racial justice, gender equity and economic fairness go hand in hand and were emphasized by all the speakers in the same breadth.
The hard part will be sustaining this spirit and using it to mobilize new campaigners and candidates to rebuild our party and movement form the grassroots up.