"She is in effect calling for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act and the Fifteenth Amendment."
What nonsense! She is simply advocating the Sailer strategy.
GOP Wins With Sailer Strategy!
"The reason George W. Bush struggled so much to eke out a 271-267 win in the Electoral College…is not that he got crushed in the minority vote 77% to 21%. No, it's that he commanded only a measly 54% of the white vote."
And again in 2004, GWB beats Kerry despite losing the black, brown, yellow and other vote, 88/11, 53/44 [Nader took 2%], 56/44, 54/40 respectively. The white vote was 77% of the total vote and Bush took 58%, four points better than in 2000.
The greatest achievement of the Democratic Party this century, the triumph of the Trotskyite one-worlders; internationalism over nationalism.
Slezkine is a good reference.
PL,
If you think identity politics is inevitable and acceptable, you can't object to politics that discriminates between voters based on ethnicity and ethnic interests.
White Democrats face a (quasi) black candidate whose blackness is a major source of his appeal and whose worldview is clearly racial. If you think it's wrong for his opponent to base her strategy on the ethnic identity and interests of whites, who don't want to be ruled by a racially conscious black man, you're saying that identity politics is only acceptable for non-whites.
In any case, for whites to organize politically around race doesn't require the objectionable attitude that blacks are less morally important than whites. It only implies that whites are just as important morally as blacks. This kind of politics is "discriminatory" only in the sense that all politics involves discriminating between groups with different identities and interests.
Blacks will vote for Obama because he is black. Whites will against him because he is black, which is not just a matter of "skin colour", but has a profound political meaning in America. (This has become increasingly obvious in light of the supposedly race-transcending Obama's treatment of Wright, grandma, etc.)
But even if whites were to vote for HC only because she is white, and not for these other key reasons, that would still not be morally wrong. It would just be an expression of the reality of race and ethnicity, which, you seem to agree, makes identity politics inevitable.
Likewise, HC's comment does not imply that non-whites are not hardworking. It merely means that the whites who support her _are_ hardworking. The phrase "hardworking Americans, white Americans" clearly isn't meant to refer to _all_ hardworking Americans, just the white ones who quite sensibly don't trust a black socialist who calls them "typical white people", has a 20 year relationship with a demented black racialist, and denigrates their legitimate interests.
anti-realist has a good point. In principle, I do not object to identity politics, but only identity politics carried out in a certain way. Working class whites have as much right to identity politics as anyone else.
I guess we can all agree is that HRC was not simply stating a fact, and whether her factual assertion is true is not the end of the story.
The next question is whether HRC is engaging in responsible identity politics. The answer is probably "more or less", but it would be a better identity politics if it recognized itself for what it was.
Have to think more about this.
Commenting by HaloScan
