Ted Kennedy at the Donkey Convention
I noted with shock and approval that when Ted Kennedy addressed the Dem Convention tonight almost the first thing out of his mouth was that Barack would put an end to “the old politics of group against group, gays against straights” etc.
I think it’s great he said this, and everyone cheered.
But what it means is that the failures on Our Side of the Aisle these past 30s years are attributable in important part to the Identity Politics that (under the leadership of the academic feminists in the late 70s then in reaction to Reaganism) replaced universalism at the core of the American Left.
I have been squawking about this for years.
And Barbara Jordan (venerable black congresswoman from Texas) squawked about it as keynoote speaker at the 1992 Dem Convention. “Separatism is not allowed!” she thundered, pounding the podium.
IN ANY CASE … Pleased as punched over here (even vainly flattered) to hear Ted LEAD his talk about the good that Barack will bring by plainly implying that the Left’s been fucked for 30 years by bad self-serving intellectual leadership.
Separatism is NOT allowed.
Marxism, rather, is basically right (re universalism as basis of politics). And, of course, marxism in this congrues with the Declaration of Independence.
The time of my entire adult life has been spent squandering the political power the non-rich had acquired across centuries of English and then two centuries of American experience.
That is: the Identity Politickers played right into the Reaganite hand. The rich were laughing up their sleeves. “They can have civil rights,” a GOP battleaxe once said in my grad-school cab (Midge Decter, I believe). “Civil rights aren’t ECONOMIC rights.”
OR (to touch on prior chat re prime-time cop shows where 4 of 5 crooks are Sex Offenders): Women may well be right that men are devils. But no successful politics will be built upon such truth.
Ilidas says:
Barbara Jordan’s cry against “separatism” seems more clearly directed reflexively, i.e., at the Dem camp, than Ted Kennedy’s statement. For all we know he/his speechwriter had social conservatives in mind. But it’s good to be hopeful and, in any case, your broader point regarding the role of identity politickers is well taken. Whatever the merits of identity politics vis-a-vis various groups and grievances, such politics are politically disastrous and have for decades confounded what should have been a no-brainer: uniting the majority of Americans against the depredations of unregulated big capital.
I’m reminded of the huge distraction generated by the same-sex marriage debate in 2004 — when the priority in that year should have been the November presidential election.
September 1st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
ed says:
Ah, yes. I agree that I probably misinterpreted Ted’s comments.
September 12th, 2008 at 4:23 pm