A long-time leftist, Lilla claims that the Democrats have become addicted to pressure groups that slice the public into ethnic, national and sexual elements. These slices have together overwhelmed the Democratic Party itself and rendered it irrelevant. The left has now balkanized the electorate and invested its energies in social movements rather than party politics.
Via NewsHubNation
Related: Culturally appropriating dead cultures… from Instapundit
The article on Egyptian genetics has a flaw. The findings of those studies show that the genetics of ancient egyptians and modern egyptians are very similar. The assumption of the author that modern Egyptians are “African”, and have sub-saharan genes is in error. Modern Egyptians ARE ancient Egyptians, plus a small influx of Arab and Greek DNA from the last 2000 years. And the markers for Arabs are almost the same as those from the Levant.
However, the genetics are not important hear. The party had a theme of “ancient egypt”, a culture that has been dead since the Roman empire adopted Christianity. The ancient cultures that worshiped Amun-Ra, Horus and the like, and wore those cool headdresses, has been dead for nearly 2000 years. It was further buried by Islam. Therefore, no living person can claim their ‘culture’ is being appropriated by this type of event.
On the CTV news last night someone was ranting about an Edmonton pioneer Frank Oliver and how his name should be removed from everything. Frank Oliver was a newspaperman from 1880 until 1923 with the Edmonton Bulletin.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/frank-oliver-edmonton-neighbourhood-1.4261487
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Oliver_(politician)
He was also a territorial and then federal politician from 1883 until 1921. Thus much of what he has written still exists so opinions that were the norm at the time can be accused today of being racist. What will save Oliver is that he has Liberal Party immunity.
An interesting regular column in his Edmonton Bulletin was “Our Negro Citizens.” Quite the hater, hey?
http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/newspapers/EDB/1921/10/08/6/Ar00612.html?query=newspapers%7C%22our+negro+citizens%22%7C%7Cscore
Most Pappaschase Band took Metis Scrip and the ones who didn’t were resettled on other reserves. This article in Oliver’s newspaper doesn’t appear to be biased and actually accuses Macdonald’s cabinet members of profiting from the sale.
http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/newspapers/EDB/1890/06/14/4/Ar00404.html?query=newspapers%7C%22indian+reserve%22%7C%28publication%3AEDB%29%7Cscore
On the CTV news last night someone was ranting about an Edmonton pioneer Frank Oliver and how his name should be removed from everything. Frank Oliver was a newspaperman from 1880 until 1923 with the Edmonton Bulletin.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/frank-oliver-edmonton-neighbourhood-1.4261487
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Oliver_(politician)
He was also a territorial and then federal politician from 1883 until 1921. Thus much of what he has written still exists so opinions that were the norm at the time can be accused today of being racist. What will save Oliver is that he has Liberal Party immunity.
An interesting regular column in his Edmonton Bulletin was “Our Negro Citizens.” Quite the hater, hey?
http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/newspapers/EDB/1921/10/08/6/Ar00612.html?query=newspapers%7C%22our+negro+citizens%22%7C%7Cscore
Most Pappaschase Band took Metis Scrip and the ones who didn’t were resettled on other reserves. This article in Oliver’s newspaper doesn’t appear to be biased and actually accuses Macdonald’s cabinet members of profiting from the sale.
http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/newspapers/EDB/1890/06/14/4/Ar00404.html?query=newspapers%7C%22indian+reserve%22%7C%28publication%3AEDB%29%7Cscore
If the political motivation of identity politics is “divide and conquer” then it seems that all they’ve done is divide the left into small factions that seek to conquer each other. Progressives and liberals certainly had early success in turning all the factions against a common enemy – whites, males, straight, working class, conservative (WMSWCC)- but failed to consider what would happen once WMSWCC figured out the game and became the largest identity group. All WMSWCC had/has to do is add to their identity group by capitalizing on the progressives tendency to go crazy, snobby, arrogant and thereby alienate other groups like libertarians, classic liberals, suburbanites, small towns/rural, people without college degrees.
As progressives control freaks continue to seek to both micromanage every aspect of life and label everyone who disagrees with them as nazis, racists, sexists who must be punished they’ll lose more and more votes. I find it bizarre that after the 2016 loss, progressives and liberals talked about reconnecting with lost constituencies and broadening their base and then in 2017 came up with: tearing down statues, attacking free speech, endorsing political violence (punch a Nazi, antifa), censorship via overtly leftist corporations and the media, stepping up witchunts against non-leftists and generally doubling down on being snobby, arrogant control freaks.
Do they seriously believe that suppressing and punishing wrongthink makes people convert to their ideology? That it’s an effective substitute for persuasion?
The article about the Egyptian-themed frat party reinforces the definition of a “Progressive” as someone who lies awake at night worried that someone somewhere might be having fun.
“Do they seriously believe that suppressing and punishing wrongthink makes people convert to their ideology? That it’s an effective substitute for persuasion?”
It has worked for religions since the first god was invented. Leftards have now learned this power of tagging anyone with a differing viewpoint as evil. They have taken it to Dark Ages proportions with calls of prison or death to unbelievers. In this new century, free thinkers are still being attacked as “heretics” by those who want to control the masses. It seems to be a human constant through the ages, the only real variance being who the current “power brokers” of a particular group are.
When people call “Climate Change” a religion, they are spot friggin’ on.
Political correctness, especially when being used as some kind of warped, phony morality, will kill the political left along with the rest of western culture. The looming cultural collision between gays, trannies, feminists, infidels and Islam will be ugly and bloody.
Beautifully summarized.
But do not state such things where our ,Progressive as Rust, comrades might see them.
For I have been entertained beyond all my hopes by the emergence of Trump.
Every day the libtards have another exploding head moment, instead of realizing how alien they have become,they double down on their antisocial socialism.
It is too beautiful to watch the likes of Unome,AKA John praying for the Obamanations return and suffering the full wrath of their Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Divide and Conquer is a wonderful scheme, being as useful as smashing windows to “improve” the local economy.
Now the Progressive Ones, our natural born leaders,are openly advocating violence and wondering why they are not “reaching” the taxpaying citizen or even some of the welfare clients…
I guess only a university educated genius can figure, letting it all burn is smart..Sitting cold in the ashes might wake them up.
Of course being hunted without mercy by those they have robbed and dispossessed might come as a nasty surprise as well.
It’s easy when you think of it as a pyramid scheme. The “chosen” members get to rule from the top and the marginalized intentionally excluded outcasts carry them on their shoulders or risk obliteration. The factions of chosen members are merely competing to protect and improve their position on the power pyramid. The Left’s “politics” is the game of lies they play to keep from having to share their pie with others and make sure those others can’t get a piece of pie from anywhere else. One has only to look at Scientology to see the way dishonest truth twisting games sort out the powerful from the pawns. Socialism/Communism/Facism is the same.
“Was it the lack-lustre campaign of their [the Democrats] Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton?”
What, I thought Hillary ran a fabulous campaign but was only beaten by the Russians? The left can’t even rewrite history consistently. They keep breaking out into the truth.
And Mark Lilla, a long-time leftist, born in 1956, grounds his account of identify politics from what he knows of the 1960s, starting in 1965? He was 9 years old and barely 14 at the end of the 1960s. Seems like the entire left from toddler to pimple-faced teenager was grounded by the events of the 1960s, right after they all came home from Woodstock. These people have unfairly appropriated a decade.
Regarding free speech suppression by overtly leftist corporations: classic liberals and libertarians must use their strengths promoting uninhibited free market capitalism and non-discriminating individual rights by directly competing with repressive tech companies like Google and its YouTube. There are already search engines and email providers that are committed to libertarian and classic liberal ideas but YouTube needs a visible alternative. Yes, I’m intentionally leaving out a conservative alternative because Conservatives bring in too much social conservative and establishment conservative baggage. My motive is not to cause offense but to be realistic. Libertarians and classic liberals are generally more innovative and can make a logically consistent case for individual rights and freedoms that’s open to left, right and centre, offensive, polite, moronic and reasonable.
Getting around existing and new government regulations and other entrenched interests that inhibits upstarts would be the most difficult part. And hit pieces by the media, of course.
I do think that liberals and progressives are operating much like a religion these days but I think they’ve peaked, like all religions eventually do. Its descent into competing sects and lack of internal logic is revealing itself. To this atheist, Christianity is basically 10 Commandments and a Golden Rule. The Church of Progressives has 10,000 Commandments that are constantly growing and changing, many of which directly contradict existing Progressive Laws. Internal contradictions are divisive and that should be easy to exploit.
They really aren’t all that successful. In the USA they’ve lost the presidency, Congress, state houses, state governors and likely the Supreme Court. Climate change hysteria has stagnanted and is in the process of being rolled back. Their best hope is young people but as they mature they generally become more conservative. Baby Boomer hipsters, the most reliably progressive liberals, are rapidly aging. Immigrants are actually quite traditional and could be moved under the right conservative leadership. Progressive liberals have lost white men, blue collar workers and people outside of major cities. Despite what progressives say, I think the demographics are against them unless they tone down their Puritanism.
Fact is, identity politics work-that’s why both parties do it. Trump’s base is all about ‘identitarianism’. The Dems owe a lot to it. The trouble started when they began carving up/using too many identities. Then the train went off the rails.
Yes Dems … please keep doubling-down on your identity politics of fringe groups. Please DO alienate one against the other because you simply do not understand what motivates voters. For example; keep doubling-down on each and every capital letter of the LGBTQ-qq… which serves to alienate a “Latino” community which values “family” and “religion” more than it cares about illegal border jumpers. Keep pushing the most heinous and barbaric forms of abortion … which serves to give Trump the majority of female votes. The MORE you play the identity politics game into smaller and smaller, fringer and fringer groups the more you will divide your own vote. Trump appealed to “economic revival” … a message universally embraced by all citizens who actually WORK for a living. Trump appealed to “tax relief” … a message universally embraced by every citizen who actually PAYS taxes and watches their disposable income erode. Trump appealed to “border security” … a message universally embraced by every legal citizen and immigrant in America. Trump appealed to “a vigorous WAR on TERROR” … a universally embraced message of safety, security, and religious freedom. Trump appealed to “deplorables” … a message universally embraced by anyone ever bullied by an identity-pandering politician. For any dolt to claim Trump played “identity politics” is ignorantly deluded … just like HER
The ancient Egyptians were not Black and only s**t headed Yanks ever thought otherwise. It is evident enough that as far as Nubians went, the Egyptians were racists – didn’t like them. That is evident enough from Tutankhamun’s grave goods. The ancient Egyptians also were antiSemite. These were not phobias – they actually were overrun by Semitic peoples a coule of times, and once by Nubians to form the 26th Dynasty. Nor were the Egyptians particularly kindly either toward Semites nor Nubians. But it was the anciend world, after all.
Cleopatra, presumably Cleopatra VII Philopator, was Greek – said to be the only one of the Ptolemies who spoke Egyptian.
It�s hard to come by well-informed people for this topic,
but you seem like you know what you�re talking about!
Thanks