“I think this is trap the logical consequence of the genteel fascism of identity politics that the Left adopted in the 1960s”..logical?

“genteel fascism, soft fascism, fascist collectives, fascist devil”

“I do not think it means what you think it means”
-Inigo Montoya

if “non-asian minorities” vote for Dems…who do the asian minorities vote for?

Non-asian minorities is a short cut for saying “Black and hispanic”. According to the CIA world fact book:

Asian 4.2%, Amerindian and Alaska native 1%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.2% (2003 est.)

I wasn’t implying that Asians vote in significant numbers for Republicans but they are not a significant faction within the Democratic party. Democrats don’t craft any significant policies to appeal to this group through patronage.

Thinking about affirmative action in terms of ethnic patronage gives a view into Democratic patronage. Non-asian minorities have a huge leg up. No actual argument is made as to why these slots should go to the descendants of voluntary immigrants; the arguments focus either on “historical injustices” or on the value of “diversity”. Somehow the diversity that’s valued always ends up giving preferential admission to applicants of the Democratic client groups. Classic patronage in one sense, but not “personal” patronage, ethnic patronage. You can see that asians are not significant members of the Democratic coalition by looking at how asians are treated in “diversity” efforts. They don’t count at all; they’re thrown into the non-preferred pool.

Also, for Skimble who appears to be anti-everything and pro-nothing and still trolling this blog despite assertions to the contrary…I live in your utopia – Los Angeles county where no one dare mention being anything but a Democrat. Care to comment on its governance? If you do decide to comment, let me cut you off – its not only elected statewide Republicans fault. Fred Lapides you are welcome to comment on this as well.

What are the ideas that the GOP offers that are so fine and have made things so much better?

I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. For purposes of this discussion I did not say that the GOP was filled with ideas but rather that identity with and within the GOP is a matter of ideas. GOP factions are delineated by their members emphasis on different ideas such as social conservatives versus fiscal conservatives. or cultural socialist versus libertarians. All the factions or subgroups are ideological in nature.

The democrats by contrast are increasingly divided up by identity i.e. innate characteristics. Democrat factions are blacks, hispanics, asians, women, gays etc.

What are the ideas that the GOP offers that are so fine and have made things so much better?

I am not saying that the Democrats are filled with ideas that are wonderful but rather that to label the GOP as filled with ideas is not in concord with the present situation in America.

Let me add in another factor: it has been thirty years since we had undiluted Liberalism take free rein of the federal government under Jimmy Carter. People forget. They forget the consequences of Leftist politics: high taxes, onerous public works projects, increasing public resentment of favoritism toward special interest groups, increasing government regulations, economic stagnation and high price inflation, declining tax revenues from a poor economy and foreign policy bungling.

Since President Carter we have had Ron Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and G. W. Bush. None of the Republican presidents were successful at attacking big government, because they had foreign policy problems which kept them from concentrating on domestic issues. Hence, the public does not see a large difference between the Democrats and the Republicans there.

Except for Clinton’s first two years, we have not had an expansive leftist policy in office. When the Republicans took the Congress in 1994, Clinton was forced to “Triangulate” by stealing and taking credit for Republican issues. The Nutroots will not tolerate a repeat of that. George Soros will own both Democrat candidates body and soul.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama will govern the Presidency as far Leftists. Hillary says that she has “Millions of ideas on how to help Americans.” She has also said that, “We must sacrifice for the common good.” Barrack Obama wants America to spend trillions on “helping out foreigners.” If either is able to achieve their aims, this will cause immense problems here in America.

We Republicans cannot hope for such a situation, but it will bring home that any form of Socialism is parasitic: that an increase in government is at the expense of the electorate.

The Democrats cannot promise to “soak the rich,” because they are already soaked–96% of IRS revenues come from the top fifty percent of income earners. Any increase in taxes, even by letting the Bush Tax Cuts end in 2010, will put the economy in the toilet. Tax revenues will decline because we are to the right of the top of the Laffer Curve.

Much pain and fear will come out of a Democratic party presidency. But perhaps, the electorate must be reminded of that truth again.

The democratic coalition makes a living from either government payouts (academia, welfare recipients), is protected from competition by regulation (finance, law) or works directly for the government (public sector unions). Democrats get these votes because they offer direct increases in government benefits to all these voters.

In terms of numbers, the republican coalition is shrinking and efforts to appeal to members of the democratic coalition are pointless because those appeals either end up meaning that republicans favor the same policies as democrats or the appeals will not work.

The sole issue that matters re the future of the two parties is immigration restriction. If it happens, the republicans will continue to survive with the members they have. If it does not, democrats will rule the US the same way they do California. Will there still be policy disagreements? Of course. Will they look a lot more like Hillary vs Obama (no policy disagreements stated, but clearly implications as to who will get favors)? Yes they will.

Traditionally, women have been “conservative” – we are interested in stasis. This natural tendency was altered when government took on the role of husband. (A role that was actually in the rather conservative tradition in which men took care of the widows and orphans in their community.) The reactions after 9/11 demonstrated a reassertion of these old tendencies.

Condoleeza Rice, Kay Bailey Hutchinson are as much the face of the Republicans as Hillary Clinton is of the Democrats. Was Edward Brooke less a senator than Barak Obama? Are the Vietnamese less an ethnic minority than the Sudanese? The Cubans than the Puerto Ricans? A party defined by ideas is not exclusionary, one defined by ethnicity is. In the former, the choice of whether to subsribe to the ideas is up to the voter; in the latter, the decision on which to include lies in the party’s definition of itself (a tent including?). Also, we might ask, how many pro-choice candidates have R’s beside their names? How many pro-life ones have a D? And who cares the most about the pro-choice/pro-life question? Generally, it is women who care and a large minority or even majority are pro-life.

We are watching that tent be riven.

The GOP by contrast has become essentially the party of old white guys.

No, I think the GOP is becoming the party of ideas and the Democrats the party of identity. People vote GOP because they like the ideas. People vote Democrat because their black, hispanic, female. gay etc. As people mature and become more alloyed into the mainstream, they begin lose their innate identities and become more concerned with the details of policy. After all, “white” people today are the synthesis of dozens of European ethnic groups once considered a different from one another as we popularly think of races today.

Even if identity trumps ideas (which history shows is sadly possible) that doesn’t mean the Democrats are fated to dominate. To dominate they must form a cohesive block, something which their identity politics prevents. The suffer the age old weakness of all such coalitions: they can cooperate to win the prize but as soon as they get close to doing so, they fall to fighting among themselves for the biggest slice. Each group wants the biggest chunk for itself. Fascist just don’t play well with others.

Democrats should in principle be able to win but they will never be able to form a large stable coalition because they based their power on innate physical identity.

One can see this process play out in any number of tribal and ethnic conflicts, and it is certainly true in the varied race and gender conflicts in western, and esp. recent US, history.

However, when this belief is the basis for significant social structures, as in the alleged unity of the Volk on all questions, or the supposed common interests of all members of an economic class, it quickly becomes, not a strength, but the source of totalitarian systems’ brittle fragility.

This is the phenomenon we are now witnessing among those on the left. All members of a racial or gender group are required to think the same way, or the ideology’s faulty claims of identity = political position are revealed to be castles built on sand. In a totalitarian system, oppositional thought can be held in check for a time with physical repression and terror, although even the malignant forces of fascism and marxism could not snuff out opposition completely, and could not adapt to reformist ideas without collapsing, as reform, by definition, suggests imperfection, and gives the lie to totalitarian ideology’s claims of perfect knowledge.

(This is why I supported the idea of a 2000 ticket of Powell and Elizabeth Dole for the Repubs—it would have turned the identity game against its major players and shattered the Dem coalition.)

It is no accident that the major power groups in Dem politics are teachers unions, drenched in multi-culti theory and victimology, trial lawyers, who live by the sword of class action law, and senior citizens, who, of course, have all identical needs and views.(ha ha) Put the racial and gender warriors into that mix, and the old maxim about chickens coming home to roost takes on a whole new pungency.

Otherwise, I totally agree and have been telling friends and family that this is a logical place for identity politics to be: two candidates representing approved grievance groups, who otherwise have almost no discernable qualifications (you didn’t mention that, but I will throw it in ’cause it’s true), battling it out in a vicious ad hominem manner.

Gotta agree with ArtD0dger and Vince P… the “Religious Right”, “Theocracy”, and “American Taliban” are strawmen. Nobody is making anyone read the bible or go to church. Religious people, even evangelicals, even the most (Heaven forfend!) proselytizing among them, are easily ignored. The most time and inconvenience they cost any of us non-believers is when we get stuck in the traffic jams when their services let out.

Try to get a lefty to stop proselytizing for their causes or to just live and let live. They stick their noses into everything and are apparently genetically incapable of keeping their grubby hands out of Other People’s Pockets. But that is all OT.

Good post, Shannon. It will be interesting to watch how the ID-Polis deal with this election.

Well said. Given this interesting situation, I suspect infighting in the halls of higher learning is reaching a fevered pitch as the Womyns Studies shills confront their ego counterpart Black Studies peers in staff meetings. After having touted this divisive garbage for three or four decades it’s nice to watch liberals squirm as they try to unravel the multiculti Gordian knot; good luck on that one.

Can’t wait for the DNC Convention in Denver! Oh joy!