The Frankfurter School

This isn’t really about race. But in the week following Barack Obama’s landmark speech on race in America, in which he challenged us to face the issue head-on and have a more complicated discussion than we are used to having, it’s only right to run right into the fire. I started thinking about the casual comments and jokes that my friends make based on racial difference — which aren’t outright hateful but they can cause me some discomfort. And I thought about how often certain people feel the need to call me a Jew, with an in-on-the-joke laugh, subtly, even unconsciously marking my difference. And I thought about my own sexism, my less-than-half-joking comments about female drivers, and the social acceptability of some forms of misogyny. And I realized that we’re all a little bit racist, and sexist, and homophobic, and we all tease each other and say things safely to our friends that might be horrifying in another context. My friends and I are all capable of complicated and nuanced discussions of “-ism,” but we never accuse each other because you can’t really defend yourself from being called an “-ist.”

The Democratic primary has become depressing and ugly, and as it moves from a state-by-state electoral process to being decided in the national media, it has spiraled from an historic race that would see the first major female or African-American major party nominee to a referendum on the hierarchy of oppression. It is becoming a tragic, un-winnable contest where criticism of either candidate either plays deeply into racist or sexist tropes, or worse, criticism of either candidate gets discounted as racist or sexist even when it is substantive and meaningful.

The easy narrative to read into this is that the Democratic coalition is being split apart by warring oppressed groups who should naturally identify with each other but who are instead competing for the “affirmative action” slot in the Presidency. It’s the fight of the century: Blacks vs. Women, and this is the only slot for a non-white-male candidate, so let’s decide who has it worse, and which one is best poised to win over the white males in the electorate. OK? GO! This is lazy and self-destructive but makes for gripping TV because it riles everyone up and gives cover for people to speculate wildly about the worst instincts of their fellow Americans.

The more complicated narrative to sell is about the disarray of the fragile Democratic coalition itself. The Republican Party has gone so far off the rails into extremism in the last decade that it has orphaned a substantial faction of its moderates. They are tentatively exploring allegiances with the Democrats, whose party stands for nothing more right now than “not Republican.” Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have each cobbled together separate coalitions that the Democrats need to win national elections, but neither of which are large enough alone to win a general election, and which combined would represent an enormous bloc that hasn’t ever united under one party’s banner, at least since 1964.

Hillary Clinton’s coalition is the traditional Democratic party constituency, long-standing, fairly stable and unfortunately small. Nearly unchanged since the “Reagan Democrats” left the party, the labor unions, the liberal lobbying groups, and the identity-based pressure-groups make up a forceful blue state bloc, battle-tested and ready for the electoral trench warfare fighting everyone and saying anything to capture enough swing votes to eke out a victory. Bill Clinton pioneered an uneasy alliance between these groups and pro-business lobbyists, corporations, and PACs that gave him just enough room to win two elections, the first by a mere plurality, and then with only enough maneuvering room for himself, costing his party control of Congress halfway through his first term.

Barack Obama has built a candidacy on a coalition from both the left and the right of Clinton’s base, that is groundbreaking for the modern Democratic party, and not yet particularly loyal. His post-partisan rhetoric and message of hope has attracted Republicans and Independents who see his non-confrontational big tent as a place of safety and peace, and who are looking for a safe, sane, moderate alternative to the Republicans they are no longer able to support. Alongside them in the Obama camp are the newly-organized Progressives and their “netroots,” who usually vote Democratic, but are deeply unhappy with the party, and have learned how to flex their muscle in successful primary challenges to people Joe Lieberman and Al Wynn, and by standing firmly between Hillary Clinton and the nomination. They have enthusiastically responded to Obama’s challenge to empower citizens for change and to the spirit of openness and transparency of his campaign. This coalition is new, unstable, and of such a diverse ideological spread that they are mistrustful of each other and their candidate, but nonetheless essential to the party that hopes to win a mandate to undo the damage from the Bush Administration. The Republican party has had 30 years of electoral dominance delivered by a coalition made up of factions with vastly different and conflicting agendas who couldn’t stand each other. But they rode together to power and accomplished much, enacting massive portions of their agendas and radically changing the country in the process.

The underlying rancor between the Clinton and Obama supporters is about nothing less than the battle for control of the Democratic party over the vision and breadth of its coalition. Race and gender are just the visible identity markers that the two candidates wear, and should be the least significant thing about the conversation about the election. But the media persists in polling for every single racial, gender and ethnic division with which they can fill up attention-grabbing minutes of their 24-hour blatherage. That narrative is a lazy and divisive one, and it obscures the real story about a party fighting over its identity and direction in the wake of the near-collapse of its opposition.

I welcome the opportunity to change the conversation about race and oppression in this country. We need to stop calling each other names and ists, and start taking ownership of our isms, understanding better how they work and how we all use them. But tensions over race are not going to heal and disappear quickly, my friends may not stop making uncomfortable jokes, and an adult conversation about race is not going to end the power struggle in the Democratic party. So let’s have those tough conversations, but let’s put aside race in our political discourse for now, and build the coalitions and alliances around the substantive issues required to govern this nation and restore the rule of law, market regulations, and lost civil liberties. It may mean we have to make friends with racists and sexists, and make our common goals more important than our differences. The politics of these crucial times demand that we learn to make bedfellows of people we might not like in order to turn our country back around.

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