I had an interesting debate earlier about this, and figured it was worth turning into a full blown post.
The way I see it, the alt right's rise and success in recent years is really a backlash against a failure of liberalism to be as open and inclusive as it says it is on the surface. I would argue a mix of toxic political correctness, identity politics, and a bad approach to social welfare and solving issues are why it's successful. Heck, I'll go further, this is a huge reason why conservatism among the white working class is a thing to. If you want to stop the alt right, you have to treat it like you would a fire, by starving it of the fuel that it needs to survive.
Toxic political correctness and identity politics
We've seen it a lot this election, and I've even been on the brunt of it a lot. I've even talked about it here before. The left is going overboard talking about feminism, and anti racism, and political correctness. Now, there's nothing wrong with these things, properly explained. There ARE problems with inequality between women and men, between whites and minorities. And these problems deserve consideration, understanding, and solutions. However, they're not used in that way this election. They're used to bully and browbeat people into line. They're used to censor people, to shame people. Any criticism of Hillary Clinton means you're a sexist. Any desire to show independent thought and fall in line while happening to be white, male, or both means that you're privileged. That you can afford to risk the next four years while these poor other people can't. You bully people and shame them in an attempt to make them fall into line, and what happens? People stop caring about the legitimate issues raised here. They don't care if they're seen as racist or sexist any more, because the left declared war on them for daring to not think in lockstep with them. They might even adopt the opposite attitudes, joining MRA groups if they hate feminism, etc. They also might vote for Trump, who "says what he means" and isn't afraid to say offensive things and shy from controversy.
Clinton style leftism, I'd argue, is largely to blame here. Because when you focus on identity politics and use them to bully people who don't fall in line, they're going to reject those values wholesale, even if there are legitimate issues raised here.
And I do want to insist that yes, there are issues to be raised here. Racism, sexism, and privilege are REAL concepts. They make perfect sense in a sociological paradigm and explained PROPERLY. But the left has a horrible time of marketing those concepts, and actually make enemies out of potential allies here.
A fractured approach to social programs fueled by identity politics
This is, by far, one of my big issues with the democratic party with Hillary Clinton as the nominee. I mentioned it in my post at the convention, the democratic party is a huge tent, trying to appeal to this group, and that group, and the other group, all kinds of racial groups, women, the disabled, etc., and they want to pass all these good feel good programs for them.
But at the end of the day, these programs don't help everyone. They help people in limited situations, and leave others who don't fit their narrow criteria no better off. Even worse, using tax dollars, they can redistribute money from those who need help...to others who need help.
This leaves people with a "what about me?" situation, to which the democratic party will start going on about privilege again, and start shaming you, and when you push for more comprehensive help, they say this is the best they can do, and yada yada.
And then we have stuff like affirmative action and quotas that insist we need to have so many of people from all these different groups. Now, when you take away limited amounts of opportunity and give it to something else, how is the white working class going to act? They're going to get angry and oppose these things, even at the risk of being seen as racist and sexist.
The left doesn't have to act this way. I've put forward a vision to the left that is far more inclusive and universal. UNIVERSAL healthcare, UNIVERSAL basic income, free college, etc. These are programs that help everyone, the privileged and the nonprivileged.
The democratic party as it exists reminds me of the caricature I grew up with in the 90s and 2000s of how they help all these different groups while giving the white working class the finger. A party that puts feel good ideas that don't do anything above action. This election, we could have chosen an inclusive, uniting candidate who pushes for real solutions to all. Instead, we got Clinton, a return to the toxic 90s democratic politics that gave the democrats a bad name for me before I woke up and joined the left.
This is not the democratic party of Obama or Sanders, this is the party of Clinton, and this Clinton style liberalism is TOXIC. It's divisive, it splits up blacks and whites, men and women, gay and straight. It makes them enemies, when they should be allies.
And this is how we get conservatives, who are white and middle class and could benefit from a good range of social policies if properly implemented, instead complaining about their tax dollars. Because when the democrats ignore certain groups of people, and even shame them for existing and not thinking in lockstep, once again, they're going to make enemies.
Immigration
Immigration is a bit more complex of an issue. I actually think the left has some good points here and shouldn't back down. At the same time, they do need to work on their receptiveness on hearing some criticisms of immigration that may be legitimate. As a friend of mine who is starting to lean toward the alt right mindset told me, when people don't listen to the concerns people have, they end up supporting fascists like in Europe, or even Trump if we want to go by America.
In defense of the left, especially in America, I don't think there's a lot of problems with immigration. The economic effects are generally more positive I think, with them not "stealing" as many jobs as one would think, and actually contributing back into the economy. I don't think they represent a long term cultural threat to the US, and will eventually be naturalized. They aren't sucking up welfare either, they are ineligible unless they're also committing identity theft. I mean, a lot of right wing arguments are bunk here, and should be called out and corrected. We really need more education on the matter, not ignorance and xenophobia.
However, this isn't to say there aren't concerns. I've had the far left political correctness police get huffy at the concept of making English the language of the United States. I mean, let me get this straight, we're getting to the point where we're forcing people to take Spanish in school and college, but we think it's incorrect to make immigrants learn English? What's wrong with this picture? The fact is the far left tries to accommodate diverse groups of people while alienating the mainstream, and it's ridiculous. I don't think it's a lot to ask for immigrants to obey our laws, don't demand changes to our customs (more of a problem in Europe), and learn our language and adapt enough to functionally be a member of our society. Not necessarily give up their ethnic identity wholesale, I do believe the melting pot stuff to an extent, but at least conform to the extent that they are able to function in our society without demanding the locals conform to them. I think that's a huge thing that pisses a lot of people off. Immigrants are guests in our country, we shouldn't have a lift a finger to conform to them. We shouldn't have to learn their language or be sensitive to their culture, they should conform to ours, they joined OUR society, not the other way around. I don't think that's a lot to ask.
And as far as Europe goes, they might have a bigger problem over there. Muslims coming from the Middle East and Africa seem particularly unwilling to conform due to their religion, and are also making some demands of locals that the locals get offended at the very idea of. Like getting rid of octoberfest or having halal foods (which is barbaric) or expecting locals to fast in their presence during Ramadan or asking locals not to walk their dogs in their neighborhood. When you go into a country and start telling the locals what they should be doing to accommodate you, they're going to be right in telling you to screw off and go back to where you came from. And when the left tells you that you're racist or sexist or intolerant or privileged, once again, you're going to make enemies out of potential allies and possibly radicalize those people in response. Which is what the alt right is, the radicalization of right wing ideas in the face of being ignored or even bullied for thinking the way they do.
Bringing it all together/Conclusion
Look, the left has a lot to offer our politics here. And they're right on a lot of things. I think political correctness is generally a good thing. I think feminism is generally a good thing. I think anti racism is generally a good thing. I think immigration is largely benign, especially in the United States. I do want to emphasize this. I actually do identify closer to the left than the right here.
However, a particularly toxic, even "weaponized" strain of these politics is going around poisoning our dialogue and creating a radical right wing pushback known as the alt right. When you have these weaponized politics put out there to bully, shame, and silence dissent among people, you're eventually going to create a movement of people who've had enough who will be relatively radical themselves and push back against these things. When you have a platform that appeals to everyone but whites, males, and the middle class, don't be surprised when you lose these folks. When you insist natives to a society have to conform to the ways of immigrants, don't be surprised when you lose those folks.
Look, I want a strong left. I want an inclusive left. I do believe the concerns of marginalized groups is important, but you need to tie up all of these groups behind a common cause, and you need to bring the white working and middle class into the fold. Not by shaming them, but by incentivizing them. As long as we're divided by identity politics, as long as we balkanize ourselves into these different groups, and push these politics of division, we will never be united toward a common goal. I would like to see more people recognize that many of these problems have a common thread in them, and something we all need to come together to deal with. They mostly stem from the inadequacies of the status quo and our love affair with neoliberal capitalism. And we need to see things more in class terms. Despite our differences, I believe Africans Americans living in poor inner city areas and whites living in rural areas have a lot in common. They both suffer hardships and are on the wrong end of a screwed up economic system that doesn't give a crap about them. Instead of pitting these groups against one another, we should be uniting them for a common cause that is mutually beneficial.
Then again, maybe that's exactly why our politics looks like it does. Maybe both sides like to play dog whistle politics and keep people disunited and fighting amongst themselves. Because while we do that, the rich continue taking advantage of us and laugh all the way to the bank. Our politicians, despite being at odds with one another politically, end up being bought by the same corporations and special interests and are actually good buddies behind the scenes. Our political discourse becomes mere theater while the puppet masters are on the same side and enjoy us fighting amongst ourselves. So maybe this is intentional and by design. Who knows. All I know is if we ever want to actually make the world better, we need to focus on our real problems that we all have in common rather than fighting amongst ourselves over identity politics and scraps.
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