W'hooo. I love it when we get into the weeds of a discussion, so I'm going to try and be as clear as I can with the Penguin position. Please do stay engaged, because I don't want you to agree with me, I want you to keep arguing for what you think - and only ever move if I've convinced you. Democracies function on this principle and this principle alone.
So here we go:
In my real identity, the non-Penguin one, I have privilege in some areas of my life and not in others. In order to know which of these areas I have privilege and which areas I don't you would need to be able to know my identity. I have refused to give it. This is to stop you dismissing what I say based on identity boxes YOU have picked. Let's say for example you and I are both mothers, we might be, we might not be. You've shared that information, I haven't. If we are both mothers then we believe we have a commonality of perspective based on our shared identity, but this might not be the case. We might be just as different as we are similar but we FEEL like we should be the same and represent the same values. This is a problem. Because once we pigeonhole people based on their identity, we lose sight of them as people. Instead of considering identity blocks, we should be considering complex individuality. You are the sum part of everything that happened to you (which includes being a mum of six), but you are not JUST a Mum of six, maybe you're a Christian, maybe you're an ex-cheerleader, maybe you're a trans-man. I neither know, nor do I really care. I'll try to judge you based entirely on what you say and what information you give me, not pre-conceived notions about facets of your identity.
When you do this, you realise that privilege is and isn't a thing. It's just a bellwether that tells you something about how power is perceived between two people or amongst groups of people. The Left have been playing this game for a long time, telling people who don't feel privileged that they are (poor white people) and telling people who feel okay about life that they are oppressed flowers who need to be protected (Hispanics). In some cases that's true, but it's a judgement call that is being made above the level of an individual. Identity politics dehumanises the individual and discourages curiosity. That is why I detest it and why I don't like it. I especially don't like it from my own side (as I am a lefty). Trump is much better at playing people's identities off against each other - he has in effect won the culture war, because the left has tied itself into knots with confusing messages about race, gender, age, sexuality, and in some cases biology.
And it's not that I disagree with you. Of course there are many instances of sexism, racism, transphobia and all these things happening in Texas. I am as committed to stopping them as you are - I just think the left has picked the wrong methodology for stopping them. I mean that sincerely. I don't think you can solve sexism by leaning into the differences between men and women, I don't think you can solve racism by making skin colour the main discussion point, I don't think you can solve Transphobia by focusing on genitals.
In each of these cases I think the solution is a slow and steady boil-the-frog approach of bringing economic stability into the lives of poor people. There are a number of reasons for that. If you do this, you reduce the amount of stress and trauma across the entire population, this leads to fewer emotionally damaged people looking for a scapegoat in the subsequent generation. If you do this, you can build community projects that encourage and allow social mixing of disparate groups in a way that is free and fair. You're mixing your populations together and working on the basic assumption everyone is a decent human being (most people are).
If you read the responses in this comments section of Republicans like Peaceful Guy, or TEK, you'll see they aren't terrible monstrous people - they just disagree with you. And not just you, with both of us. I'd be a Harris voter in the US too - and I'd be as disappointed as you are.
The problem in the Democrats isn't that there's internalised misogyny or internalised racism - it's that the party has centred these things as issues, without fully defining them, without fully understanding them, and without wondering whether attempting to preach these out of people is the way forward. Progress was being made slowly but surely, so much so that you got from 1968 - 2008, and in the span of half a century went from shooting MLK to electing a Black President - to hear the Left talk now, it's like this is the worst its ever been. Progress was slow and steady, McCain and Obama held mutual respect - and then it all went to hell in a handbasket.... mostly because people stopped talking. They started demonising the others, playing up their victim narrative - whether that's 'our country is being invaded' or 'you're oppressing me' and stopped listening to other people.
It's far easier to hit the Block button on something you disagree with because you find it hateful, than to consider that your individual definition of hateful might be out of whack with reality. Social media has a lot to answer for - and the Left have over embraced it. Go have a chat with Peaceful Guy - he's called Dave. He has guns, he votes Republican, but he also fought in Vietnam and his wife is Asian and his kids are mixed race. He was genuinely sitting on his vote because he didn't know which way to vote. I'd like to think his four years spent reading me have made him consider that not all socialists are red-scare communists, but I also hope that after getting to the end of this rather over-long diatribe that you realise not all people who vote opposite to you have internalised racism and misogyny.
You're both good humans. Your country would do much better if you found a way to talk to each other and not to your own tribes. :o)
