By Michael Fisher
“The longer [the Democrats] talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.” Steve Bannon.
Steve Bannon's "Economic Nationalism" is nothing but a euphemism for Donald Trump's particular practice of identity politics: appealing to the psychological benefits of the whiteness notion to susceptible white voters.
The reactions within the Democratic Party to Trump's particular identity politics coalesced into two approaches. The knee-jerk reaction was to try to chase down the Trump swing voter with a progressive economic agenda while deemphasizing the deeper socio-economic issues facing non-white constituencies in order not to fall into Bannon's supposed "identity politics trap". This approach has become increasingly popular as signs emerge that some Trump voters may be embarrassed by the gaffes of the Trump administration.
The other approach emphasizes galvanizing the non-white vote by addressing those constituencies' issues head-on, embracing unity in ethnic diversity, advocating a progressive agenda, fusing it with the white progressive vote and finding common ground with the moderate conservative constituency.
Aside from the moral questions each approach raises, the question is which strategy will work to bring Trump down in 2020. So what is to be done? Well, run a pilot program and see what works best.
That's what is currently going on in New York State's 2nd Congressional District (NY02). The District is represented by Republican Congressman Peter T. King since 2012. King, of national renown, is a 26-year veteran of Congress, styles himself as bi-partisan and yet is one of Trump’s most powerful and most sophisticated enablers.
NY02 is, since a 2011 redistricting, a virtual mini-swing state. Located on Long Island, the district, a suburb of New York City, is ethnically highly diverse. It also is, as a result of post-World War 2 racial residential covenants, doted with a plethora of highly segregated small self-governing towns, villages and school districts.
Out of a total population of 714,000, 24% are Latino (174,000) with 72,000 eligible to vote. African-Americans (70,000) constitute approximately 9.8% of the population while other non-whites including Asians (116,000) represent 16.2% of the District's population. Non-Latino whites represent 50% of the population. The remainder of the whites (14%) appear to be Latinos self-identifying as white.
There exists a slight voter enrollment advantage with registered Democrats (169,098) outnumbering Republicans (162,530). The district also contains a large number of independent registered voters (125,398).
NY02 voted for President Obama twice and for Trump during the most recent presidential election. Despite re-electing the Republican Congressman in 2016 - Trump created a historic surge of voters who voted down ballot for King - voter turnout for the Democratic challenger was the largest in this district’s recorded history.
Given the demographics, voter enrollment statistics, and political climate, the district lends itself to the testing of electoral strategies that can be implemented in other swing states in 2020 and beyond.
The two conflicting Democratic Party strategies are personified in two intensely competing Democratic primary campaigns.
The “chase down the Trump swing voter” approach has found its advocate in the campaign of one Liuba Grechen Shirley, a 36-year-old married, white mother of two.
Shirley's campaign, launched in October 2017, visually emphasizes motherhood (Shirley’s campaign images usually include her two toddlers and sometimes her white South African husband), the white suburban nuclear family and a traditional “stay-at-home-mom-who-gave-up-her-career-for-her-children” theme.
As a result Shirley's campaign is both visually and actually ethnically largely monochromatic. While Shirley advocates a progressive social-democratic agenda she primarily targets an emerging suburban white women's resistance to Trump's and King’s sexist behaviors and policies apparently in the hopes that these women will be able to convert their Trump-voting husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. (And daughters, sisters, and mothers)
Issue-wise Shirley offers little specific to Latino, African-American and other non-white communities beyond the usual condemnations of racist expressions and Trump’s immigration policies. Consequently, Shirley’s campaign has found little to no resonance in NY02's substantial African-American, Latino and other non-white communities.
After two months of observing Shirley's monochromatic efforts the reaction from the black/brown/non-white/progressive whites coalition of constituents and community leaders within NY02 came as it had to.
They approached Suffolk County Legislature Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory, a left-of center progressive Democrat, and told both the local Democratic party leadership and DuWayne Gregory that he must run - period. Having run against King in 2016 without any Democratic Party support and little money while nonetheless achieving an unprecedented respectable result (Gregory received more votes against King then any other previous Democratic Party contender), Gregory asked for time to consider. He finally declared his candidacy on January 16, 2018.
Gregory, both visually and actually exudes diversity. An African-American married to a Caucasian, his adult children from his previous marriage are half-Puerto Rican, his youngest son is gay, his step-children white - imparting on Gregory a unique cultural competence.
Accordingly, Gregory's campaign has been able to bridge the disparate ethnic communities that constitute NY02 by addressing the colored constituencies' issues head-on and advocating a progressive agenda that offers solutions not only to racial and ethnic disparities, but to the disparities of sex and gender with a unique comprehension of the intersectional nature of sex and race while offering common-sense solutions to moderate conservative constituents' concerns
In sum, Gregory is recreating the black/brown/progressive whites/moderate conservatives coalition which propelled the United States down a path of the expansion of civil and socio-economic rights and ultimately elected Barack Obama twice.
The strategy retains the moral high ground by refusing to abandon issues existential to non-white constituents, both men, and, especially women, and of moral imperative to the increasingly substantial white progressive and moderate conservative constituencies.
Within the context of the New York 2nd Congressional District and thus the swing states, it makes perfect demographic sense.
Upon Peter King's defeat, the strategy will provide an example for the entire nation, Bannon be damned.
Michael Fisher is the Executive Director of the Blue Action Political Action Committee .