I am indebted to DKos member MBBrit, who introduced me to Chris Grey’s The Brexit Blog, which is indispensable for gaining some perspective on just how similarly corrupt and inept Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are (and hopefully will finally end any discussion that Trump is somehow a unique creature in the world of political conservatism).
Grey outlines a well-worn narrative exercised by many self-described progressives, who seem intent on dismissing or ignoring the reality of bigotry in all its forms (racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious bigotry, ableism).
In this narrative, bigotry is only a minor societal concern, independent of the economic disparities, and somehow to focus on bigotry, and its economic manifestation discrimination, is a distraction from THE REAL PROBLEM (aka, economic inequality):
from Zeno's Brexit
Friday, 27 November 2020
… this type of analysis rests, at least implicitly, on a version of Marxist theory whereby the (economic) base is primary and to a greater or lesser extent determining of the (cultural) superstructure. Culture then becomes little more than the dancing puppet of economic paymasters and their interests. When it comes to political explanation, that almost inevitably leads proponents of such analysis to some form of ‘false consciousness’ argument in order to explain why so many people support and vote for things which are against their economic interests.
And, indeed, this is precisely where Monbiot ends up, when he writes that he sees “Nigel Farage and similar blowhards as little more than smoke bombs, creating a camouflage of xenophobia and culture wars. The persistent trick of modern politics – and it seems to fool us repeatedly – is to disguise economic and political interests as cultural movements” (my emphases added).
The problem with this narrative is, well, it is utterly disconnected from reality:
The limitations of such an analysis have long been identified. In particular, it’s instructive to recall how in the 1980s writers on the left, especially the sociologist Professor Stuart Hall, started to explain that Thatcher kept winning elections because contrary to the assumption of economic primacy, in Hall's words, “material interests … are not escalators which automatically deliver people to their appointed destinations, ‘in place’, within the political ideological spectrum”. It’s an important insight that remains true.
Coming to Brexit specifically, viewing leave voters as the unwitting dupes of ‘warlord capitalism’ and funded by Robert Mercer doesn’t take us anywhere.
Grey arrives at the formulation that anyone who considers themselves progressive needs to grasp, if we are to address the intertwined barriers to social and economic justice:
Ultimately, the injunction to follow the money is not just reductive but is also a circular and unfalsifiable argument. For just as some now say that the fact of Brexit is explained by capitalist manipulation of leave voters so too, had remain won, some would have said that that was explained by the capitalist manipulation of remain voters. All you have to do, they’d say then as they do now, is to ‘follow the money’. In fact, it would very likely be the same people saying it, since Monbiot virtually does so when pointing to how the remain campaign was funded by the likes of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Trying to explain Brexit by ‘following the money’ takes you into an analytical cul-de-sac.
So whilst the debate about the relationship between economics and culture is a perennial one, and discussing it is well beyond the scope of this blog, in general I think of them as inextricably bound threads, not base and superstructure. (emphasis added)
The problem with the ‘it’s all about economic inequality’ mythology (aside from the fact it is mythology), is that serves to reify the bigotry that is at the core of our social, political and economic institutions and systems:
How Economic Assumptions Uphold Racist Systems
Racism shapes how economics is taught and practiced. When we fail to scrutinize neoclassical assumptions, they perpetuate racist outcomes.
Joelle Gamble /Dissent
June 9, 2020
Racism is a system that manifests in norms, institutions, and policies. When economic analyses fail to account for these institutions, they perpetuate racist outcomes. Therefore, we must interrogate the assumptions often made in economic research and pedagogy that prevent economics from promoting anti-racist public agendas.
Unquestioning acceptance of the ahistorical mythology leaves the framework of discrimination intact:
Persistent labor organizing brought about union power in manufacturing work. Meanwhile, our system of outdated labor standards reflects underinvestment in industries with large concentrations of people of color. The evidence is clear: the presence of strong labor institutions and public investment in standards enforcement makes a difference in outcomes for workers.
Why isn’t this investment happening in occupations with high numbers of Black workers and other marginalized communities of color? Stratification economics—which centers race in economic analysis and our understanding of inequality—argues that social group identity plays a major role in how institutions are wielded to shape economic outcomes. The intentional stratification of racial groups—in order to protect white advantages and gains—create intergenerational disparities in wealth and, therefore, in economic and political power. This, in turn, shapes both individual behavior and the design of our public institutions. In fact, the wealth gap between Black and white families is as wide now as it was in 1968. And extreme wealth, which is overwhelmingly white, has increasingly more control over political agendas as inequality increases.
Stated plainly, economic disparities are the result of bigoted policies and institutions, which are maintained in the service of a bigoted worldview.
A variant of this mythology is the notion that bigotry is not woven into the fabric of the GOP, and its rank and file voters vote against their interests (assuming their economic interests align with all other members of those at the bottom 90% of the income hierarchy):
This leads into the final assumption: that individual behavior is just a revealed set of preferences of a rational actor. In reality, individual behaviors reflect group identities, norms, and ideas that help uphold racist policies and institutions. This is why explanations that assume discrimination is irrational and will be competed away, like Gary Becker’s theory of racial discrimination, are insufficient. The “free market” does not inherently deliver equitable outcomes. Racism is rational when it upholds institutional arrangements that preserve white wealth and economic power—a point that applies just as much to public health and police violence as it does to the labor market. And economists who want to challenge racism must recognize the role of history, power, and institutions in shaping behavior.
In reality, GOP rank and file voters vote with their interests, which is why the decades of complaints about ‘not getting our messaging right’ are farcical, just as it is insulting and absurd to claim ‘we’ haven’t worked hard enough to understand the concerns and priorities of rank and file GOP voters, especially those in rural areas.
Progressives who myopically focus on economic disparities believe the elixir for curing our political situation is to simply educate the seemingly childlike GOP voters about their *real interests*.
The purveyors of the mythology fail to recognize these voters are quite conscious adults, voting with their priorities.
A not unusual variation on this mythology has been pushed since the 2020 election, with wailing and rending of garments that ‘foolish Dems lost Latino votes to Trump’.
In a recent Abbreviated Pundit Roundup, DKos contributor Greg Dworkin offered the take of Matthew Yglesias, which epitomizes the mythology that ‘it’s economics, not bigotry’ that drive votes:
Matt Yglesias/Slow Boring ($) has an interesting take on the Democratic election performance:
Why Trump's Latino gains matter
A suggestion that progressives' theory of Trump-era politics is wrong
But beyond the surprisingness question, I think Trump gaining in this community is worth paying attention to for the very reason that a lot of people don’t want to pay attention to it: it challenges and complicates the influential progressive view that Trump’s political success was based exclusively on mobilizing white supremacist sentiments.
Trump gaining in this community is worth paying attention to for the very reason that a lot of people don’t want to pay attention to it: it challenges and complicates the influential progressive view that Trump’s political success was based exclusively on mobilizing white supremacist sentiments (emphasis added)
My response to this gloss by Yglesias—
Nope, and nope.
First, ’Latino’ isn’t one community:
Overall, the 10 largest Hispanic origin groups—Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, Hondurans, Ecuadorians and Peruvians—make up 92% of the U.S. Hispanic population.2 Six Hispanic origin groups have populations greater than 1 million.
The problem is with those who call themselves progressive who hear the word ‘Latino’ and imagine a homogenous voting bloc, akin to Sarah Palin considering Africa to be one country. They’re not:
Louis DeSipio Latino Civic and Political Participation.
In: National Research Council (US) Panel on Hispanics in the United States; Tienda M, Mitchell F, editors. Hispanics and the Future of America. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2006.
Equally worthy of note are the issues that do not dominate this Latino agenda. Only a small share of Latinos identify ethnic-specific issues, such as U.S. relations with Latin America or bilingual education, as the top issue facing their nation or their communities of residence. These issues do not appear even when surveys probe on the most important issue facing Latinos. Immigration is somewhat more commonly mentioned, but Latino positions are very different from those of non-Hispanics in that both express concern about the volume of contemporary migration. Compared to non-Hispanics, however, Latinos are more concerned that immigrants, regardless of status, be treated fairly. Finally, the issues of the conservative agenda—abortion, family values, the death penalty—are rarely mentioned as important issues…
Latinos are strong partisans (see Table 11-5). Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans are strong Democrats; Florida Cuban Americans are strong Republicans, while their New Jersey coethnics vote reliably Democratic. This strong partisanship distinguishes Latinos from non-Hispanic whites, who are divided in their loyalties to the two parties. This strong Latino partisanship does not mean that Latinos are as partisan as blacks, who routinely offer the Democrats an eight-to-one advantage nationally…
These partisan loyalties are tied to the issue base of each party. Republicans, for example, often focus on Mexican American opposition to abortion, support for the death penalty, and support for traditional gender roles, to predict that Mexican Americans will become Republican. As I indicated in the discussion of Latino issue preference, these issues rarely drive Mexican American political engagement. Instead, concern with education and social service delivery cements Mexican American and Puerto Rican loyalty to the Democrats. Yet Democrats have not predicted a Florida Cuban conversion. Arguably, however, when Fidel Castro leaves office and foreign policy assumes lower priority on the Cuban American agenda, the same issues that link Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans to the Democrats will spur a shift among Cuban Americans to the Democrats. I do not expect that this will happen quickly, but I also do not see the foundation for non-Cuban Latinos to shift to the Republicans, as some pundits predict.
Latino ideology is less understood and needs further study. Beginning with the Latino National Political Survey, there has been a relatively consistent but surprising finding that Latinos identify themselves ideologically as moderates and conservatives (see Table 11-5). This ideological self-identification conflicts somewhat with the policy concerns of the community, which generally seek an expanded role for government (and a willingness to pay more taxes to fund these government activities). They also contradict the partisan loyalties of most Latinos to the Democrats.
We need to beware sloppy generalizations based on ill-informed assumptions.
Considering ‘Latino’ to be essentially one sociocultural group who ‘should vote for us’ borders on simple racism, and is merely a casual quip to bash ‘the Democratic leadership’:
Culture wars fuel Trump’s blue-collar Latino gains
MARC CAPUTO/Politico
11/21/202
In Texas’ majority-Hispanic Rio Grande Valley and along the Texas border, where Trump did well for a Republican, progressive organizer Ofelia Alonso pointed out that "Latino" is a broad and imprecise catchall term for members of an ethnic group in which people identify as Black, white, indigenous, Asian, Middle Eastern or mixed race.
“A lot of people who voted for Trump, while they’re Latino, they’re also white,” she said, pointing to the city of Harlingen as a Trump-supporting “white city with money,” or South Padre Island, where “the class and race demographic is different than other parts of the Rio Grande Valley. More people have money and they’re really organized around the fact that they might not get taxed as much, and they feel the need to protect their wealth.”
When Yglesias says it’s not about white supremacy and bigotry in various forms, he’s plying the same dodge we’ve heard for decades to not see the obvious in GOP voters— their rarely and barely disguised bigotry— because such self-described progressives still harbor the fantasy that GOP voters ‘vote against their interests’, and it’s up to smart adults like him to tell Democrats how to educate the benighted masses of their true interests.
Make no mistake, the GOP’s political appeal is to fascists— a platform of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and religious bigotry-- because its rank and file voters align with fascism. There is no shortage of fascists in every country in the world, including throughout Central and South America.
We should avoid trafficking in such nonsense, and those, like Yglesias, who rely on it.
Related diaries:
Capitalism and fascism share the same roots in colonialism, and their modern home is the GOP. (Nov. 23, 2020)
Once more, with emphasis, from The Intercept: bigotry, not economics drove Trump votes. (Sept. 18, 2018)
Racism, not class distinctions, defines economic inequality. (Aug. 28, 2018)
Anti-Capitalist Meet-up: ‘Color-Caste’: W.E.B. DuBois on Race and Class. (May 6, 2018)
’Black Marxism’: To fight economic inequality, fight systemic economic racism. (long read) (Nov. 1, 2017)