Scoop!

A Times article, by Jeremy Peters, Nov. 2.

I scooped the New York Times.

Between Oct. 16 and 26 I posted a series of essays about the current state of identity politics on this blog.  Then today, Nov. 2, the Times published this article noting that identity politics is losing its "grip on the country."

I agree with much of Jeremy W. Peters’ reporting but not all. For one thing, the heading should say it's losing its grip on the Democratic party. I'm not so sure the right wing is giving up on it.  More on that in a future post.

In “Wither woke?” I posed the same question that Peters is addressing—have we passed peak woke?—and came to the same general answer, pointing to some of the same contrary evidence that he mentions toward the end of his piece. 

In “DEI and the left critique,” I wrote something akin to his comment that "some of the most effective pushback to the hard left has, in fact, come from within institutions sympathetic to progressive impulses." But unlike Peters, I noted that the left-critique of identity politics is not new, and all along has been more convincing and insightful than most conservative critiques.

Throughout his piece Peters repeats an error common in the media, conflating the “progressive” with the “identitarian left.” For example in citing Yasha Mounk, who is guilty of this too, he writes: “Today, he said of progressives, ‘The brief era of their unquestioned dominance is now coming to an end.’” I’ve been working on a piece on this topic for the past week. Coming soon.

Part of the problem is that there is no one good word to describe the identity obsessions of some folks on the left.  In “Don’t say woke,” I provide a glossary of the many different terms you might use in addition to "idenity," and rather than "progressive."

Since 2020, Peters writes, “candidates who aligned themselves with progressive activists have fared poorly in many high-profile races, even in deep blue bastions.” It would be more accurate to say that candidates who align themselves with 2020-style woke activists have fared poorly. Peters points to two such House members, Corey Bush and Jamaal Bowman. But AOC and Sanders are still quite popular. She won her district primary with 82 Percent of the vote in August, and Sanders leads in his Senate re-election race 66-25%.

In “Political socialism” I pointed out how AOC and Sanders embrace politics rather than the moral grandstanding characteristic of the woke left, and that has been part of their continued success.

My next post, out tomorrow, deepens this point by showing how appeals to identity categories like race and gender are no less common on the moderate, establishment left than among those we might think of as “progressive.”