"Why I'm Leaving the Democratic Party"

Unsurprisingly, I sympathize with his aversion to the identity politics driving the Democratic Party. That said, I find it a little suspicious that he's considering becoming a Republican, rather than just an Independent. That suggests a more fundamental shift in his worldview than merely being sick of the excesses of progressives.

I often consider myself a moderate, but I am not sure how useful or accurate that label is. A lot of people (on both sides) disdain "moderates" for being lukewarm, wishy-washy, or allegedly triangulating their positions. I don't think that's entirely fair, but the fact is, I am not really moderate on a lot of things. It's just that my immoderate views don't consistently fall on a right/left divide.

He is right that bipartisanship is necessary for the country to function, but I think a lot of people say they want a "healthy two party system" because that sounds good. In reality, if you really subscribe to the beliefs of one party or the other, you want your side to crush the opposition and govern unopposed forever, no? Of course if you believe in democracy, you want that to be peaceful and without depriving adversaries of their rights (including their right to continue opposing you), but does any Democrat really object to the idea of Republicans being relegated to a rump party for the next century, or vice versa? If you think you're right, you should want your side to win, period. There is something to be said for also wanting a "loyal opposition" to keep you honest. But I don't think people really want opposition just for the sake of having opposition because "that's how a democracy is supposed to function."

More and more, people feel like they can identify with either of the major parties. Most Republicans I know don't support the extreme right. They're pro choice, pro lgbt. I have a friend/editor. She identifies as republican, but she'll also identify as bi. Also prochoice.

The probable is both parties are becoming more and more narrow minded, less and less inclusive of those that don't hold the party line, through and through. In different ways for each, and one could argue to varying degrees, but it's there on both sides.

I read nothing in his essay that suggested he's a whiny white person who thinks non-white people are coming to get his stuff. Whether or not you agree that identity politics are destructive and divisive (clearly you disagree), your reading of Hout as a panicky closet racist seems constructed out of large assumptions and improbable stretches.

I constructed it from this:

"democrats with a small "d" like Hout, are the living embodiment of Whiny White People who hear words like "diversity," "inclusion" and "equality" and conclude that must mean THEY are coming for what belongs to HIM"

"the only thing White people like Hout have that any person of color wants is power and the realization nobody holds on to power forever panics him"

You literally claimed he was panicking. "Panicky" - check.

You claimed that what panics him is fear that "THEY are coming for what belongs to HIM" - "THEY" being people of color, what belongs to him being "power."

It requires very little construction to infer that that motivation, if accurate, indicates at least a wee bit of racism. "Racist" - check.

"Closet" would be obvious, since as a good moderate liberal ex-Democrat, Hout is surely trying keep these racist fears hidden away until perceptive critics like yourself reveal the fears that really drive him. "Closet" - check.

Yeah...

Amadan's characterization of your characterization of Haut is from here:





Seems like a fair interpretation to me. Of course, you can say that it's not. Dropping the "panicky" and the "closet" part for a moment (and really, those are hardly critical characterizations, are they?), I'd just ask this: when you say he's "the living embodiment of Whiny White People" who think "THEY" are coming for what is his, what do you mean? Because my reading is that "THEY" refers to non-white people (or at least to marginalized groups) and that therefore he is bigoted against such groups at a bare minimum; racist isn't much of a jump.

Okay, so Hout is a whiny white person suffering from racial fear and paranoia and clinging to white privilege... but he's not a racist?

That seems very inconsistent given the behaviors I have seen you label "racist" in both effect and intent in the past.






Some people may push back against "identity politics" as code for "civil rights," but I do not consider the two equivalent at all, and I don't think a lot of people who deride identity politics are actually anti-civil rights.






So calling someone whiny, panicked, privileged, and fearing reverse racism is not code-switching for "racist," but criticizing "identity politics" is code-switching for "opposes civil rights"?


I think there is certainly a large percentage of the Republican Party that does that. When have you pointed this out and had people say "No, that's not true at all"? There are Republicans here, and I, while not a fan of the GOP, would disagree that the GOP is officially or unofficially the "Party of White People," but no one has claimed that only non-white people play identity politics.