Yeah, but that won't happen, either

If the left can woo back white voters, it would benefit everyone

Remi Adekoya writes in The Guardian.

The liberal movement can only help minorities if it can retain the white vote and gain power. 

If that means focusing less on identity politics, then so be it.

. . . .

I’m not suggesting progressives throw minorities under the bus and cease fighting racial or sexual discrimination, but regular white folk need to see progressives as their defenders too, not just champions of minorities, which is too often the perception many white people have of the “cosmopolitan left”. 

The left needs much more focus on socioeconomic issues such as inequality and stagnant wages, the stuff that resonates with regular white voters. 

Of course, it resonates with me too – it’s not as if this would be to switch to an issue which excludes minority interests.


Some of the current anti-immigration sentiments in the west are racially motivated, but some of it results from exhaustion with the fierce competition neoliberalism has thrived on in recent decades. 

Some people enjoy competition, but for most it is stressful, exhausting and keeps them on edge. 

Small wonder many want to restrict movement of labour. 

If neoliberalism makes everything a competition, it should be no surprise that white majorities have come to see newcomers as rivals for jobs and resources. 

. . . .

In the US election this week, the biggest voter swing to Trump (16-points), came from those earning less than $30,000 a year, the very group that has to compete with Mexican immigrants for low-skilled jobs. 

Again, Trump promised them the prospect of less competition from Mexican migrants, via his wall, and they grabbed it. 

These were voters who backed Obama in 2012 so we should not so readily call them racists.

And anti-immigrant sentiment is not restricted to the west. 

When black South Africans physically attacked and killed black African migrants in South Africa last year, it wasn’t because they hated them for being black, they hated them for being unwanted competition. 

“They are stealing our jobs”, the South Africans claimed. 

Sound familiar?

There is no denying a racial aspect to the current rightwing surge in the west and there are well-off white people supporting the likes of Trump or Marine Le Pen in France, but there are probably enough white voters more concerned with economic issues than race, to be able to make the left competitive again if it can woo them back. 

Many are exhausted by neoliberalism’s “compete or die” approach and are desperate for some respite. 

The right is currently the only side of the debate offering something tangible, by promising to drastically reduce the competition immigration brings with it.


The left needs to focus more on everyday economic issues, less on identity politics and “celebrating diversity”. 

Diversity is great. 

But many white voters need to feel that leftist-liberals care about them as much as the minorities they seek to protect. 

If I were a straight white plumber from Luton, I don’t think I’d feel that the current leftist elites care much about me or my problems.

The children of Zinn are supposed to change their tune?

The folks at #BLM?

Denise Oliver Velez, who tells "white people of good faith" to "look in the mirror" to see whose fault the Trump victory was?

Even main stream Democrats, who decided to make the next chair of the DNC a black congressmen of Muslim faith?

Are you kidding me?

So we've heard the last howls about the names of sports teams like The Washington Redskins and The Cleveland Indians?

No more bombarding American whites with accusations of 500 years of genocide on Columbus Day and Thanksgiving?

No more bullshit about "cultural appropriation" when white people play jazz (but not when black people play the piano)?

Have we heard the last complaint about white privilege, and the last whine from leading Democratic women about Republican misogyny and the war on women by those ghastly old white males?

Yeah, sure.

And even if they tried the damage done by decades of anti-white race-baiting cannot be undone just by suddenly turning off the sewage.

And the Buchananites just have to smile every time somebody angrily or scornfully denounces the GOP as the white people's party.

They just have to smile.