Is Identity Politics a Waste of Time?

If the last US election has been any indicator, pundits and politicians seem to be convinced that the winning strategy is to come up with a "coalition" of voters from different race/gender groups. Much attention gets paid to who is winning what demographic. But for all the talk about race and gender divisions, I have to wonder how useful it really is for campaigning. For example, if you know your campaign is behind on "black men," and you want to appeal to them, you have to assume you know what it is black men want. And if you did know that, you probably wouldn't be losing that demographic in the first place. Then if you try to appeal to black men, you have to make sure you're not losing other demographics, which is a never-ending whack-a-mole of appealing to different groups.

It seems to me that a better approach would just be to look at what swing voters or likely voters in general want. Ideally, you could appeal to all of them at once. It doesn't matter if your coalition is 20-year-old Latino men or 80-year-old Jewish women, because at the end of the day, all that really matters is having the most electoral votes. Knowing that some ad increases your support among swing voters seems much more useful than knowing it increases your support among white women or Chinese men. It also doesn't seem like a good thing that politicians care more about appealing to one demographic rather than pursuing what's best for the country as a whole...but I suppose that's the temptation of cross-tabs.

Politicians keep doing it, so they must have something telling them it's a good strategy, but if the last presidential election was any indicator, political advocates are at their worst when trying to appeal to a specific race or gender. "Real men for Harris" was endlessly mocked, and Trump saying he would "protect women" did him little favors, even if he did end up winning the overall election. The Democrats were convinced that a bunch of white women secretly wanted to vote for Kamala but didn't realize they could vote anonymously....why they believed this, I have no idea. What's good for the goose is usually good for the gander, and one might wonder if talking points that only appeal to one group are even worthwhile policies to pursue.

Trump uses a very simple strategy.

He appears as racist while at the same time not being racist enough for it to be obvious.

This means he gets votes in two ways:

1. There are people who are racist, thus vote for the most racist candidate, which is Trump.

2. There are those who are against racism, but because Trump's racism isnt obvious enough, they are led to believe Trump maybe isnt racist, and since he looks better than Biden, he gets their vote.

To put it simply, there is a perfect amount of racism which can give you votes from both racists and non-racists.

Trump's success lies in the fact that his racism is moderate and not obvious or extreme, thus he gets more votes.

Simply, by rejecting all extremes, as Tao teaches, person can get much more popular and get along with many because his words agree with greatest number of people.

Japan's military principle teaches that having greatest number of allies is good.

Its not just Trump. Its an entire army of influencial people and trolls on the internet which gave Trump the win. He has many allies, to put it simple. Kamala didnt have same, as it being obvious that when you go on YouTube, you quickly run into plenty of videos supporting Trump while Kamala support videos are rare other than her speeches. It got even worse in the comment section.

Yes.

yes.

It’s condescending.

This is his MO in everything. Look at this election, people voted for him because they believed he would deport tens of millions of migrants. Others voted for him because they thought he will close the border but that deportation stuff was just bluster. Whatever they wanted him to be, that's what he is.

I guess Kamala's racism was too extreme for all those black voters that left her.

Yeah! I remember when Trump used a fake black accent to talk to black people....or was that Kamala doing that to be what ever she thought they wanted her to be?

What do you get out of such pointless trolling?

Identity politics is for race baiters. As if your race makes you qualified to do anything or makes your intellect any better. Identity politics is for weak minded losers. Just my opinion. "Fuck your race, fuck your culture, fuck everything about you."  The great two way fucking street.

Its too bad that there will probably be another world war and even then people wont understand why they shouldnt elect bad leaders.

I guess its just a constant state of decline when it comes to leadership.

tell Biden to stop starting a world war then.

So you don't deny Kamala did a fake black accent to get identity votes. Noted.

You are right because Biden invaded Ukraine and everyone invaded Ukraine except Putin because Putin is defending Ukraine. You guys are so funny.

I don't give a rat's asshole about who invaded who. No foreign soil is worth launching ATACS USA made missiles into Moscow.

Fuck you Biden, sore loser wants to take the world down with him. Loser.

We should just let Putin invade all of our allies one by one so he ends up controlling the world. Thats smart.

Yeah, we should launch missiles into Moscow until Putin decides to surrender. What a clown.

You think Ukraine and every other US ally should be given to Putin without a fight. Great logic.

No, we should shed American blood over a former Ussr territory. Launch missiles into Moscow. Clown. Go back to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. Your clown-god Bush is waiting for you.

We should just let Putin invade all of our allies one by one so he ends up controlling the world. Thats smart. You think Ukraine and every other US ally should be given to Putin without a fight. Great logic.

I don’t think it’s completely useless, It has some benifets if used in the right way. There is definitely too much focus on it recently though.

Ukraine isn't NATO, neither was Iraq, Vietnam, or Afghanistan.

Defending your allies from being attacked by mad dictator is obviously a bad idea. Let Putin and China win. They will stop.

Ukraine isn't our ally, it's a former soviet state that we exploit for resources. Same as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Vietnam.

They are food, not friends.

You would protect Slovenia, right?

like we protected Afghanistan? sure!

I guess you would say in 1939 that Poland isnt our ally either. Omg you are Putin!

If France and England want to commit nuclear suicide with Russia over Poland, let em. USA can rule over the ashes.

Maga.

No. In fact we need more of it

Do that which helps only Putin and Hitler and all other dictators and attackers and invaders. Smart long term.

Except for Hamas.