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In recent weeks, a controversy has popped up pitting the centrist #Resistance and progressive wings of the Democratic party against each other. This iteration of what has become a common battle regards a rising star of the establishment Democratic partyKamala Harris, junior senator from California. Although the recent debate on Harris is relatively new, sparked by an article from The Week by Ryan Cooper titled Why Leftists Dont Trust Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Deval Patrick, its only the newest incarnation of a toxic dynamic that has been in full swing since 2016, where the two sides do battle over whether leftist critique of certain politicians is proof that the critics are racist, misogynist, or both. No matter how specific and policy-oriented the lefts critiques are, a certain class of liberals will never let the debate be about policy. This piece is an attempt to explain their tactics, and outline a strategy for overcoming them.

Typically, there are five steps to the centrist smear.

Step One: Define the Enemy as a White Male, Erase All Others

First, the leftists making the critiques are depicted by liberals as being almost exclusively white, male, and (often) privileged. The most popular method for carrying this out is the coining and weaponizing of the term Bernie Bros. Sometimes (white) female Bernie supporters are begrudgingly acknowledged, only to be dismissed as traitors suffering from internalized misogyny, or as flighty young singles supporting Sanders because thats where the boys areas Gloria Steinem, among others, claimed. Leftists of color, however, are rarely acknowledged even begrudgingly, and are often ignored outright in an act of erasure.

Step Two: Define the Leftist Motivation as Racist/Misogynist/Etc.

The second tactic of centrist liberals is to portray these supposedly exclusively white, male leftists as being solely motivated by misogyny and racism in their criticisms of women and minority politicians. They tend to do this by ignoring, minimizing or outright dismissing any policy criticisms leveled against these politicians, and by claiming that these female and or minority politicians are being held to a higher standard of purity testing than their white, male counterparts.

Step Three: Present Identity Politics and Class Politics as a Zero-Sum Game

Step three from the centrist playbook is to maintain that identity politics are being thrown under the bus in favor of class-only politicsregardless of the substantive policy and character critiques put forth. Many #Resistance-style liberals have a very narrow definition of good identity politics that only allows for superficial diversity in the form of representation optics. For example, a board of directors of a corporation may exploit its black workers and run abusive third-world sweatshops and practice environmental racism, but as long as that board has a proportionate number of women and minorities, the liberal idea of identity politics is usually satisfied. Therefore, even if the critique against a minority or woman candidate is for an action that disproportionately targeted black peopleexpanding the prison-industrial complex by locking up black men at an increased rate, for examplecentrists perpetually claim that the greater crime to the marginalized group is the fact that anyone dares to criticize a politician from that group. Even when that minority candidate is being criticized for a policy that hurts minorities and women, the lie must be maintainedcriticism of that politician is criticism of the group, and identity politics in all its forms.

Step Four: Attack the Delivery of the Message, Not the Message Itself

Step four is simple tone policingdivert the topic to civility of the discourse, shifting the focus to how the critic delivered her criticism, rather than the substantive merit of said criticism. This leads directly to smarm and virtue signalinga pattern that repeatedly occurred in 2016 with Hillary Clinton, and is happening again with Kamala Harris. In both cases, liberals press the idea that criticisms only ever come from privileged white men, are too rude and abusive to ever be constructive, and only ever stem from racism and sexismusually in the form of a total dismissal of all identity politics and a contempt for the oppressed identities theyre meant to protect. Critics of these politicians are never acknowledged as having legitimate concerns on policy and character.

Step Five: Personality, Not Policy

The fifth and final step for the neoliberals is to make the political debate a matter of charismatic personalities, or names. This is why we see so many pieces lamenting that Kamala Harris has a Bernieland problem, or is struggling with Bernie Sanderssupporters, despite the fact that neither Bernie Sanders or anyone in his inner circle are actually behind any of the Harris public criticisms, and most of these leftists havent brought up Sanders at all in their critiques. (Some centrists, such as Laurence Tribe, have gone so far as to accuse Sanders of masterminding the attacks, in the absence of all evidence.) These pieces often refuse to call the critics leftists or progressives, because that would give a clearer idea of policy beliefs and ideals.

On Aug. 8, when The Week published the aforementioned Ryan Cooper article, and every day since, all of these dynamics have been in the media. Cooper responded to accusations that the left is motivated by racism and misogyny in its distrust of Harris by citing her history as a prosecutor, her defense of questionable Wall Street fat cats like Bain Capital, and her closeness to the donor class. However, although a few responses did try to sincerely engage Coopers arguments, most simply evaded them altogether in favor of doubling down on accusations of racism, sexism, and the false claim that these critics refused to hold white politicians to the same standards.

How to Fight It

My personal belief is that liberals always want to pivot away from substantive policy to diversity, double standards, civility, privilege and personalities because theyre actually afraid of defending their heroes on a policy levelthough not always for the same reasons. Some of these liberals wont defend the problematic policies and connections of a Harris, Booker, or Patrick because they dont find them problematic. In fact, they outright support them, and dont want to openly say so. Others cant defend the problematic policies and connections of a Harris, Booker, or Patrick because they dont actually know enough about the policies and connections of their faves to defend them on that leveleven if they were inclined to try. They only engage with them on the level of fans and celebrities.

And its precisely because they cant argue politics on a policy level that they always want to get leftists to discuss the criteria that matter to thembourgeois feminism, superficial diversity, civility, and incrementalism. Since they can only critique on those standards, they try to force others into defending on the same standards, and shift the entire discourse. When you know you cant win the debate on policy grounds, there are some definite advantages to using this alternate strategy instead.

First, by constantly returning the focus to identity politics, the hope is to get leftists to respond on the same grounds, which subtly reinforces their premise that these are the things politics should be about. Therefore, even if you as a leftist are responding just to say no, were not white racists silencing people of color and women and no, were not uncivil, youre validating their premise that those are the most important issues at stake simply by defending yourself. Suddenly, youre on trial, and the politicians in questionalong with their policies and political connectionsare secondary. But if a leftist refuses to answer at all, she will appear to be tacitly admitting to racism, misogyny, and other forms of toxicity. Its the classic loaded question gambit gambit: Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?

Thats why the best response is to always pivot back to policy, even when choosing to answering the identity politics accusations. If, as a leftist, you choose to defend the lefts track record on race, be sure to include policies you support that help oppressed identities, and contrast them with centrist policies that hurt those same people. Whenever liberals get roped into policy discussions, they usually end up defending fallacious arguments that are easy to pick apart. Often, liberals will end up in ludicrous positionsbadmouthing single payer, defending Hillarys Arkansas slave labor, defending the Clinton crime bill, etc.

Thats why Coopers article was so effective and triggered so much defensiveness: it moved them out of their comfort zone and onto their opponents field of battle. Pivoting back to superficial identity politics, civilities, and litigating popular personalities is their attempt to regain home court advantage. In response to claims that the left dislikes Harris because shes black and female, Cooper responded with pure policy, rather than just saying, hey, we do like women and people of color, and here are examples of some who rock with uswhich is exactly the response they want. If you go that route, theyll ignore you anyway, and will view it as validation of the idea that politics is just a head count of tokens.

Even if you do respond with policy, note that a liberals only defense is to revert to superficial identity politics, which is why you have to remain vigilant and stick to policy no matter how often they force the pivot. Its not that identity politics and feminism dont matter; its just that theyre using these topics as shields, and no matter how much you accept and respond to their framing, theyll ignore the answer anyway. Furthermore, the superficial way they frame feminism and identity politics isnt particularly helpful to women and minorities anyway. Its optics and incrementalismutterly bourgeois in its concerns and solutions.

I feel liberals ignore policy concerns that people like Ryan Cooper, Briahna Joy Gray, and Zoe Samudzi bring up because either they fully support said crappy policies and know saying so looks bad, or because they arent engaged on policies at all, couldnt defend them intellectually even if they wanted to, and may not even know what they are.

Oh, and dont forget personalities. They also want to keep topic on personalities (Hillary, Kamala, Bernie, certain leftist podcasters, pundits, and writers) and not on systems and the needs of voters. They get hung up on people, and not ideas. That way they can dwell on things like Bernie Sandersthe person, his wifes legal case, and the cost of his house, and not on socialism and its growing appeal with the populace, especially young people. If this sounds like a Republican smear tactic, thats no accidenta continued focus on policy is kryptonite to liberals, whose only recourse is to act, and sound, just like conservatives.

T. Beaulieu is the host of the Champagne Sharks podcast. You can also find him on Twitter @rickyrawls.

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The Centrist Smear: The Five Steps Liberals Take to Undermine Leftist Critique - Paste Magazine

Actor Scott Baio says Hollywood critics of President Trump would blame the man for putting oncologists out of business if he cured cancer.

The Hollywood Reporter recently met with over 50 members of Hollywoods closeted conservatives group, Friends of Abe, to gauge their support for Mr. Trump after recent violence in Charlottesville. Most of them declined to publicly comment out of fears of professional retribution, but longtime Trump supporter Mr. Baio of Happy Days fame did not hesitate to speak.

I dont give a s about Hollywood liberals, he told The Hollywood Reporter for a piece published Wednesday. Theyre gonna hate the guy no matter what. If he cured cancer, theyd be on him for putting oncologists out of business.

Mr. Baio has been a staunch supporter of the president in an industry where right-leaning talent typically keeps mum on their political views. He also spoke at the Republican National Convention in July 2016 in support of Mr. Trumps campaign.

All this [racial Charlottesville coverage] does is help Trump because people have had it. Conservatives in Hollywood have had it, Mr. Baio added. We know who Trump is, and we dont believe the propaganda, and I dont think most of the country does, either. The media is almost irrelevant. Its predictable and boring. I want the man to get his agenda through, and everything else is a sideshow.

Many actors told THR that openly discussing Mr. Trump was too hot at the moment, or included no upside.

Are you trying to get me killed? an unidentified actor asked the magazine. Im staying away from politics for the foreseeable future.

Actress Mell Flynn said that conservative friends refuse to speak out in defense of Mr. Trump because their livelihood would be threatened.

They fear that they will never work again, she said. Theres a lot of truth to that. One producer told me Trump was right to call out the leftists who attacked the white supremacists since the latter had a permit and the former did not, but if he says this out loud, hed never work again.

Mr. Baio said that lost acting work no longer worries him.

My country comes first, he said. I guess Im just an old, angry, successful white guy who stole everything he has from someone else.

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Scott Baio: Hollywood liberals would howl over jobless oncologists if Trump cured cancer - Washington Times

Toronto Sun

Alt-politics of the Ontario Liberals Toronto Sun This week I found out I was an alt-right, white supremacist. Needless to say I was shocked. This appalling bit of information came courtesy of the Ontario Liberal party. They sent out an email they said revealed the alt-right leanings of Ontario ...

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Alt-politics of the Ontario Liberals - Toronto Sun

The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, by Mark Lilla (Harper, 160 pp., $24.99)

In his new book, Columbia University humanities professor Mark Lilla laments the phrase speaking as an X. Ubiquitous in academia for years, but now increasingly prevalent in general discourse, it is an introductory clause that

sets up a wall against questions, which by definition come from a non-X perspective. And it turns the encounter into a power relation: the winner of the argument will be whoever has invoked the morally superior identity and expressed the most outrage at being questioned. So classroom conversations that once might have begun, I think A, and here is my argument, now take the form, Speaking as an X, I am offended that you claim B. This makes perfect sense if you believe that identity determines everything. It means there is no impartial space for dialogue.

The passage makes plain what Lilla is up toand up against. He wants the Democratic Party to abandon identity politics for the sake of its electoral viability. Effecting beneficial changes requires wielding power, he argues, and in democracies, securing power requires winning elections. In Americavast, diverse, and unrulysuch victories can be secured only through the hard and unglamorous task of persuading people very different from [oneself] to join a common effort. Lilla thus finds it necessary to instruct fellow Democrats that elections are neither prayer meetings nor therapy sessions nor seminars nor teaching moments.

What is identity politics? As a chapter epigraph, Lilla cites a statement from the Combahee River Collective, a 1970s group whose raison detreblack lesbians issues and perspectives were getting short shrift from existing civil rights, gay rights, and feminist organizationssounds like a parody of the problem Lilla describes. This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics, the statement said. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody elses oppression.

This rejection of the very idea of an impartial dialogue is, Lilla believes, how the noble legacy of large classes of peopleAfrican-Americans, womenseeking to redress major historical wrongs by mobilizing and then working through our political institutions gave way, by the 1980s, to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow and exclusionary self-definition. Inherent in it is identitarians disdain for the ordinary democratic politics of engaging with and persuading people unlike themselves in favor of delivering sermons to the unwashed from a raised pulpit.

Rather than gratefully accept this enlightenment and path to redemption, however, the unwashed are likely to demand an identity politics of their own. As soon as you cast an issue exclusively in terms of identity, Lilla warns, you invite your adversary to do the same. Thus, Donald Trumps victory and Lillas book, which grew out of a New York Times op-ed he wrote the week after the 2016 election. He was sick and tired of noble defeats, Lilla told interviewers then. Lillas article prompted many denunciations, the most venomous coming from a Columbia law professor who compared him, unfavorably, with David Duke.

Such reactions give strong reason to doubt that we will soon see a post- or anti-identity politics emerging the Democratic Party. And yet, an even stronger reason exists. The feasibility of Lillas project depends on the plausibility of his analysis. If identity politics is an affliction that happened to liberalism, as he sees it, then its realistic to activate Democratic antibodies to reject the pathogen. If, however, identity politics is a condition to which liberalism is inherently susceptible, or even disposed, then identity politics is not the Democrats problem but their destiny. Unfortunately for Lilla, the evidence points in this direction.

Something came between the New Deal Democratic Party, summoned to pride and patriotism by Franklin Roosevelts Four Freedoms, and todays Democratic Party, micro-targeting so many distinct constituencies that, to Lilla, it seems better prepared to govern Lebanon than America. In between came McGovernismnot just George McGoverns 1972 campaign but also the whole style and substance of 1960s and 1970s liberalism: from John F. Kennedys cool to Robert Kennedys zeal; from civil rights to Black Power; from the counterculture, New Left, and antiwar movements to feminism and environmentalism. The result, says Lilla, turned Joe Sixpacks Democratic Party into Jessica Yogamats. Democrats uncritically embraced the constituencies and passions brought to the fore in the 1960soften at the expense of common sense, political and governmental. In these years, Lilla writes, liberals, fearful of blaming the victim, refused to speak about the new culture of dependency, or about the tremendous rise in violent crime in the 1960s.

As a result, identity politics determined the Democratic reaction in 1988 when George W. Bushs presidential campaign raised the Willie Horton issue against his opponent, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. It was intolerable, liberal activists and journalists declared, to bring to public attention an incident where a black man had brutalized a white couple. What was tolerable, by implication, was a policy (unique to Massachusetts) that gave violent felons, serving life sentences and ineligible for parole, unsupervised furloughs. Little wonder that Joe Sixpack voters tuned into Reagan Democrats as they came to associate liberalism with profligacy, spinelessness, malevolence, masochism, elitism, fantasy, anarchy, idealism, softness, irresponsibility, and sanctimoniousness, as sociologist Jonathan Rieder put it in Canarsie (1985). To this day, Democrats think that what Bush said about Willie Horton was outrageous but that what Dukakis did was, at worst, unfortunate.

Seen in this light, identity politics is not a problem for Democrats but a solution to the deeper problem that liberalism doesnt believe in itself. The evidence, once subtle, is now explicit. The final word belongs to no man, FDR said in a 1932 speech to the Commonwealth Club, addressing the question of whether government existed to serve individuals or vice versa. All we can do is believe in change and in progress, the never-ending quest for better things. Three-quarters of a century later, in Barack Obamas Audacity of Hope, it becomes clear that the author, and liberalism generally, suffers from what political scientist Charles Kesler calls certainty envy. Obama dislikes absolute truths but admires unbending idealists, up to and including murderous ones like abolitionist John Brown. Obamas solution is to encourage us to pursue our own absolute truths, while warning that there may be a terrible price to pay.

Pursuing our own absolute truths is an excellent summary of identity politics. On no other basis can modern liberals combine moral fervor with moral flexibility. Because my truths are subjective, they become unassailablebut at the same time, Im under no obligation to base my truth on any proposition about the nature of things, because we accept that the final word on such realities belongs to no one. Speaking as an X, I possess a truth borne of my experience that no non-X critic can fully appreciate or fairly challenge. As a Yale undergraduate wrote during that schools identity-politics convulsions in 2015: I dont want to debate. I want to talk about my pain.

Consequently, Lillas hope for a future liberalism that will forge ahead and surmount identity politics seems nave. His previous book, The Shipwrecked Mind (2016), assessed the reactionary longing to return to a mythical, irretrievable past. But his new quest, for the liberalism of a Golden Age too well grounded to succumb to identity politics, proves no less quixotic.

William Voegeli is a senior editor of the Claremont Review of Books and author of Never Enough: Americas Limitless Welfare State and The Pity Party: A Mean-Spirited Diatribe Against Liberal Compassion.

Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

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Liberals, Shipwrecked - City Journal

When Conservative Canadian governments deport failed asylum-seekers and try to prevent them from arriving in the first place, they tend to boast about it. When Liberal Canadian governments deport failed asylum-seekers and try to prevent them from arriving in the first place, they tend to pretend its simply not happening. On migration policy, this is one of the key differences between our two natural governing parties. It basically boils down to branding.

The Trudeau government has taken traditional Liberal messaging considerably further, though. In March, amidst a global refugee crisis, having recently dropped the tourist visa requirement for Mexican citizens and with a surge of northbound border-crossers arriving concurrently (if not because of) the Trump presidency and with hundreds of thousands of undocumented people in the U.S. who could theoretically join that surge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted out this now-legendary piece of reckless, insincere nonsense: Regardless of who you are or where you come from, theres always a place for you in Canada.

Spoiler alert: there isnt.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel tried to frame the northbound exodus as a direct result of Trudeaus shameless virtue signalling. Asked what her government had done or would do differently, she responded, essentially, that her government wouldnt have all-but-explicitly encouraged people to give Canada a college try.

Its a stretch; this is mostly about circumstances beyond any governments control. But the extent to which this government refuses to speak in plain English is truly remarkable.

On Sunday, in a visit to the border region in Quebec, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Canadian consulates in the U.S. would try to warn people thinking of heading north to claim asylum that their chances of success were far from assured. Thats a very good idea. Many of the current border-crossers are Haitians whose asylum claims failed in the United States. A temporary post-earthquake moratorium on removals having expired, they now face deportation. Reports suggest they are being sold garbage advice in some cases literally that Canada is a sure thing. To preserve Canadas already stretched border resources, to maintain whatever public trust remains in the systems integrity, and to save vulnerable people from extortion and financial ruin, the government should be warning people away in no uncertain terms.

Heres what Garneau put on Twitter: We are continuing to engage with diaspora communities in the U.S.A. everyone deserves to know the facts about what it means to come to Canada.

And on Wednesday, heres what Trudeau put on Twitter: Were reaching out to folks in the U.S. to make sure people who want to come to Canada understand the proper procedures to do so.

For the love of God, man, there is no proper procedure with a snowballs chance in Port-au-Prince via which a failed Haitian asylum-seeker in the United States can come properly to Canada. What you mean is dont come. Well probably deport you anyway. So say it.

Theres no guarantee a blunt message would get the job done, mind you. No matter how often the Conservatives called asylum-seekers from European Union countries bogus refugees, the Immigration and Refugee Board kept recognizing their claims at a reasonable clip 2,500 from Hungary alone over the last decade, for a roughly 18 per cent success rate.

Unlike Hungary, the now-famous unofficial border crossing in Quebec is just a Greyhound and a cab away from anywhere in the contiguous 48 states. If Canadas consulates are indeed distributing the facts, then Haitians will know Canada has accepted nearly 50 per cent of claims from their fellow citizens over the last 10 years. Many claims that failed in the U.S. might well fail in Canada too but its a safe bet quite a few would succeed. (The U.S. accepts a significantly lower percentage of claimants.)

If my options were (a) deportation to Haiti, where I have nothing, or (b) a $200 trip to the border, a longish stay in Canada during which I can legally work and make some money, a long-shot chance at permanent residency and then, at worst, deportation to Haiti anyway, I know exactly which one I would pick.

What can the government do about this? Without straying dramatically from traditional policy options, not a hell of a lot. But it could stray from traditional Liberal policy and not let a massive backlog build up. On Wednesday, citing a UNHCR official, Global News reported asylum-seekers arriving today wont even get preliminary eligibility hearings until January. The longer a hopeless claim takes to be resolved, the greater the incentive to give it a whirl. The government could hire more people to deal with these claimants expeditiously, which the Liberals have said they will, thus reducing that incentive. But most radically, as off-brand as it would be, the Liberals might consider saying what they bloody well mean.

Email: cselley@nationalpost.com | Twitter:

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Chris Selley: Astonishing nonsense from the Liberals amid surge of asylum-seekers - National Post