The Tea Party's love affair with tokenism.

Remember all those older, white conservatives who were upset when I pointed out that most Sarah Palin fans were older, white conservatives?   They do.   The headliners of the current Tea Party Express include a few token minority participants whose presence is designed to prevent critics like me from pointing out the obvious, i.e. that the Tea Party consists of old white people who'd denounce their Medicare benefits as fascist if they had sense enough to self-reflect.

You don't have to take my word for it: one of their token minority presences unwittingly admitted as much in a post intended, ironically enough, to prove that the Tea Party has no problem with race:

I am a black performer/activist traveling on my third national Tea Party Express tour. We just finished our rally in North Platte, Neb. Two white families asked me to hold their newborn babies and pose for pictures. Excited white grandparents who are fans of my articles and music asked me to pose for pictures with them and their grand kids. Numerous white patriots shook my hand with tears in their eyes thanked me for what I was doing for our country. A white woman who said she was 86 years old gave me a big hug in thanks for my efforts. Polatik, our young Hispanic conservative rapper, got his usual huge positive response from the mostly older white crowd. [emphasis mine]

Needless to say, trying to demonstrate that the Tea Partiers have no problem with race by saying that the "mostly older white crowd" loves its token minorities is counterproductive.   But it also, and importantly, reminds us why the logic of tokenism is so pernicious: when your version of "diversity" involves placing in positions of power the one or two minority candidates who buy into your backward ideology, you're inevitably going to end up with a host of Michael Steeles.

Creating structural incentives that level the playing field, however, allows for actual talent to rise through the ranks.  Instead of establishing a system in which talent will out, conservatives would rather elevate an untalented token for P.R. reasons, which is a pretty clear indication of what they're up to: they need to protect the future status of their own marginally talented children, and if that means having to brook the presence of a Michael Steele, really, what choice do they have?

Comments

[Fritz Hemker]

I don't know if you saw the Gallup poll, but, in demographic terms at least, except for being a little light in the African American category (6% vs. 11%), the Tea Party looks like America. Since America is mostly older (47% older than 50) and white (75%), you wouldn't be surprised to find a group that represents America to mirror those characteristics.

I do find it amusing that you're criticizing another group for one of the core programs of your group, i.e., affirmative action.

In any case, "backward ideology" seems a bit strong. You may disagree, and there may be good reasons to disagree, but you're dismissing at least 40% of Americans as simply, irredeemably stupid. It's as if somehow you're supernaturally wise and clear sighted such that you can ask the question when faced with disagreement, "What, are you evil or stupid?"

Which is kind of backward, if you ask me.

[Fritz Hemker]

Tokenism and affirmative action seem to me to be the same thing, that is, treating race as a distinguishing characteristic. What differentiates them is the motive.

People accused the Tea Partiers of being bigots and racists. They attempted to show those people who accused them, using those people's own criteria of "not enough black faces" to demonstrate that they weren't in fact bigots and racists. Their very attempt to prove one thing was taken as proof positive of its opposite.

It should be asked, what would you accept as proof positive that members of the Tea Party aren't bigots and racists?

You're "backward ideology" comment may indicate that there is no possible proof or demonstration, that by definition those who disagree ideologically (i.e., fundamentally) are either evil or stupid. That would be sad.

I hope that we all agree that this is pernicious too.

[JPool]

Rich, FWIW, I agree with you second comment, including the periodization, I just think that that's still a very limited power. Blue dogs are much more willing to act as spoilers than progressives are, and given the almost solidly obstruction Republican caucus, they have a lot more power. As for this moment of radicalization that you envision, as a historian, I'm a lot less sanguine than you there. I think people will continue to be satisfied with half a loaf as better than none, and the Rs will continue to work the talking point that any ammount of bread will weaken this carbohydrate loving nation. But I hopw that you're right.

I really don't get your Joan Didian and capturing the moment thing. The the Tea Party groups have only emerged in the last year and a half, so I don't see how writing about them would feel late-Bush like. I think that it's easy to over-play the Tea Party folks, the same way that it was easy to over-play the Klan and the Militia movements back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Beyond Oklahoma City, however, these groups still have political significance and we ignore them at our peril. We all hope that these groups will help tar the Republicans with the crazy brush, but it could just as easily go another way.

The reason why I didn't think the list you gave above was the list is that you have opined so agressively against posts in this area, implying that they were a distraction from the Important Work to be done, that I assumed you had some action plan. That wouldn't have to be every writer taking to the streets, but it would presumably be writers encouraging their readers to take actions x, y, or z, beacuse blogospheric opining on its own does precisely nothing (or as near to nothing as makes no odds). One would presume getting over learned helplessness to involve more than writing earnestly about policy questions. So if it really is just matter of "Don't write about that, write about this," and writings on fantasy novels would work just as well, then it is just a matter of taste and the functional equivalent of NickS's "Give us comic book posts!" Duly noted.

[JPool]

Ugh. That was just horribly edited. Apologies.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Well, I disagree that writing == doing nothing. Writing that brings out some important part of the current situation helps people think about it in a different way. But if it's bad form to ask Scott should write about this and not that, I'd think it's even worse to start telling him to do things.

The Tea Party groups only have whatever significance they have because the GOP owns the media. But even then, they function mostly as spoilers, costing the GOP a few races where their winger candidate wins the primary against the slightly-less-winger candidate. Otherwise they are just the latest incarnation of the Militia and similar groups. And one thing that the Bush years proved is that people can protest all they want and it doesn't mean squat unless the people in power have already decided that they're going to use the protest as a pretext for something.

So, yes, the Tea Party groups only emerged in the last year and a half -- with the help of corporate sponsors, of course -- and they will die just as quickly when/if that support is withdrawn. I'd guess that they'll last through the energy bill, since coal mining was evidently a big funder. But what's going on doesn't depend on them in any important way.

[Karl Steel]

Rich, great comments, well written, but I'd like, as well, to see Scott continue to write in his areas of expertise. Can he write about the things he's demonstrated competence in, but in a way that you would recognize as 'of the moment'? Not sure.

But this:
If they jump ship
To where? That's the problem. As others said, most of the left was willing to compromise on the health bill. We never got expanded abortion rights; we never got anywhere near single payer. Why? Because the blue dogs were content to do nothing. So long as we on the left want something, and want to act in more than symbolic ways, the blue dogs have us over a barrel. All we can rely on is that Obama's people have more of a sense of shame, which is to say, any, than Bush/Cheney's people.

I could be talked out of this position.

[Ahistoricality]

To where? That's the problem.

I think there's a case to be made for a reformulated Democratic Party without the Blue Dogs, most of whom wouldn't actually survive for six months in the Republican Party as currently formulated.

All we can rely on is that Obama's people have more of a sense of shame, which is to say, any, than Bush/Cheney's people.

That is, as they say, a very low bar.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Perhaps "jump ship" was the wrong phrase. I didn't mean that progressives would actually leave the party. But there is a big, big difference between legislators who are critical for votes being safe votes and between them needing to be bribed every time. (And before some tiresome winger decides I'm talking about actual bribes, I mean legislative bribes -- traded favors.) There are a whole lot of critical votes. Extracting favors for each one very quickly brings you to the point where the President involved is highly motivated to do something to make that block of votes more safe in general.

Karl, I think that the power of the Blue Dogs was overrated in that last go-round. As far as I can tell, we didn't get the public option mostly because Obama didn't want it.

I'm a bit mystified, Jpool, that you thought I was encouraging Scott to some sort of plan of action. It really was more a "I'm gonna throw up if I'm encouraged to read one more post about Jeff Goldstein" kind of thing, complicated by all the other issues already mentioned.

[tomemos]

A side issue: Rich says, "The fight over the public option in the health care bill was an actual fight. It was lost, and it was never very well carried out, and it had as its greatest opponent Obama himself." But that's not true at all. Ben Nelson and, especially, Joe Lieberman killed the public option. Obama simply failed to stand up for it, and even if he had it's not at all clear Lieberman wouldn't have killed it anyway.

[tomemos]

"except for being a little light in the African American category (6% vs. 11%)"

A little light? You're talking about almost a 50% difference. Imagine if the Tea Party was, not 55% male, but 75% male. Wouldn't that indicate a problem?

"Tokenism and affirmative action seem to me to be the same thing, that is, treating race as a distinguishing characteristic. What differentiates them is the motive."

Actually two things: the motive, and the extent of the correction. An affirmative action program tries to make the demographics of the institution (a college, a company) more closely reflect those of the country. Tokenism means being satisfied when you have a single prominent person of color who will give the impression of diversity. Tokenism means putting a small number of people of color front and center while leaving the overall demographics unchanged.

"People accused the Tea Partiers of being bigots and racists. They attempted to show those people who accused them, using those people's own criteria of "not enough black faces" to demonstrate that they weren't in fact bigots and racists. Their very attempt to prove one thing was taken as proof positive of its opposite. It should be asked, what would you accept as proof positive that members of the Tea Party aren't bigots and racists?"

I don't think Scott was saying that the Tea Party are bigots and racists because of tokenism. In fact, tokenism is a (very very limited) sign of progress, since it shows that people at least want to create the perception that they are diverse. The problem is that the actual actions of the group don't match the perception of diversity it's trying to create. So to answer your question, I'll be open to the idea that there aren't a lot of racists in the Tea Party when Tea Partiers stop spitting on black Congressmen, carrying racist signs, making racist statements and claims, etc.

"I hope that we all agree that this is pernicious too."

Yes, of course. By the same token, when Ralph Nader or someone else on the Left calls Obama an "Uncle Tom," it's disgusting and racist.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Tomemos, Obama chose not to push to use reconciliation to pass health care from the first. I think that it was always pretty clear that reconciliation was going to be the only way to get it through. Obama chose to let the GOP run out the clock. Then, when he was pushed to use reconciliation or lose his top initiative, there was absolutely no support from the White House, and indeed resistance, to putting the public option back in.

For the way in which health care passed, only 50 Senatorial votes were needed. Lieberman and Nelson had no real ability to stop the public option without Obama tacitly agreeing with them.

[Karl Steel]

Tomemos, as clear a definition of tokenism as one could hope to find. Thanks.

(and before anyone brings up the Democrats are the Real Racists trope, please just let me note, again, that the historic increase in the Republican party's strength in the South coincided with Democrats passing civil rights legislation. Correlation is not necessary causation, I know, but in this case, I think we have cause. As for the teapartiers, I suppose we can take them as a populist movement, albeit one supported by America's most popular television and radio networks; but no one can take them as an intellectual force, at least, not until they iron out a few fundamental paradoxes: let them call for a repeal of medicare, medicaid, and social security, and then I'll start listening to them. Being a good poststructuralist, I know paradox is inevitable, but, still, they could try a little harder. AS for their racism, whether it's substantive or merely accidental, it may be the least of their problems, given their paraplegic-assaulting ways)

I think that it was always pretty clear that reconciliation was going to be the only way to get it through.
Agreed. This was another one of those situations where the blogs were miles ahead of the pols. Duncan Eschaton Black and David Kango X Waldman, iirc, were calling for reconciliation and saying no r's would vote for health care reform at least a year ago,* back when we were about to move into Max Baucus spending the summer negotiating, trying to get votes from the imaginary decent r's. Does this mean that the blogs are smart and the pols and DC cocktail circuit, particularly Chris Matthews, are stupid? Maybe.

Given such apparent stupidity from the pols and chattering class, it's hard to know how to apportion blame for Summer of Democratic Stupidity 2009. Maybe you're right about the weakness of the blue dogs, especially given reconciliation. Somedays I'm inclined to think Obama got exactly the health care bill he wanted. He wasn't pushing for a public option during his campaign, was he?

At any rate, 'jumping ship': revision heard and understood. I AM pleased by contested primaries: I love what's happening to Blanche Lincoln.

(* side note: because of reading Eschaton, I had years of advance warning on the housing bubble. In 2006, I think, I told my now brother-in-law, a republican, not to buy his condo because he'd be sure to lose shittons of money when the market collapsed. He ignored me, and, well, now he's stuck with it. Ho ho)

[Ahistoricality]

You're talking about almost a 50% difference. Imagine if the Tea Party was, not 55% male, but 75% male. Wouldn't that indicate a problem?

IANA statistician, but there are problems with assuming that you can get the same distribution of small subgroups in a sample -- like a political party -- of a population. The variation in representation increases as the size of the subgroup decreases, so having a 50% difference in a minority group like African Americans is not like having a 50% difference in a major category like gender.

That said, the "looks like normal America" line is a fallacy anyway: while they may be demographically similar to the whole, they are skewed to the point where they clearly aren't normal (and I mean that in the statistical sense, of course) in political, educational and media consumption measures.

[Rich Puchalsky]

In fairness to Obama, he did get a big chunk of the health care bill passed without reconciliation (since it's in two parts, one with, one without). That means that the most basic part of it won't expire after ten years if it turns out to increase the deficit, or however the Byrd Rule is worded. That's ... sort of an accomplishment, I guess. It's only a noteable accomplishment if no further progress is ever made and legislative stasis prevents a future GOP administration from outright repealing it. But, still, sort of.

However, that part pretty clearly wouldn't have passed unless there had been an additional part done in reconciliation to satisfy the House. That, by the way, is why I think it's arguable that the left-of-center legislators actually ended up having more clout, within the parameters that Obama set through his overall leadership, than the Blue Dogs did. And given that it ended up needing reconciliation, I think it's most probable that if it had been done in reconciliation in the first place, it would have included the public option. I don't think Nelson, Lieberman et al could have put together ten Democratic Senators to oppose it.

Who is the best political analyst today, by the way? I think it's pretty clearly Duncan Black. I can't really think of anything that he's been wrong on. And so I think that his concerns about the law being actually popular once people realize that they're a captive pool of clients for the insurance companies is well founded. If Obama's mishandling of the bill makes it so that it later fails because people don't like it, that's a downside risk that to my mind more than balances out the upside that part of it was done without reconciliation.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Oh, and by the way -- to get back to the rhetoric of division -- here's some of Obama's:

“Ultimately, we need to move beyond the tired debates of the left and the right, between business leaders and environmentalists, between those who would claim drilling is a cure all and those who would claim it has no place,” he said. “Because this issue is just too important to allow our progress to languish while we fight the same old battles over and over again.”

As the rhetoric of race becomes a province of the lunatic right, what replaces it in the mainstream is what was once a sort of substitution or redirection of it, the rhetoric of hippie-punching.

[tomemos]

"I think that it was always pretty clear that reconciliation was going to be the only way to get it through."

Maybe, but I think there is some hindsight going on here. I stopped reading Atrios a while ago—too glib for me—so maybe he did always know it would take reconciliation and maybe you did too. But you could believe that the Republicans would never vote for the thing and that the Baucus/Grassley committee would never go anywhere, as I (and Matt Yglesias, and Ezra Klein) did, and still believe that you could pass the public option without reconciliation in a couple of ways:

1) At first, it seemed possible that Democrats like Bayh would vote to break a Republican filibuster even if they planned to vote against the bill. That might sound naive now, but this arrangement—where senators vote against their caucus on procedural votes, making 60 votes necessary at all times—is genuinely new.
2) Once it became clear that wasn't the case, it still seemed likely that the senators who were squishy on the public option could be bought the usual way. Only Lieberman's decision to go completely rogue, out of spite apparently, prevented the Senate from passing the public option without reconciliation.

Once Lieberman did his thing, yes, it became obvious that reconciliation would be necessary to pass it, and that the Administration thought the political costs of that were too high for some reason. (And let's be clear, they were very wrong—I mean, look at the blowback that the Democrats got for just a standard floor vote in the House. Using reconciliation wouldn't have made a difference in the amount of vitriol used.) So I agree that Obama clearly didn't want the public option very much, or else he would have spent more political capital on it. But did he "tacitly agree" with Lieberman et al? I think that's ridiculous. In a way it doesn't matter what's secretly in his mind, but why would he have spent any time advocating a public option at all if he always wanted it not to be there? He could have strangled it in its cradle. I don't think the difference between "tacitly oppose" and "briefly and weakly advocate" is very great, but I do want to resist the narrative that whatever result Obama gets, that's what he wanted. You see that from the people who think he can do no wrong, too: "See, it's good that he legally advocated warrantless wiretapping and the court struck it down! That's the result he wanted all along!"

"It's only a noteable accomplishment if no further progress is ever made…"

I think this is backwards. If no further progress is ever made, than this is a pretty tiny fix to our health-care system. It's only valuable if, as I hope, it's the starting-point for the acceptance of the idea that health care is something that everyone in this country has, and if that idea is built on in the future. Which I don't think is a sure thing; but if health care had gone down this year, it would have been a long long time till the next attempt, and that would have been even more incremental.

"…and legislative stasis prevents a future GOP administration from outright repealing it. "

It will never be repealed. Who's going to vote to un-insure kids with pre-existing conditions? When did anyone try to repeal Medicare? That's the other reason why this could potentially be an accomplishment—we're unlikely to go backwards on it, only forwards.

[JPool]

Rich,
I'm not saying that writing does nothing, just that writing on its own does nothing. Conversations and persuasion and such are all well and good — I live for them — but unless they're tied to some sort of action (calling your reps, say) they don't actually produce any change.

That's why I assumed that you had some sort of activity in mind that we should presumably all be doing. Saying that just Scott should do anything for the public good would indeed seem deeply stange.

As for reconcilliation, if progressive Dems could have gotten a public option back in through reconcilliation (it's not clear to me if it was poilitcal will or the arcane rules of the Senate that would have made that impossible) they would have. I know that my rep (Keith Ellison) was among those holding out for sometime trying to negotiate something closer to the house bill, but it eventually became clear that that wasn't going to happen. Obama flubbed the early part of this process by not taking a more public directive role, but I think in general the blogospheric conviction that we could have managed this whole thing better if only they had listened to us is so much fantasy baseball. Like everyone else, though, I just glad that they actually passed something that can be developed and reformed, rather than holding out for nothing.

[John Emerson]

What I really want is more posts about students having sex on Scott's desk while he's trying to work, or his college overbilling him by $10,000 and not knowing whether anything can be done about it.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Jpool, I really think that you're underplaying the numbers involved. To get the bill through 60 Senators out of 60 requires that not one of them defect (or get replaced, as the case was). To get the bill through 50 Senators out of 60 is very difficult to fail. The time to do it was not after the clock had been run out, yes -- to get the option "back in" -- but if the process had started that way, it would not have been that hard. Arguments to the contrary strike me as being like the perennial hopes of people who support third parties, who can't see that the electoral rules in the U.S. mean that they aren't going to work.

Tomemos writes "In a way it doesn't matter what's secretly in his mind, but why would he have spent any time advocating a public option at all if he always wanted it not to be there?" I agree that it doesn't matter what's in his mind, and I agree that of course it's not that he always gets exactly what he wants. But I think that a study of his rhetoric and actions around the public option would show that he had to support it during the primary, or he would have gotten outflanked on his left. And having campaigned on it, he had to at least tepidly support it for public relations purposes. But once the bill started, at every stage of the process he tried to give it up.

[tomemos]

Rich: I better see what you're saying now, and I think our disagreement is extremely minor.