Tag: identity politics

The DNC’s 2024 Autopsy Is Here, and Oh Boy, It’s a Dumpster Fire

The DNC has finally released its 2024 election autopsy, and if you were hoping for a moment of genuine Democratic self-reflection, prepare to be disappointed.

The report took forever to see the light of day, and DNC Chairman Ken Martin’s explanation for the delay was something else. “When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced,” Martin said. So the party that wants to run your healthcare couldn’t manage to produce a competent internal review? That’s comforting.

Of course, most of what the autopsy actually concludes isn’t exactly earth-shattering. Democrats didn’t just lose because of Donald Trump. They lost because they’ve spent years drifting away from working-class voters, men, rural America, and irregular voters, while banking everything on anti-Trump messaging and demographic assumptions that turned out to be dead wrong.

Gee, we’ve been saying that for years.

The report traces these organizational, messaging, and cultural failures back more than a decade. That’s the Democrats’ attempt to spread the blame thin enough that no one person has to own it.

I’m sorry, but that’s still such a cop out. Remember, Democrats have had Hollywood, the public school system, and virtually the entire media apparatus doing their bidding for years. With all that infrastructure, losing this badly isn’t a messaging problem. It’s a “you” problem, and from what I can tell, the document doesn’t acknowledge this at all.

Still, some of the admissions in the report are interesting.

“A persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters has provided the other major party with opportunities for advancement,” the report states. It’s not wrong. The party that claims to speak for ordinary Americans stopped listening to them somewhere along the way. The report even concedes it directly. “The party’s connections with working Americans and their families were forged through decades of organizing and engagement,” but “we have lost these relationships.”

That’s a nice way of saying that Democrats have become the party of the coastal elites, not the average American.

There’s also an acknowledgment that Democrats became addicted to identity politics and abstract rhetoric at the expense of kitchen-table issues. The report calls on Democrats to “focus less on abstract issues and identity politics, and connect with voters on the issues they say matter most, including the economy, disaster relief, and addressing housing affordability.”

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Josh Shapiro and AOC Are Waging War Over a Midterm Congressional Race with 2028 Implications: Report

Democrats face a problem that will likely plague them well into the 2028 election cycle.

Until then, it appears that one prominent Democrat will try to sidestep the problem for as long as possible.

According to Axios, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, widely considered a centrist and a possible 2028 presidential contender, has worked behind the scenes to undermine a progressive congressional candidate supported by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — another potential 2028 aspirant.

The candidate, Chris Rabb of Philadelphia, has earned AOC’s endorsement in a tight three-way Democratic primary scheduled for May 19.

Meanwhile, three sources close to discussions told Axios that Shapiro not only disapproves of Rabb but has quietly taken steps to ensure that the AOC-approved progressive candidate gains no advantage at the expense of the other two candidates, Sharif Street or Ala Stanford, both regarded as more centrist Democrats like Shapiro.

For instance, Philadelphia’s building trades unions support Street. But Shapiro has urged those unions to refrain from running negative ads against Stanford for fear of inadvertently helping Rabb.

At the same time, the governor must appear neutral if he hopes to avoid alienating his party’s left wing.

To that end, Shapiro spokesman Manuel Bonder said that “the governor has not endorsed or opposed anyone in this primary — and he looks forward to working directly with whoever wins to win in November. Gov. Shapiro is focused on flipping Republican seats and winning up and down the ballot in November.”

Rabb, however, has a history of vocal criticism toward the governor. In January, the upstart progressive even spoke at a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which organizers staged outside the first stop on Shapiro’s book tour.

In short, a Rabb victory would saddle Shapiro with a prominent critic inside his own state’s U.S. House delegation.

Eventually, of course, the governor will have to take on his party’s AOC-led left wing. But he appears determined to dictate when and how he will meet that challenge publicly.

At the heart of that impending clash lies the strong anti-Israel sentiment inside the Democratic Party.

Shapiro, who is Jewish, supports Israel, whereas Rabb, in a since-disavowed December social media post, blamed “Zionists” for carrying out an alleged false-flag attack on Australia’s Bondi Beach, where a Dec. 14 Islamic terror attack claimed the lives of 15 people.

On the face of it, Shapiro has qualities that victory-starved Democrats should crave.

In 2022, for instance, he won the governorship of a trending-red swing state by nearly 15 points. Two years later, in the 2024 election, President Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by nearly two points.

But the 2024 election also highlights Shapiro’s problem.

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Blue Cities Dole Out Homeless Services Based on Race and Sexual Identity

The homelessness crisis in Multnomah County, Oregon, home to deep-blue Portland, is among the worst in the country. The county allocates public housing resources using a point-based system that gives preferential treatment to minorities, non-native English speakers, and those who are “LGBTQIA2S+,” the Free Beacon‘s Aaron Sibarium reports.

“Rolled out in October 2024, the Multnomah Services and Screening Tool awards up to 5 points to non-white, non-straight applicants who speak English as a second language—more than the 4 points it would award a domestic violence survivor with a six-year-old child who has been homeless for over a year,” Sibarium writes. “The rubric, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon through a public records request, is ‘designed to prioritize … BIPOC households, LGBTQIA2S+, [and] people with disabilities,’ according to a Frequently Asked Questions pamphlet. It awards 1 point for ‘interest in LGBTQ services,’ 2 points for ‘English as a second language,’ and another 2 points for ‘interest in culturally specific services,’ a catch-all term for Portland’s race-based housing program.”

The system, which American Civil Rights Project director Dan Morenoff described as “very unconstitutional,” might sound like a veritable kick-me sign for the Trump administration as it seeks to defund housing programs that use racial preferences. “But that has not stopped housing authorities in a host of Democratic jurisdictions from rolling out their own race-based systems—even in counties, like Multnomah, where the majority of homeless people are white.” The Free Beacon identified five states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Illinois, as well as several cities, that have incorporated racial preferences into their housing programs.

“In at least two states, Maryland and Minnesota, race appears to be the single largest factor in allocating rent relief,” writes Sibarium. “At a time when the Trump administration has promised to protect ‘the civil rights of all Americans,’ the programs are a stark indication that some people, including the poorest and most vulnerable, are falling through the cracks.”

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‘Gender Identity’ Requirements Will Be Discarded In Housing Programs: HUD

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner announced a new proposed rule on Thursday that seeks to end the use of “gender identity” across all departmental programs, which is intended to “restore biological reality and protect women.”

“Under the proposed guidance, HUD would remove radical definitions of gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender, replacing them with sex across nearly 50 regulations,” HUD said in an April 23 statement.

The department’s Equal Access Rule will be modified to replace the ban on discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” across all Community Planning and Development programs.

HUD intends to define common terms such as mother, father, woman, man, girl, and boy, in a way that is consistent with a person’s sex across the department’s regulations.

“God created two sexes: male and female. The Left’s war on biological reality through radical gender ideology will no longer take precedence over the safety and security of America’s most vulnerable women,” Turner said.

The 2012 Equal Access Rule, titled Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity, sought to ensure that HUD’s housing programs would be made available to all individuals and families regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, or marital status.

At the time, the rule did not address how transgender identifying and “gender non-conforming” individuals should be accommodated in certain temporary and emergency shelters, and other facilities used for this purpose. In 2016, another final rule was issued on this regulation addressing the matter.

The recent proposal builds on an order issued by the HUD Secretary in February last year that required a stoppage of any pending or future enforcement of the Equal Access Rule.

In a Feb. 13, 2025, statement, Turner said that the department’s actions were in line with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office.

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DEI Over Duty: How the Secret Service Put Identity Politics Above Operational Competence

The United States Secret Service was built on one standard: keep the president alive. That standard was forged after the 1901 assassination of William McKinley through grueling weapons qualifications, obstacle courses, and psychological evaluations calibrated to eliminate anyone who might hesitate when lives were on the line. The underlying logic was simple: in a protective detail, the only relevant variable is demonstrable competence. Everything else is noise. The Biden administration decided to run a different experiment, and the record since 2024 is the result.

In 2023, then-Director Kimberly Cheatle publicly committed to the 30×30 Initiative, targeting women at 30 percent of Secret Service recruits by 2030. The agency’s strategic plan called it “excellence through talent, technology, and diversity.” Once you add demographic targets to any hiring rubric for a life-safety role, you have changed the rubric. Competence and representation are not the same variable. Mistaking one for the other carries operational consequences, not administrative ones.

On July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed a rooftop 130 yards from the stage where former President Trump was speaking and fired. The shot grazed Trump’s ear, killed retired fire chief Corey Comperatore, and wounded two others. Site agent Myosoty “Miyo” Perez was responsible for security and failed to place any asset on the rooftop despite its direct line of sight to the stage. Six agents received suspensions of 10 to 42 days. Not a single one was fired.

By March 2026, Perez had collected three suspensions in 18 months. The latest came after she secretly married a Brazilian foreign national in April 2025 and withheld the marriage from the agency until January 2026, a nine-month gap that violated mandatory clearance protocols. The agency issued a “Do Not Admit” notice and opened an investigation into whether her spouse had overstayed a visa. My family has a history of military service, and a clearance disclosure failure of that kind was a career-ending event. Standards were non-negotiable precisely because the consequences were not hypothetical.

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Identity Politics over Public Safety on the Chicago Transit Authority

Chicago’s transit chaos shows the cost of a grievance-driven politics: when enforcement is always racist, everyone else just gets less safe.

The Legacy of Jesse Jackson Makes All of Us Less Safe

If you ride the trains or buses in Chicago with any regularity, you don’t worry about microaggressions.

You worry about being maced, mugged, or shoved onto the tracks—or, in one grotesque recent case, set on fire.

That’s the lived experience of Chicagoans navigating the Chicago Transit Authority and Metra. Not academic theory. Not seminar-room sociology. Reality.

So naturally, when a modest pilot program is introduced allowing the transit agencies to suspend individuals who assault conductors, spit on drivers, punch random riders, or otherwise turn public transportation into a Thunderdome audition, what does the Chicago Tribune decide is the story?

Not whether the program works.

Not whether it can be enforced.

Not whether it deters crime.

No.

The story, apparently, is that it’s racist.

Because roughly 90 percent of the approximately 40 individuals suspended under the program are black or Hispanic.

Forty people. In a city of nearly three million. On a transit system carrying hundreds of thousands daily.

That’s the scandal.

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Shouting Match Erupts on CNN After Shermichael Singleton Shuts Down Ana Navarro’s Identity Lecture Over Trump’s Immigration Policies — Abby Phillips Forced to Cut to Commercial

Chaos broke out live on CNN, forcing anchor Abby Phillip to cut to commercial after Ana Navarro and Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton exploded into a full-blown racial shouting match on live television.

What began as a heated debate quickly descended into a racialized free-for-all when Singleton dared to challenge Navarro’s virtue-signaling tirade about illegal immigrants.

The sparks began flying during a segment discussing deportations under Trump’s administration when Scott Jennings slammed the Biden administration for “ten years of neglect and letting people walk into here without any process at all.”

Ana Navarro, a notoriously unhinged leftist commentator known for her shrill appearances on The View, jumped in to defend illegal immigration, claiming many migrants “came in with parole” and pivoting to emotional anecdotes about GOP Senator Marco Rubio’s grandfather.

But the real fire ignited when Shermichael Singleton, one of the few honest voices occasionally allowed on CNN, pushed back hard.

“We are a sovereign nation,” Singleton said. “You cannot just come into our country illegally whenever the heck you want… we can’t do it to any other country on the face of this Earth.”

Things escalated when Navarro tried to compare today’s illegal immigrants to African Americans brought to the U.S. in chains — an outrageous and offensive equivalence that Singleton quickly dismantled.

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Trump’s DOGE Uncovers Nearly $400K In Woke Agricultural Grants

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has made a decisive move to refocus its efforts on its core mission by canceling a $397,000 grant that was earmarked for educating queer, trans, and BIPOC urban farmers in the San Francisco Bay Area. This decision underscores the administration’s commitment to eliminating identity-based policies and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are used to strengthen the nation’s agricultural sector rather than fund ideological initiatives. The grant, which was justified under the banner of “food justice” and values-aligned markets, had drawn criticism for prioritizing leftist ideologies over practical, efficiency-driven agricultural practices. By cutting this funding, the USDA is taking a stand against wasteful spending and realigning itself with its original purpose: supporting American agriculture, livestock, and forestry.

Brooke Rollins, a key figure in the administration, emphasized the importance of this decision, stating, “The USDA was funding a $397,000 grant in the San Francisco Bay Area to educate queer, trans, and BIPOC urban farmers and consumers about ‘food justice’ and values-aligned markets. By cutting this wasteful spending, we are ending identity-based policies and realigning our agency with its core mission of supporting American agriculture, livestock, and forestry.” This statement reflects the administration’s broader goal of ensuring that public funds are used to benefit all Americans, rather than being diverted to niche ideological programs that do little to advance the nation’s agricultural productivity.

Conservative groups and agricultural producers have applauded the move, arguing that the USDA should focus on supporting all farmers, regardless of their identity or political beliefs. They contend that federal funds should be directed toward initiatives that enhance productivity, improve agricultural infrastructure, and ensure food security, rather than financing programs that impose specific ideological frameworks. This decision is seen as a step toward restoring neutrality in public policy and ensuring that agricultural funding serves the entire nation, not just select groups.

Progressive critics, however, have lambasted the decision, claiming that such grants are necessary to promote equity in agricultural education. They argue that programs like the one defunded by the USDA are essential for addressing historical disparities in access to agricultural resources and education. Yet, the administration has made it clear that its priority is to ensure that every dollar spent by the USDA contributes to the strength and sustainability of the American agricultural sector, free from political bias.

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New Study Reveals How DEI Training Increases Hostility

President Trump has recently taken decisive action against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs within the federal government by signing executive orders that dismantle these initiatives. His actions include revoking an order by Lyndon B. Johnson on affirmative action for federal contractors and placing all federal DEI staff on paid administrative leave with plans for their eventual layoff. These moves have sparked significant controversy, with critics arguing that they undo decades of progress toward racial and gender equity in federal employment, while supporters believe they restore merit-based governance.

This fulfills Trump’s campaign promise to eliminate what he describes as “radical and wasteful” DEI programs, aligning with his commitment to a colorblind, merit-based society. The controversy reflects a broader debate on the role of government in promoting diversity versus ensuring equal opportunity based solely on merit. But what does the evidence show?

The Rise of Woke Indoctrination

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have become increasingly prevalent in workplaces, educational institutions, and other organizations across the United States. These programs’ stated goals are to foster more inclusive environments, reduce bias, and promote equity for all individuals. A key component of many DEI programs is diversity pedagogy, which often includes lectures, trainings, and educational resources designed to educate participants about their own biases and the ‘systemic nature of oppression.’

A growing body of research suggests that DEI programs, particularly those emphasizing “anti-oppressive” frameworks, have consequences that are completely opposite of their stated goals. While many might give DEI practitioners the benefit of the doubt and see these trainings as well-intentioned, that is up for debate. This study, conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University, investigates the potential for these programs to increase intergroup hostility and even contribute to the rise of authoritarian tendencies.

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Senior Democrat: the Party Should Double Down on Identity Politics

A senior Democrat has told the party it must reaffirm its commitment to identity politics, even if the face of Kamala Harris’s crushing electoral defeat to Donald Trump.

On Thursday, Democrat National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, an African American, blasted critics who believe the party’s reliance on identity politics was the reason for Kamala Harris’s loss. Harrison was speaking at a meeting of Democrat chairs in Arizona.

“When I wake up in the morning, when I look in the mirror, when I step out the door, I can’t rub this off,” Harrison said, gesturing towards his face and his skin colour.

“This is who I am. This is how the world perceives me.”

“That is my identity,” he continued.

“And it is not politics. It is my life. And the people that I need in the party, that I need to stand up for me, have to recognize that. You cannot run away from that.”

Harrison’s tenure as Chairman will end in early 2025. During his speech he suggested that he has further grievances to air and that when his replacement is elected “the muzzle comes off.”

The Democrats are currently locked in an acrimonious blame game over Kamala Harris’s defeat to Donald Trump, with some blaming an excessive focus on identity politics and others saying that Americans are simply more bigoted than was previously thought.

There is significant anger about the extent of Harris’s spending. Senior strategist James Carville said the Vice President has done “unfathomable damage” to the Democrat cause by spending well over a billion dollars.

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