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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Twilight Of The Race Hustle

Were you thinking of Daniel Penny this weekend? A year and a half ago, the US marine veteran, age 26, subdued one Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless schizophrenic with a record of 42 arrests who was menacing riders on a New York City subway car. Neely was, at the time, a fugitive on an arrest warrant for felony assault on a sixty-seven-year-old woman. Penny applied a choke hold after Neely declared he was of a mind to kill somebody on the train. Neely was still alive when the cops came, but they declined to give him CPR because he was filthy and an apparent drug-user, and they feared getting AIDS or hepatitis from giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. . . so Neely died there in the subway.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicted Penny for manslaughter in the second degree and secondarily for criminally negligent homicide. His trial has been going on all month. On Friday, the jury reported its inability to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charge. Instead of declaring a mistrial, Judge Maxwell T. Wiley dismissed the primary charge and directed the jury to continue deliberations this week on the secondary negligent homicide charge, a procedurally dubious action.

Everybody knows that the trial is an absurd injustice, but that has been the temper of our society for many years now in the age of the Woke Jacobins. Unlike the original Jacobins of 1794 in Paris, who were ultra-extreme idealists, our Woke Jacobins are extreme cynics, imagining only the worst about the project of civilization. Hence, their alt-project to de-civilize the rest of us.

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The Marxism in Front of You That You Can’t Unsee, Volume I: Trans Insanity

Minutes after the legalization of gay marriage back in 2015, which I was all for, I heard a word that was new to me: “transgender.” I heard it immediately and I heard it a lot. 

FACT-O-RAMA! Tyranny comes disguised as virtue. The Lefty Marxists, pretending they oppose all forms of bigotry, will deem anything they want to “cancel”  — like voter ID and Donald Trump — as racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, etc. The goal of Marxism has never been to save the “oppressed” but to use them as foot soldiers to do their bidding.

I expected the LGB crowd to take victory laps but saw few. Now it was all about this new victim class of bearded ladies few had heard of and, most importantly, where can they pee-pee without getting beaten up? The answer was they would use the ladies’ room. Don’t complain, bigot.

FACT-O-RAMA!  I found one case of a transgender dude in a dress beaten up in a high school restroom, numerous cases of trans people punched out for being in the ladies’ room, and a ton of cases of trans men sexually assaulting women and kids in public restrooms.

As a former liberal who had spent most of my adult life living in or near New York City, and with plenty of gay friends, I was suspicious as to how this previously unknown group of dudettes was suddenly front and center. Moreover, I thought it was queer (original meaning, see what I did there?) that my gay friends who fought — sometimes literally — for gay rights suddenly handed the keys to their LGB movement to a tiny group of men in Walmart dresses and bad mascara, who promptly threw the letter “T” onto the soon-to-be exploding list of allegedly betrodden victims of phantom “oppression.”  

Social justice warriors quickly amped up their “wokeness.” New “rules” came out weekly. Tampon machines were placed in high school men’s rooms. We were told we needed to put our pronouns in our emails and to ask people, trans or otherwise, what their preferred pronouns are. Men in dresses weren’t only allowed in the ladies’ room, now they could get naked in the locker room next to your daughter. Got a problem with that, “transphobe”?

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Podcaster in UK Faces Prison For Saying “Young White Girls Are Being Raped by These Grooming Gangs”

A podcaster in the UK faces potential prison time after being charged for making “grossly offensive comments” in a YouTube video in which he stated, “Young white girls are being raped by these grooming gangs.”

Yes, really.

Carlisle Crown Court heard that 41-year-old Derek Heggie made the comments in two YouTube videos in early August during the rioting and unrest that took place across numerous cities in the aftermath of the Southport murders.

Heggie had been set to stand trial on a charge under the Malicious Communications Act, but instead “pleaded guilty to sending communication of an offensive nature.”

Prosecutors said Heggie’s comments were “particularly inflammatory” in the context of the riots and he is still being remanded in custody as he awaits sentencing later this month.

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War on Women: The New York Times Refers to Actual Women as “Non-Transgender Women”

The New York Times has fully embraced the left’s efforts to erase women from society.

On Thursday, The Times published an article chronicling the turmoil caused by Blair Flemming, a biological male on the San Jose State University Spartans women’s college volleyball team.

Multiple teams in the Mountain West Conference have forfeited games rather than place their players in harm’s way.

Flemming’s inclusion has also resulted in a lawsuit against the Mountain West, alleging that allowing Fleming to play at San Jose State violates Title IX and the players’ First and 14th Amendment rights.

The New York Times used a story about Fleming and the controversy to erase womanhood entirely and characterize actual biological women as “non-transgender women.”

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Canadian Town Fined And Mayor Sent For Compulsory Education After Failing To Hoist Pride Flag

CBC News is reporting that the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ordered the small town of  Emo to pay damages after failing to hoist an “LGBTQ2 rainbow flag” in celebration of Pride Month. One problem is that the town of fewer than 2000 inhabitants does not have a flagpole (though you could presumably “show the flag” in other ways).

The National Post reports, that there has been a lengthy arbitration process between the tribunal and the town.

In a decision handed down last week, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario found that Emo, its mayor, and two councilors violated the Ontario Human Rights Code. The tribunal admitted in a later opinion that “the record indicated the Township did not receive many requests for declarations or proclamations or requests for display of a flag.”

Indeed, in a single 12-month period, they received only four — two from Borderland Pride.

Emo does not have a central flagpole, other than the Canadian flag over the front door of the Emo Municipal Office.

One issue that factored greatly in the tribunal hearings occurred during the debate over the flag proposal, which the council rejected by a vote of three to two. In the meeting. Mayor Harold McQuaker stated, “There’s no flag being flown for the other side of the coin … there’s no flags being flown for the straight people.”

Doug Judson, a lawyer and a member of Borderland Pride’s board of directors, said that “the important thing we were seeking here was validation … as 2SLGBTQA plus people.”

The tribunal ruled that Borderland Pride will be awarded $15,000, with $10,000 coming from the township and $5,000 from Emo mayor Harold McQuaker.

At first, the fine against “McQuaker” in the town of “Emo” for failing to hoist an “LGBTQ2 rainbow flag” on a non-existent flagpole seemed too contrived.

However, the mayor of Emo is a McQuaker, and the Canadian press is standing by the story.

For years, the Canadian human rights tribunals have been the spearhead of the anti-free speech movement. We have previously discussed the tribunals (herehere, and here) in such controversies.

Not only must the town pay the fines, but McQuaker and Emo’s chief administrative officer were ordered to complete an online course called “Human Rights 101” and “provide proof of completion … to Borderland Pride within 30 days” as recompense for their disobedience.

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How Scientific American’s Departing Editor Helped Degrade Science

Earlier this week, Laura Helmuth resigned as editor in chief of Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. “I’ve decided to leave Scientific American after an exciting 4.5 years as editor in chief,” she wrote on Bluesky. “I’m going to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching), but for now I’d like to share a very small sample of the work I’ve been so proud to support (thread).”

Helmuth may in fact have been itching to spend more time bird watching—who wouldn’t be?—but it seems likely that her departure was precipitated by a bilious Bluesky rant she posted after Donald Trump was reelected.

In it, she accused her generation, Generation X, of being “full of fucking fascists,” complained about how sexist and racist her home state of Indiana was, and so on.

“Fuck them to the moon and back,” she said of the dumb high school bullies supposedly celebrating Trump’s victory.

Whether or not Helmuth’s resignation was voluntary, it should go without saying that a few bad social media posts should not end someone’s job. If that were the whole story here—an otherwise well-performing editor was ousted over a few bad posts—this would arguably be a case of “cancel culture,” or whatever we’re calling it these days.

But Helmuth’s posts were symptoms of a much larger problem with her reign as editor. They accurately reflected the political agenda she brought with her when she came on as EiC at SciAm—a political agenda that has turned the once-respected magazine into a frequent laughingstock.

Sometimes, yes, SciAm still acts like the leading popular science magazine it used to be—a magazine, I should add, that I received in print form every month during my childhood. 

But increasingly, during Helmuth’s tenure, SciAm seemed a bit more like a marketing firm dedicated to churning out borderline-unreadable press releases for the day’s social justice cause du jour. In the process, SciAm played a small but important role in the self-immolation of scientific authority—a terrible event whose fallout we’ll be living with for a long time.

When Scientific American was bad under Helmuth, it was really bad. For example, did you know that “Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy“? Or that the normal distribution—a vital and basic statistical concept—is inherently suspect? No, really: Three days after the legendary biologist and author E.O. Wilson died, SciAm published a surreal hit piece about him in which the author lamented “his dangerous ideas on what factors influence human behavior.” That author also explained that “the so-called normal distribution of statistics assumes that there are default humans who serve as the standard that the rest of us can be accurately measured against.” But the normal distribution doesn’t make any such value judgments, and only someone lacking in basic education about stats—someone who definitely shouldn’t be writing about the subject for a top magazine—could make such a claim.

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DEI Fellows and the Weird Wish Lists of Literary Gatekeepers

As big companies like Walmart shuffle their DEI initiatives out of view, others are holding fast and keeping them out front. Last week, Penguin Random House, one of the world’s biggest book publishers, posted a job listing for a “DEI Fellow.” The notice reads:

For a one-year role, the Penguin Random House DEI team seeks a Research and Partnerships Fellow. [sic] to work on our Latinx Voices project in collaboration with One World.

Relaunched in 2017, One World is home to award-winning and bestselling authors who are collectively leading the cultural conversation. Our authors include Ta-Nehisi Coates, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Trevor Noah, Cathy Park Hong, Bryan Stevenson, Nikole Hanna-Jones, and Victor LaValle.

Our ideal Fellow will be a passionate advocate for Latinx authors and readers, responsible for researching, and then building connections with, Latinx organizations, influencers, media, and audiences. You’ll report into the Associate Director, DEI and work closely with both the DEI and One World teams on the Latinx Voices project, an initiative focused on connecting the company, authors, and titles with Latinx audiences and better supporting the publication of Latinx authors. One World, relaunched in 2017, is home to award-winning and bestselling authors who are collectively leading the cultural conversation.

Among the essential requirements listed are a strong “knowledge of Latinx audiences and community” and “proficiency in Spanish.” That’s not a statement of racial preference in hiring, but it’s close enough. Worse still is the fact that resources will be committed toward only assisting authors who belong to a specific minority group. It is outright unfair to everyone else, and any author who benefits from this effort will never be able to state with confidence that they were elevated based on merit rather than group membership.

Penguin’s DEI Fellow job listing is just one example of how deep the DEI problem goes in the publishing industry.

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Lawsuit Filed After LGBT Promoter Stages ‘Setup’ on Christian Jewelry-Store Worker, Gets Her Fired

‘It appears as though Kay Jewelers is anti-Christian.’

A lawsuit has been filed against Kay Jewelers after a Christian employee was fired for talking about her faith with a co-worker.

Commentator Todd Starnes explained the situation had the markings of a “setup.”

“The conversation happened in a back work area at a Kay Jewelers in Fairlawn, Ohio. The coworker continuously pressed (Mika) Cohen for her personal opinions about Pride Month. Finally, she explained that she is a Christian and shared her sincerely held beliefs on God’s definition of marriage and sexuality,” he explained. “A few weeks later Kay Jewelers launched a HR investigation into the conversation alleging her remarks were inappropriate.”

Shortly later, she was fired.

“It certainly appears as though Cohen is the victim of a setup by a pro-LGBT staffer. To make matters even worse, it appears as though Kay Jewelers is anti-Christian. Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but Kay Jewelers is certainly no friend to Christians,” he said.

It is the American Center for Law and Justice that took on the case.

It said it is defending “an employee’s right to express her religious beliefs,” this time in Ohio.

Cohen was dismissed by Kay from her position as assistant manager in Fairlawn, Ohio, for sharing her Christian beliefs with a co-worker after repeatedly being asked to do so, the legal team said.

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NYT & Bloomberg Bury Rutgers Study Showing DEI Makes People Hostile

Corporate media outlets have buried, downplayed, or otherwise shelved a new study which reveals that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policies cause people to become ‘hostile’ – essentially seeing racism where none exists.

The new study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University found that people exposed to DEI talking points about race, religion and gender form integroup hostility and authoritarian attitudes towards others.

“What we did was we took a lot of these ideas that were found to still be very prominent in a lot of these DEI lectures and interventions and training,” said NCRI Chief Science Officer Joel Finkelstein, a co-author of the study. “And we said, ‘Well, how is this going to affect people?’ What we found is that when people are exposed to this ideology, what happens is they become hostile without any indication that anything racist has happened.

Researchers exposed 324 participants to two sets of reading material; a racially-neutral text about corn, or the writings of race-baiters Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo. The participants were then exposed to a racially neutral scenario in which a student was rejected from college.

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