Tuesday Edition: The End of Identity Politics
Plus: Are cities becoming child-free zones?
Bubba
06 Aug
Hometown boy Kauli Vaast of Tahiti (French Polynesia) took down Australian Jack Robinson (pictured) in the Olympic men’s surfing final at Teahupo'o in Tahiti yesterday evening. Surfing made its debut as an Olympic sport at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
Editor’s note: In yesterday’s edition we stated, "Black Americans are disproportionately affected, making up 20% of firearm deaths while being only 4% of the population." This was incorrect. What we meant to say is young black Americans make up 20% of firearm deaths while being only 4% of the population.
1. The End of Identity Politics
The writer Thomas Chatterton Williams argued in a new essay for The Atlantic that race- and identity-focused political movements are losing their punch with voters. (The Atlantic)
The latest: To support his case, Williams cited Black Lives Matters’ recent statement on Vice President Kamala Harris.
While you might’ve expected the racial justice group to reflexively support Harris, a “liberal Black woman” as Williams noted, BLM accused of Democrats of “attempting to manipulate Black voters by anointing Kamala Harris and an unknown vice president as the new Democratic ticket without a primary vote by the public.”
Williams also noted that Harris has so far avoided an identity-based campaign, but her supporters haven’t.
Williams:
Hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters segregated themselves by race and gender to attend fundraising calls on Zoom, as if preemptively highlighting superficial differences could somehow help them come together at a later date. Such tactics don’t reflect the fact that many voters are rejecting identity politics, which have only exacerbated the divisions they purported to heal. Coming at a time when [Donald] Trump has been entrenching counterintuitive gains among Black voters and other minority groups, Democrats’ emphasis on race and identity risks undermining Harris instead of helping her.
The data: There are concrete signs that Williams is onto something.
Current polling shows Trump's support among Latino voters is the highest for a GOP nominee since George W. Bush, and his support among Black voters could be the highest for a Republican since 1972.
Support for Black Lives Matter has declined by 13% since June 2020, when 67% of Americans backed the group.
The corporate world has been pulling back on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives.
Related: Over the past decade or so, that is, when identity politics arguably reached peak influence, perceptions of race relations in America got worse.
66% of black Americans said relations between white and black people were “very/somewhat good” in 2013.
By 2021, that number had fallen in half to just 33%.
Bubba’s Two Cents
I see two (non-mutually exclusive) explanations for why perceptions of race relations have gotten worse —
1) Identity politics has made people more aware of racial injustices that had previously been ignored.
2) Society’s focus on race has led to divisions and rifts as people sort themselves into identity categories and the human tendency toward tribalism takes over.
2. Where Manufacturing Is Thriving
There’s been a big decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs since the turn of the century, but there are some regions of the country where employment in the industry is actually growing. (WSJ)
The latest: At a rally in Nevada last week, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, the GOP vice presidential nominee, said “a million cheap knockoff toasters aren’t worth the price of a single American manufacturing job.”
In line with his economic populist vision, Vance accused politicians of trading “American jobs for campaign cash.”
“They bragged about trade deals and promised cheap consumer products. They called it globalization, and that’s what it was: American jobs in other parts of the globe,” he said.
Ok but: In a new Wall Street Journal essay, columnist Allysia Finley took aim at Vance’s narrative, pointing out that manufacturing jobs in Nevada have nearly doubled in the past twenty years.
Further complicating the issue, the U.S. has twice as many manufacturing job openings as in the early 2000s.
Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs have shifted from the Rust Belt to Sunbelt states like Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Florida.
Chart: The Wall Street Journal
Finley took issue with the idea that enacting high tariffs and doing away with globalization will solve the problem:
Cheap labor isn’t the reason manufacturers are building new factories in the Sunbelt. Wages for manufacturing workers in Texas now rank among the highest in the country. Instead, they are foremost seeking a business-friendly environment, something China increasingly lacks, and a large pool of industrious workers who can pass a drug test.
Related: While the U.S. has shifted to a predominantly service sector economy, some economists argue this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
As George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen noted in a recent Bloomberg essay, manufacturing jobs pay less on average than the service sector.
Bubba’s Two Cents
There are strategic reasons for wanting a healthy domestic manufacturing industry (not least of all national security and supply chain resilience). But I think there’s a danger of oversimplifying the narrative here. Simply handwaving away the benefits of free trade and markets or failing to acknowledge that there are nuances to all this, does not strike me as the best approach.
3. This Isn’t Good
As conflict in the Middle East ramps up, a new report delivers a worrying assessment of U.S. military preparedness. (Axios)
The latest: Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a drone attack on northern Israel that injured two Israeli troops yesterday.
The attack comes amid growing fears of a broader regional war following the recent killings of senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.
Also: Two rockets were fired at Iraq's Ain al-Asad air base, which houses U.S. and international forces, according to security sources.
A Commission on the National Defense Strategy study released last week: According to the congressionally mandated group of national security experts, the U.S. faces severe global challenges and must fundamentally change its defense approach, increase industrial production and secure more resources to build a future-ready force.
China has erased the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific thanks to 20 years of investment.
Our weapon procurement methods are outdated.
U.S. production capacity is inadequate for a long conflict like Ukraine's.
Recruiting failures and outdated methods are hurting military enrollments.
Public support for a strong military is dropping due to political division.
The Commission’s take on Congress’ role in all of this:
Congress, as it has come to function in recent years, has become a major impediment to national security. It routinely fails in its basic job of funding the government on time, instead relying on continuing resolutions that waste billions of taxpayer dollars and, perhaps worse, time. Government shutdowns and automatic sequesters deprive agencies of necessary funding and inject chaos into planning and operations.
Related: While America pioneered the use of drone technology, the vast majority of drones used in the U.S. are now made in China, which experts say presents a cybersecurity risk and commercial dependency.
4. Cities as Child-Free Zones
What, if anything, do progressive politics have anything to do with the fact that families appear to be fleeing America’s biggest and richest cities? (The Atlantic)
Derek Thompson, a progressive journalist and staff writer at The Atlantic:
Conservatives like J. D Vance think they’re getting mileage out of judging the private-life decisions of urban progressive men and women. But these decisions exist … well, in the context of all in which we live. They are shaped by place and by policy. The steady march of the childless city is not merely the inevitable result of declining birth rates. It’s the result of urban policy, conceived by, written by, and enacted by liberals. Progressive leaders aren’t family-hating sociopaths, but they currently preside over counties that young families are leaving.
A recent Economic Innovation Group analysis: In some large urban metros, the number of children under 5 years old has dropped nearly 20% from 2020 to 2023.
Counties in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco are on pace to lose 50% of their under-5 population by the mid-2040s.
The under-5 population in urban areas is declining twice as fast as in other regions.
The pandemic doesn’t fully explain this trend, according to EIG policy analyst Connor O’Brien, who says “young families are still not returning” to major American cities.
Thompson’s diagnosis: High housing costs are a significant factor as they have a hidden effect of creating “shortages of workers willing to accept low wages in labor-intensive industries.”
In cities like San Francisco and Chicago, child care costs consume about 20% of family income.
In Boston, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, child care costs consume about 30% of family income.
Cities in red states are building housing more quickly than those in blue states, which helps retain young families.
5. Hmmm…
According to a new YouGov poll, the share of Americans who think Kamala Harris is running a good presidential campaign is higher than the percentage who say the same about Donald Trump.
More: Post-Biden polling is trending toward Harris.
Related: Speaking to supporters at a rally in Georgia on Saturday, Trump spent a lot of time attacking the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
In 2022, Kemp beat a Trump-endorsed candidate in a landslide primary victory before winning reelection by a 300,000-vote margin.
Conservative commentator Jim Geraghty’s take:
Trump had a fairly easy path to victory against Biden, and beating Harris is still very much within the realm of possibility. But he just doesn’t seem interested in staying focused and putting in the work.
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