White Liberalism Is Dying
8th October 2018
But that was another problem with the ‘draft Barrett’ idea: although the conservative writers pushing it liked her for her presumed views on abortion and thought of themselves as being clever political strategists for suggesting a woman, in fact they were playing to the very style of politics that the centre-left dominates — that is, they were conceding the narrative that Republicans are bad for women and only a woman could negate the GOP’s justly-acquired bad reputation among women. This didn’t work when John McCain put Sarah Palin on his presidential ticket. It wouldn’t have worked for Amy Coney Barrett, either — though she may indeed make a fine justice one day. Just as the politics of ‘compassion’ doesn’t work for conservatives (as opposed to the politics of jobs and American industry), the politics of ‘see, we can too find women who like us!’ concedes everything to conservatism’s enemies. It doth protest too much.
The protests liberals whipped up against Kavanaugh this weekend, on the other hand, revealed too much about their own weakness. Washington, D.C. is a majority Democratic city with a black majority. But the Democratic votes out there yelling about Kavanaugh were as white as any country club gathering of Republicans. They looked like a line of Starbucks patrons — Caucasian, professional, largely millennial, with earth tones and earnest expressions aplenty. Men and women wore the same fashionable glasses and more or less the same clothes. It was a Pumpkin Spice Riot.