An Obama reminder: Conservatives have feelings, too
"Obama Decries the Political Habits That Drove His Career," said a headline on an essay by National Review's Jim Geraghty.
"Obama practiced the very identity politics he condemns," said a headline on a Commentary essay by Noah Rothman.
"This is good and true," tweeted conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. "I wish he had said it throughout his presidency instead of relying on identity politics to coalition-build."
Actually, as someone who covered Obama off and on since his days in the Illinois state senate, I have heard him made similar statements ever since his come-together keynote address at the 2004 National Democratic Convention that launched him into the national spotlight.
"The 44th president has consistently touted norms of speech consistent with Enlightenment liberalism," noted the libertarian Reason's associate editor Robby Soave, citing his 2016 Rutgers University commencement address, in which he implored students to engage speakers with whom they disagree, not to shut them down.
Still, "identity politics" is in the eyes and ears of the beholder. Geraghty, for example, cites Obama's friendly relations with the controversial Rev. Al Sharpton as an example of Obama's alleged flirtations with "identity politics." Yet, as much as I may disagree with Sharpton, particularly for the media circuses he stirred up in the 1980s, he can be a valuable source of information and insights into the most alienated segments of black America.
But, as Donald Trump's unexpected Electoral College victory demonstrated, a voice that is a loud and forceful advocate for what voters want can score major political gains, regardless of whether I like their politics or style.
We live in a politically divided nation that needs to move from shouting to healing, as Obama suggests. Democrats seeking to get back to power in Republican-dominated Washington need to expand their reach to attract more persuadable swing voters. They need a form of politics that turns the walls around their groups into bridges.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
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