Democrats More Concerned With Color Than Character & Content

With the abrupt departure of Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang much less Deval Patrick not likely to make this month's debate stage there has been much consternation within the Democratic Party about an all white Democratic debate including the obligatory Twitter hashtag #DebatesSoWhite.


Edward-Isaac Dovere of The Atlantic asks, "How did we go from a debate stage early last summer that was the most diverse in history to a race where all the leading candidates are white?" This is how he answers his question:


Democrats still haven’t gotten past their obsession with winning back the white working-class voters who defected to Trump after dripping away from Democrats for years. Because Hillary Clinton lost the last election by only a few hundred thousand votes total in three states—Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—Democrats can prevail, or so this theory goes, by winning back those voters. And to do that, the party needs to pick someone “electable”—which is to say, “white.”


Aside from the fact that Dovere doesn't really argue why Democrats shouldn't be obsessed from recapturing Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the argument is predicated on the assumption that minority voters will support minority candidates. African-American voters strongly support Joe Biden because they know his heart. This is not something which can be casually dismissed. I mean Patrick's late entry into the race didn't exactly cause dancing in the streets.


Al Sharpton can bemoan the lack of diversity on the Democratic debate stage all he wants, but I didn't exactly seem him jump on Harris' bandwagon after he met with her this past February. Last I checked, the triumvirate of AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are supporting Bernie Sanders. I don't recall any great outcry that they didn't endorse Harris or any other candidate of color. Of course, there were political reasons for them to endorse Bernie. As I've previously argued their endorsement of a Jewish candidate is a means by which to negate accusations of anti-Semitism.


What this consternation tells me is that the Democratic Party is more interested in color than in character and content. So long as identity politics consumes Democrats it will only help President Trump in the long run, impeachment or no impeachment.