White-Identity Politics and the Promise of Beto O’Rourke
Beto’s unique populism is the antidote to divisive politics
One of the weapons Barack Obama used successfully against white-identity politics was economic populism — the idea that we are all in the same economic boat regardless of racial differences. Obama’s economic populism allowed him to carry fairly white states like Iowa, Indiana, and North Carolina, which are 91, 88, and 72 percent white, respectively. Trump won all three of these states, plus PA, WI, and MI, in part, by appealing to the desire to return (go back again) to when America was ‘great’ and had white pride in its culture, power, and status. There has always been a low-level culture war in America shaped by racial identity, and there was a perception successfully exploited by Trump that people of color were winning that war with the election of Barack Obama. Even Obama’s foreign-sounding African name was being turned into a symbol of retreat from white cultural dominance.
In 2008, with the stock market crashing, record foreclosures, and too-big-to-fail banks looting from Main Street America, Obama continued to remind all Americans, regardless of race, that we all got snookered by Wall Street, not just poor black folks. The poor economy made people forget about their racial differences, and they were looking for economic justice against those who wrecked the economy. No one seemed to care about Obama’s African name, his singing Al Green tunes, or hanging out with Jay Z and Beyonce — he just seemed like a breath of fresh air in speaking truth to power, a wealthy and well-connected white power that turned on all people — white folks as well.
If you fast-forward a couple of election cycles to 2016, with the economy humming again, the stock market recovered, and unemployment headed toward record lows, suddenly things changed. Economic populism did not seem as unifying as it did before, especially when listening to Trump tell you that America is no longer recognizable under Obama, with multi-culturalism gone amok, and open borders bringing in rapists and murderers from Mexico who are creating havoc in America. David Duke was more blunt, “Voting against Trump is treason to your [European] heritage.” This kind of explicit white-power rhetoric resonated with a good number of white voters who were no longer concerned about the economy.
Hillary Clinton did not seem very adept at understanding the culture war she was waging, and even campaigned with Jay Z and Beyonce during the final days of her 2016 campaign. She did not go with Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, or Garth Brooks in the closing pitch to her campaign, she embraced the king of rap and his queen, which probably did not go down very well in Western PA, or rural MI and WI when Trump is reminding you every day that we have lost “our way”. Hillary did not even campaign in WI and MI, essentially taking all of their voters for granted without addressing any of their concerns.
In the 2020 race, Beto O’Rourke seems the most attuned of the 2020 Dems to the current state of identity politics. Like in 2016, the economy continues to hum so economic populism resonates less with those who voted for Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. So if you can’t get Trump voters to forget about white identity politics with economic populism, what do you do? In Texas, Beto walked a fine line between having voters say “he is one of us” by playing guitar and singing with Willie Nelson, attending Metallica concerts, and reminders of his rock band on the road tours across Trump country, and “he cares about people like me” empathy, both which militate against white identity politics. It was not just getting slapped in the face culturally by Hillary, voters in Western PA, rural WI and MI felt Hillary did NOT care about them like Obama did, and like Beto does now.
The cultural affinity and genuine empathy Beto has with a lot of Trump voters have enormous implications for the 2020 general election electoral map. It translates into winning all the blue states Hillary lost (PA, WI, and MI), winning back the states Obama won in 2008 (IN, IA, NC), and putting a number of states in play like AZ and GA, Beto’s home state of Texas, and other Texas-like states with a similar culture to Texas (OK, KS, AR, MO) that Beto toured when he was in a rock band in his youth. Beto can defeat Trump’s white identity politics because his shared cultural affinity with many Trump voters and his ability empathize with their lived experience as part of his own, transcends any fear about losing white heritage. Economic populism only works against white identity politics when the economy is bad, but Beto’s populism works under all economic conditions, which is probably why he will become our 46th president.
