Zerlina Maxwell - The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide

L OS A NGELES , CAIts a hot summer day in July 2018, a few months shy of the critical midterms after the shocking 2016 election of Donald J. Trump. Two years of the Trump administrations chaos and hyperpartisanship set the stage for the fourth annual Politicon conference, where I was asked to speak on a panel titled What Now, Liberals?

This was my first time at Politicon, an annual convention in Los Angeles that has been a hub for colorful characters and the politically obsessed. Its a conference about politics, but think of Politicon as less of a stuffy meeting of political operatives and Capitol Hill insiders and more as a conference that represents the culmination of politics as reality show entertainment, where the green room can be populated by anyone from presidential campaignwinning political strategists like James Carville and Donna Brazile to flashy oddballs like Dennis Rodman, the cartoonish NBA Hall of Famer known for his colorfully dyed hair and a controversial relationship with North Korea. Why is someone like Rodman at Politicon, let alone standing next to conservative media personality Ann Coulter? Im not sure, but the fact that the question even needs to be asked gives you an idea of the bizarre atmosphere. Theres plenty of political cosplay, complete with red-, white-, and blue-themed outfits and people dressed in costumes of our founding fathers, like George Washington. Its a bit of a circus.

To be fair, though, Politicon is an equal opportunity circus. It has a bipartisan vibe, with activists and media personalities from all sides of the political spectrum, not to mention sideshow and carnival-barker-types looking for their moment in the spotlight. There are the bleached-blond Fox News wannabes, Tomi Lahren clones, and celebrity feminist activists, like actress Alyssa Milano, all there to speak their minds and stand out in the crowd, vying for the potential to snag a moment that goes viral on social media and earns them a coveted spot as the next cable news star or trending Twitter hashtag. The attendees are both obsessive political media watchers who want to get a glimpse of their favorite television pundits up close and political activists who are passionate about issues like climate change and getting dark money out of politics.

As a former staffer for Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign, I was the perfect candidate for the What Now, Liberals? panel. Im sure the original goal was to convene a bunch of bitter liberals to wax derisive about Donald Trump and point fingers of blame for the devastating electoral college defeat. The panel was moderated by Republican operative Shermichael Singleton and consisted of Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, political commentator Sally Kohn, former Obama administration official Nayyera Haq, and Kyle Kulinski of the Young Turks network and the cofounder of Justice Democrats, a political action committee founded to run far-left progressive candidates against incumbent Democrats.

The Young Turks media network has a massive far-left following, and they were heavily populated throughout the packed conference center room. The audience was pretty rowdy from the start, interspersed with a littering of Make America Great Again hats and Dont Blame Me I Voted for Bernie gear.

The folks who show up to watch someone like Kulinski or Cenk Ugyur, the founder of Young Turks, are mostly male, mostly white, and always very vocal in their opposition to the Democratic establishment. The room is set up to spin the maximum amount of drama. About half of the room is solidly behind Bernie Sanders. To this segment of liberals, Im perceived as a moderate because I worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign. The rest of the room is made up of Trump supporters who want to see liberals argue about why they lost in 2016.

After a few years on the cable news circuit and as a visible person who worked for Hillary Clinton, I was dubbed by my liberal colleagues and by this crowd as an overpaid shill even before I opened my mouth. Because of Hillarys history of taking donations from corporate PACs and high-dollar donors, she has been branded as a corporate Democrat. Therefore by association with her, Im caged under the same big-money umbrella. To be clear, big money in politics is a problem, but it wasnt a problem created by Hillary, nor was it one that Hillary wasnt critical of herself. As for me, Ive never been overpaid, but facts dont seem to matter where this Politicon audience is concerned. This rush to judgment versus an impulse to listen is one of the reasons our Democratic movement has been challenged, and our own judgments often are what hold us back from winning as a party. To Kulinskis fans, I was viewed as part of the evil establishment. But as a black woman who is still paying off student loans, I think these so-called liberals need to get their facts straight, and I decided to make that panel the moment where I would speak my mind.

To understand the fervor and polarity in this room, you have to understand that the progressive left has traditionally separated into issue silos. And the Democratic establishment doesnt always lean toward or speak to each cause. So everyone is in a constant fight for attention around particular issues. There are the climate activists. There are the folks pushing for LGBTQ+ equality. There are those fighting for racial justice. But the truth is that all of these issues intersect, and most are also economic issues. They also all impact not just individuals but entire families and large populations.

Progressives have begun to understand this and to speak to these intersections of critical issues; for example, understanding that reproductive health care access is an economic issue for women and, by relation, entire families. As is equal pay, which is usually reported on as an issue only women have to care about, as if that womans kids and spouse wouldnt benefit from having more money as well.

These silos exist in the progressive movement but more so in the form of divides. The intersection of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation is the place where the most work can be accomplished if policy makers of the future come to the table with an understanding that (1) lived experiences matter when it comes to informing effective policies and (2) not all lived experiences are the same, even within shared minority or demographic experiences. A white woman and a black woman are not treated the same in our society. Neither is a straight black man and gay Latino one. And its in the mess of this disparate treatment that progressives need to focus on the future. Identity matters in politics. It informs the quality of our lives in some instances, despite the conservative mantra that every outcome is determined by a persons work ethic and drive. That lie has become exposed, especially as more and more historically marginalized people come into positions of political power.