The More Things Change
Quick question, which party is seeking the ability to discriminate based on race?
If you answered the Democrats, you are correct. They are doing so in California, a state they have solidly control for a long time. What they are trying to do is repeal the following provision of a state Constitution,
The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.
This should not be a surprise. While they like to hide it, as I have written in the past,
The Democratic party still divides people into groups, where one is a member of a group before they are an individual. In recent years this has been formalized in the concepts of intersectionality. It is seen, for example, in Biden’s recent statement that a person is not Black if they don’t vote for him. In short, the issue of race is still at the core of the Democratic party.
Voters added this provision to the California Constitution in 1996 with Proposition 209. I voted for that proposition, and it had the strong backing of Republicans, but faced opposition from Democrats. In the upcoming election, Proposition 16 attempts to repeal it. Thus not too surprisingly, prop 16 has the strong backing of Democrats but opposition from Republicans.
Prop 16 will allow Democrats to discriminate based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Of course, they dress all this up with language such as,
Prop. 16 expands equal opportunity to all Californians, increasing access to fair wages, good jobs, and quality schools everyone.
But how can this be true? How can you increase access for everyone by discriminating based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin? When the Democrats did this to support slavery and then later segregation, such discrimination was called wrong, and properly so.
A core of this effort is the Democrats’ desire to play group-politics. They want to pick and choose between various groups those they like (i.e., support them) and those they don’t. They want to be able to tell you, as a member of a particular group, that you should vote for them because of all the wonderful things they do for your group.
In the old south, Democrats told whites they should vote for them to support slavery. Once Republicans abolished slavery, they ran on defending segregation. In the North, Democrats played group-politics with various immigrant groups to create and maintain political machines. By the 1960s, Democrats realized that segregation was doomed. So they shifted to a national machine model with the Great Society and pressed on.
While a lot changed, the more things changed, the more they stay the same. Machine politics thrives on the ability to distribute tax dollars to friends and punish enemies. Thus under the Obama IRS, Tea party groups had their applications blocked and held up for years, as their members faced audits. Meanwhile, friends of Obama had their applications fast-tracked sometimes in days. Other government departments saw similar behavior.
Yet for Democrats, doling out such favors has been more difficult recently because of their focus on intersectionality. The bottom line is that they want to discriminate, but are finding it harder to do so. So now they want to change the law to make discrimination legal again. Discrimination, in the name of equal opportunity! That is the upside-down world of the Democrats. The sad thing is, given that California is a Democratic stronghold, it will probably pass.
