Reparations are probably the only way the Democrats lose in 2020 besides nominating anyone besides Bernie or Mayor Pete
Like you could not think of something dumber to support right now when beating Trump is a crucial task for the Dems
Also the whole reparations thing is pretty arbitrary. Why start with blacks? Why not all the people who are a victim of US foreign policy first? Theres so many people weve just continually fucked over all across the globe that if we were ever gonna do some sort of payment based on past victimhood surely we would give it to the people who are stuck in poor or obliterated or both countries. Wouldnt you much rather see money go to those people first than the relatively well off blacks?
And you might respond: Well who says we cant do both? And I would say to that, no, you absolutely do not have the political capital or money to pull off both. You are probably gonna have to choose. Most definitely you will, at most, and maybe even juuuuuust barely, get one and only one large, guilt based payment out of the American people to another group of American people or people in general. With that said, if you are gonna do a payment, give it to the people who need it most. And it aint the blacks, sorry
I wouldn't say that Democrats are stupid to address reparations; I would say that they have an extremely difficult political task ahead of them. In order to put together a winning strategy, the progressives must use the promise of ending austerity in order to overcome tribalism and unite the working class as a voting block. There is no victory without elevating a class narrative that can unite the people-- and that does start with the voters. They have an opportunity because everyone has been so screwed by the elite, that grievances are lining up; but they are not perfectly aligned, and so there will be a lot of hard work for progressives ahead in speaking to the people.
The problem is that the people ARE under austerity and so there IS elevated tribalism on all sides. Not only is there elevated tribalism, but there are also legitimate grievances that need to be spoken to.
The democrats lost to Trump because the democrats turned their backs on their New Deal history, and in doing so betrayed the unions and working white folks of the country-- selling their towns and their bodies to big pharma and their other donor industries. The democrats need to promise to return to the FDR/Truman tradition if they are to redeem the moral debts of those betrayals.
On the other hand, it would be insane to expect African Americans to not rise up and point out that the gains from the original New Deal very much disproportionately favored white Americans, and that past policy did in many ways rob them of the needed tools to partake in the more meritocratic and more labor-friendly era that illustrated the American Dream. It would be completely unreasonable to expect them to hold their tongues, and it is impossible to build the coalition without speaking to their grievances. There's a reason that the second "A" in MAGA is so divisive... but that's no reason not to aim for Making America Great. [Full stop]
On a side note, as a Japanese American progressive it is extremely mind-warping to imagine FDR as the president of internment camps and Reagan as the president of Japanese reparations. But we can, and will do better than FDR. FDR was a man of the elites who did good works because he was pressured to by socialists-- Bernie is himself the real deal.
At the end of the day, the only way to overcome these tribal divides is to give both the universal call to brotherhood, but also lean into listening to each set of brothers and sisters. I don't think the progressives can win unless they are willing to talk about middle aged white men having the highest rate of suicide, or what's happening with the opioid crisis and de-industrialized towns of Trump country-- be willing to acknowledge that liberal elite America has wrongfully looked down with condescension for working whites. I also don't think they can win unless they speak to the history of black America and the call for reparations-- to speak to how our policies helped in making it harder for black families to buy homes, get educations, or even form families; the very basic building blocks to upward mobility.
They have to listen to the voices of their constituents, but also have to help their constituents listen better to each other as well. No easy task, but I think while in some ways the realities of the moment does make that harder, in other ways it makes it more possible than ever before.
