Democrats’ dilemma
The Ink this morning offers weekend reads that for some reason include a 2021 essay by Tressie McMillan Cottom: The Dolly Moment. Meaning Dolly Parton. The singer both embodies southern woman and subverts it by portraying it in drag. She somehow effortlessly (with great effort and ambition).
As a Black fan of Parton’s, Cottom writes, “Being pretty got her out of the foothills, but her genius with embodying country music’s most oppressive forces — gender and class — was possible because of her ability to leverage race and gender. That is what us sociologists would call the place where self meets society.” She is rich and elite without the taint.
Parton performs blondeness, an unstated synonym for white while caricaturing Southern womanhood and being very un-Southern womanly ambitious. “Her authenticity rings with the charm we demand of Southern womanhood,” while she carries herself as a drag version, and people across race and culture love her for it. Besides, Cottom observes, “The woman can write her ass off.”
It is well worth a read. But the essay popped into my in-box while I was contemplating how Democrats fail at being authentic for many voters by trying too hard to please everyone. They’ve convinced themselves that to sell their inclusiveness and earn their big-tent bona fides, they must name-check every marginalized ethnic, racial, and gender subgroup, and taught those groups to listen for it (the way Democratic politicians name-check HBCUs). Not to hear themselves name-checked means they’ve been excluded and should seek allies elsewhere. Super-particularizing also leaves people who don’t see themselves falling into any of those categories (and who resist categorization) feeling left out even as Democrats mean to include them.
What that name-checking has also done is make many HDCW’s (historically dominant communities of white people) feel left out. The Republican Party has leveraged that to the hilt by stoking resentment.
What Dolly does effortlessly by singing of Home, Love, Longing, Desire, and Faith, Democrats fail at by trying too hard.
I don’t have an answer for the just now.
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