Latest news with #identityPolitics
Fox News
9 hours ago
- General
- Fox News
Ex-Democratic leader warns party is 'dying' as key issues leave voters wanting 'new way forward'
Former California Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero warned Tuesday that the party she once called home is "on its last stand," accusing its members of abandoning common sense and core American values in favor of identity politics. "It is a dying party. It will go the way of the Whigs in a century past," she said while appearing on "Fox & Friends First." "The new way forward is an America-first party, the Republican Party under Donald Trump… This is really a new party, and it's one that recognizes that borders matter, citizenship matters, safety for all [matters]. We care about the content of one's character much more than we care about the color of our skin, and across the board… we are there together to say, 'Stop the nonsense. Speak common sense.'" Romero said many former Democrats – Tulsi Gabbard, Leo Terrell, RFK, Jr. and herself included – tried to be voices for reform within the party, but saw the writing on the wall and ultimately resigned themselves to leaving altogether. Her comments lambasting Democrats came after Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman bucked his party over the border and antisemitism during a Fox Nation-hosted debate with his Republican colleague Sen. Dave McCormick on Monday. "Antisemitism [is] out of control… Building tent cities on a campus and terrorizing and intimidating Jewish students – that's not free speech, and now we've lost the argument in parts of my party," he conceded. "Our party did not handle the border appropriately. Look at the numbers: 267,000, 300,000 people showing up at our border. Now that's unacceptable and that's a national security issue and that is chaos." Romero applauded the Keystone State lawmakers for showcasing a commitment to working across the aisle in a way she wishes more politicians would consider. "Sadly, Democrats are still caught in that web, the ideology of identity politics, and it [working across the aisle] has not yet taken root," she HERE TO JOIN FOX NATION "They still stand up and scream that everybody's a Nazi, everybody's racist. Or still defend open borders, deny the rampant antisemitism, and refuse to stand up for America first. But hopefully, with the Fetterman-McCormick discussion debate, I hope it really sends a message across the country that this is what the American people want – for our elected officials to grow up, to listen to each other, and work with each other for Americans."
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Blue Labour group urges ministers to ‘root out DEI' to win over Reform voters
The Labour faction influencing Downing Street's pitch to Reform UK voters has urged ministers to 'root out DEI'. An article from the Blue Labour campaign group, titled What is to be Done, calls for the government to legislate against diversity, equity and inclusion, echoing the rightwing backlash from Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. Describing itself as part of a tradition of 'conservative socialism', the caucus was founded in 2009 by the academic Maurice Glasman, now a Labour peer. It includes the MPs Dan Carden, Jonathan Brash, Jonathan Hinder and David Smith, who represent seats in the north of England. Keir Starmer's turn to the right and framing of Labour as 'the party of patriotism' mirror Blue Labour thinking. Urging the party to renew its 'covenant with the British people', Blue Labour's article said: 'We are proud of our multiracial democracy and we utterly reject divisive identity politics, which undermines the bonds of solidarity between those of different sexes, races and nationalities. 'We should legislate to root out DEI in hiring practices, sentencing decisions and wherever else we find it in our public bodies.' Earlier this week, the Guardian reported how organisations are rebranding inclusion initiatives to avoid unwanted political attention, reflecting a divergence between trade bodies and employers who believe policies designed to ensure a level playing field are good for business and society, and reactionary politicians. In February, the equalities minister, Seema Malhotra, said the government was 'absolutely committed' to diversity and inclusion, with new legislation that would compel employers with more than 250 staff to report on ethnicity and disability pay gaps progressing though parliament. Launching the consultation on the equality (race and disability) bill, which closes on 10 June, the disability minister, Stephen Timms, and Malhotra said the 'commitment to create a more equal society in which people can thrive whatever their background' was an 'essential element' of Labour's project. They added: 'The reality is far from that goal. For example, currently most ethnic minority groups earn on average less than their white British peers. Similarly, while there has been growth in employment rates for disabled people in recent years, disabled people have, on average, lower incomes than non-disabled people. While previous Labour governments introduced landmark … equality-related legislation, more still remains to be done.' However, since this year's local elections, when Reform gained a foothold in local government after seizing scores of seats from Labour, the prime minister has appeared to be trying to counter the threat from Farage by moving further to the cultural right, despite the risk of losing support from minority ethnic voters, who were more likely than white voters to support Labour in the last general election, and left-leaning voters in general. In mid-May, ministers were forced to strongly deny allegations that Starmer sounded like Enoch Powell in a speech that said Britain risked becoming an 'island of strangers', and that 'uncontrolled' migration had done 'incalculable damage', as he launched plans to curb net migration. Blue Labour calls for lower migration in the same article in which it takes aim at DEI, saying: 'Immigration is not a distraction or a culture war issue; it is the most fundamental of political questions, a cause of social fragmentation, and the basis of our broken political economy. 'We should drastically reduce immigration, reducing low-skill immigration by significantly raising salary thresholds; closing the corrupt student visa mill system; and ending the exploitation of the asylum system, if necessary prioritising domestic democratic politics over the rule of international lawyers.' In May, it emerged that net migration almost halved in 2024.
Wall Street Journal
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Rahm Emanuel, Teasing a White House Bid, Says Democratic Brand Is Weak
CHICAGO—Rahm Emanuel, never humble about his political skills, is trying to accomplish something that seems far-fetched even for him: push his Democratic Party—rooted in the identity politics of the left—to the center. The former congressman, White House chief of staff, Chicago mayor and diplomat is direct about what he thinks Democrats need to do to win national elections again. He calls the party's brand 'toxic' and 'weak and woke,' a nod to culture-war issues he thinks Democrats have become too often fixated on that President Trump has successfully used against them.
ABC News
24-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Labor's thumping win exposes how broken the right is in this country
Australia's political right spent much of the past three years lamenting and fomenting over what it diagnoses as the collapse of Western order. "Wokeism", identity politics, "support for" radical Islam and belief in climate change and renewable energy top a long list of "deluded" obsessions driving the Anglosphere over the edge, assert our contemporary Hanrahans. Newspaper columns and cult-like conferences headlined by people called Jordan and Niall reinforce the idea that deranged "leftists" are sending the world to hell in a handcart. "Disunity is death," declared former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister John Anderson in the Menzies Research Centre's annual "John Howard Lecture" in 2020. "My friends, I think we all share a deep concern that those elites who hold the bulk of the microphones and, it seems the cultural heft in the West today, seem determined to divide us — not unite us — at every turn," he asserted. "We are, it seems, at war with one another: men versus women, race versus race, and generation against generation." Two consecutive federal losses and it's clear Australians aren't buying what Anderson is selling — a dark and bleak interpretation of our circumstances. But he might be right in so far as Labor's thumping win exposes how broken the right is in this country. As much as the issues he identified influenced voters' choices on the May 3 election, the results pretty much speak for themselves. The elites that voters worry most about are on the Coalition's side, it seems. People instead picked a government that said and demonstrated how it was focused on the more prosaic but relevant issues of importance to households. Fire and brimstone over the future of civilisation be damned. The savage ballot box rebuke three weeks ago continues to reverberate. A result so dramatic and painful for one side was always going to send certain players over the edge. The surprise has been how far they were prepared to leap. Over the past few days the Coalition's behaviour has resembled a clown show. Actually, scrap that, let's describe it accurately. Like chimps. In a room. Flinging faeces. At random. While seeking applause. On Tuesday the National Party's night-watchman leader David Littleproud wrote to supporters saying that "after careful consideration" the party room had decided now was not the time to continue the decades-old alliance with the Liberals. Much better to strike out solo. As a minority party. With fewer staff and less financial backing. Less than 48-hours later, presumably after more careful consideration, Littleproud announced the party room had changed its mind. It may not have been such a good idea after all. When voters kicked Labor into the dust at the 2013 election, a deeply divided and internally shattered party quickly regrouped around Bill Shorten. Three years later, despite its own internal divisions, Shorten came tantalisingly close to unseating the Coalition. Anderson's 2020 lament about disunity was aimed at Labor and the Greens. But in 2025, it's the National Party — Anderson's old stomping ground — that is providing Australians with the strongest evidence of decay, dissipation and dubious moral clarity. Sadly for its supporters, the Coalition's melodrama has further to go. Even if Littleproud and Liberal leader Sussan Ley renew the agreement between the two parties, as now seems likely, the policy and personality divisions remain unresolved. Across the four big points of difference with the Liberals — the policy hill that Littleproud appeared so willing to die on — the most significant is on climate. Both parties state they support net zero by 2050. But there is no plan on how to get there, let alone what its position will be on the pending 2035 national emissions target the government will soon take to the UN. Voters rejected Peter Dutton's promise to build seven nuclear power stations. But rather than dumping nuclear energy, the Nationals and Liberal party rooms decided they will continue to advocate for the energy source. Albeit in a much more limited way — by arguing for the repeal of John Howard's 1999 nuclear power moratorium. It is not clear how this revised position will deliver on the broader net zero goal or any interim targets the country signs up to under Labor. Another area of supposed tension — supermarket divestiture powers — the Liberals remain in the ideological box seat with a mutually-agreed policy that will only allow for the break-up of large retailers if there are no job or shareholder losses. Some critics in the Nationals recognise that for what it is; a clause that ensures the divestiture powers are dead-letter law. Then there's the $20 billion regional Australia "Future Fund". Announced during the federal election, the fund will start with $5 billion in "seed capital" before growing over time thanks to "windfall" commodity tax revenues. If you believe this will ever happen, the National Party would like to sell you a bridge. Aside from the policy debates — and it's not obvious that any of the things mentioned above address things voters care about — leadership remains the most egregious issue for both Coalition parties. Littleproud and his leadership team, which includes Bridget McKenzie and Kevin Hogan, have been seriously tarnished inside the party this week. Already there's open discussion about replacing Littleproud, even if there is no obvious contender. Sources tell this column that Littleproud's week of living dangerously has wounded him in other ways. They say he failed to level with his own party room about all the demands he put to Ley. Many Nationals only learnt from leaks to the media via the Liberals that cabinet solidarity was one of the sticking points. And others say they were not told about the "four demands" at the meeting on Tuesday when they agreed to break from the Liberals. Those items only became apparent after the fact. Many are also wondering about Littleproud's performance under pressure — perhaps for the first time — in the full frontal glare of the nation's media this week. 'He's been outwitted and encircled by Ley's office,' said one National Party source. It was only two weeks ago that Littleproud saw off a leadership challenge from Matt Canavan. The subsequent split and reunion with the Liberals appears to have divided many of his own backers. That does not mean he's about to lose his job, say Nationals insiders, especially as the Coalition appears to be back on track. But it does mean the next time leadership comes up, Littleproud may not be able to rely on all the party room members that backed him over Canavan. A recipe for more chaos from the centre right, now well and truly in its dark night of the soul.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Identity politics gained more prominence in GE2025, unity is S'pore's key strength: SM Teo
SINGAPORE – Identity politics over race and religion gained more prominence in the 2025 General Election, and it is something Singapore should be careful about, said Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean on May 20. It goes against the nation's multiracial and multi-religious society where everyone has a place, lives together and does better as a country together, he said. 'We live side by side. By and large we go to schools together. We have many, many more opportunities together. So unity is the core of our strength,' he said, speaking to reporters during an interview at the Ministry of Home Affairs building on May 20. Yet in the recent election, identity politics as well as external issues which had been imported into domestic politics had become part of some parties' political agendas. Some candidates even said that this was the motivating factor behind their entry into politics. 'We also saw some attempts of foreign interference into Singapore politics because they noticed that within Singapore, political parties were prepared to make use of this chip,' SM Teo said. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong had called a press conference a week before the May 3 polls to ask all political parties to clarify their stance on two fundamental principles: that identity politics has no place in Singapore, and that religion and politics should not mix. This came a day after the Government moved to block access to Facebook posts by two Malaysian politicians and a former Internal Security Act detainee for attempting to interfere in the election. They, along with a Singaporean self-styled religious teacher based in Malaysia, Mr Noor Deros, had spotlighted several opposition politicians in social media posts, including WP's Faisal Manap, who contested Tampines GRC. Fortunately, SM Teo said, during the election, Singaporeans saw the importance of cohesion, harmony and unity, and the issues of identity politics did not become over-emphasised. 'It is very easy to create divisions based on race and religion, and that's why we treat them so sensitively,' he stressed. 'It's much more difficult to build unity, harmony, consensus, and it's even more difficult to rebuild harmony once that sense of community – one community – breaks down. So we should be very careful with that. 'And perhaps after this GE all the political parties ought to have a careful look at what this is all about and resolve whether or not this is a direction in which we want Singapore politics to go. I would be very wary if we went down that line.' While it is valid to discuss the issues that all the communities in Singapore face, this should not lead to identity politics where different groups try to outbid one another and champion particular communities, he said. Giving one example, he said that during GE2025, one political party said Thaipusam should be made a public holiday. Other political parties then tried to 'outbid them' by suggesting more public holidays. 'So you support something, somebody outbids you, somebody else will outbid you. And then what happens? It is very easy to go down this line, and this happened during this election. This was the agenda of some of the parties.' During the election, the WP had asked that Thaipusam be reinstated as a public holiday. The Progress Singapore Party proposed increasing the number of public holidays from 11 to 14. It suggested that the new holidays should represent each of the three major ethnic groups in Singapore, with possible additions including Chinese New Year's Eve, the day after Hari Raya Puasa and Thaipusam. External conflicts should not be part of Singapore's quarrels either, said SM Teo. They are a chance for Singaporeans to show compassion and extend help, but should not become a cause because 'these are not our quarrels', he noted. Singaporeans have, in fact, come together to help the victims of the Syrian war and Palestine conflict, regardless of race and religion, he pointed out. Unity is Singapore's core strength as a small nation, SM Teo added. While Singapore lacks resources, it can pull all its strengths together so that it can project itself as larger than it is, and be strong when facing the world. Policies like the Ethnic Integration Policy in Housing Board estates contributed to Singapore's unity, he said. Singaporeans have become more enlightened as a people living side by side, going to schools together and enjoying many more opportunities together, he added. Different communities in Singapore also work together to tackle radicalisation, which has evolved with the internet and social media platforms indoctrinating people rapidly, teaching them to build bombs and carry out acts of terror. SM Teo spoke about how a self-professed white supremacist was educated by the Religious Rehabilitation Group – a voluntary group of Islamic scholars and teachers – and eventually changed his mind about attacking Muslim targets. In January 2024, a Secondary 4 student who identified as a white supremacist and was radicalised by far-right propaganda received a restriction order for planning attacks overseas. SM Teo, 70, who is also Coordinating Minister for National Security, is stepping down from the Cabinet and politics. Both he and Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat confirmed their retirement from politics on Nomination Day on April 23. SM Teo said he would continue to help and assist in any way that would be helpful. Singapore is quite unique because in many countries, the party that wins power often tries to burnish its own reputation by condemning everything that the former party did, he said. 'We can see that in so many countries, they rubbish everything the previous government did, and so there's no continuity, whereas here we have continuity,' he said, pointing out that as Coordinating Minister for National Security, he consulted former deputy prime minister S. Jayakumar. 'It's a wonderful resource... We build on what we did. And that is, again, one of the strengths that we have in Singapore,' said SM Teo. He is happy to see that PM Wong has put together a strong team of good people. There are people who stand for election because they want to do good for their fellow Singaporeans and improve their lives, 'who derive happiness from seeing other people happy'. There are also others who 'feed on anger and unhappiness', SM Teo said. 'So you have to discern between the two, who you really want to represent you, what kind of Parliament you want, and what will really improve your life.' His advice to the new parliamentarians is to uphold truth, honesty and integrity. 'I think we have many strengths today,' he said. 'We have found a formula over many years which helps us to be united, synergise and multiply our strengths so that we can stand up to the world and be taken seriously, and this is something which we should continue.' He added: 'I want them to succeed, we want them to succeed, because we want Singapore to succeed.' Chin Soo Fang is senior correspondent at The Straits Times covering topics such as community, politics, social issues, consumer, culture and heritage. Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction Discover how to enjoy other premium articles here
