Karine Jean-Pierre Kills Left-Wing Identity Politics
As the Right erupts in debate over identity politics, is it possible that mainstream liberals are starting seriously to reconsider this once-cherished cause?
If such an unlikely thing comes to pass, thank the first gay black woman to serve as White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.
Jean-Pierre’s new book has Washington Democrats pretty annoyed. What looked like it might be a tell-all about her time in the White House under a president who was essentially forced from the top of the Democratic ticket in the middle of the 2024 campaign turned out to be a declaration that she was leaving the Democratic Party because its leaders were mean to Joe Biden.
The week before Democrats hope to get back on the winning track in a handful of major elections across the country isn’t exactly the greatest time for the party to be talking about Biden. Yet there were Jean-Pierre and the former Vice President Kamala Harris, the vanquished 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, out on their book tours. At least Harris’s contained some sassy clapbacks against intraparty rivals.
Jean-Pierre is much more earnest. But also, at times, much more confused. Is the “broken White House” in the subtitle the one in which she served or the one in which President Donald Trump now resides? If the latter, is it really an “inside” look even if she is now “outside” the Democratic Party? Friendly (and one arguably not so friendly) interviewers practically implore her to consider the possibility that it wasn’t meanness or betrayal that led Democrats to turn on Biden, but the fact that they believed her messaging that Trump posed a unique threat to democracy—and also the polls that suggested Biden couldn’t beat Trump. Her standard response was to say that the future was unknowable.
When Jean-Pierre repeatedly invoked her racial and sexual identity in response to such tough questioning from Issac Chotiner in the New Yorker, even liberals were incredulous.
“Several Democrats have bristled at Jean-Pierre’s emphasis on so-called identity politics, seeing it both as a shield against questions about her book’s coherence and as out of step with the moves by some in the party to recalibrate after Trump won with a campaign geared toward criticizing that rhetoric,” POLITICO reported.
This story alone contains quite a few anti-KJP zingers. “One former White House colleague questioned how well Jean-Pierre herself understood her own book,” the piece reads, later quoting said colleague as saying, “She doesn’t seem to have any idea what she’s arguing.”
“Some former West Wing staffers are privately texting one another wondering why she can’t answer questions about her own book with greater clarity or coherence,” POLITICO reported. “Others are bristling at her emphasis on identity politics.”
Jean-Pierre should have Googled who Chotiner was before doing their interview, one anonymous Democrat complained. She was compared to a car crash and a toddler who had just jumped into the deep end of a swimming pool.
It seems to be gradually dawning on Democrats that identity is no substitute for arguments, answering basic questions or fundamental competence. They are grappling with the fact that Jean-Pierre wasn’t very good at her job: “She was the top communicator for the president of the United States and she can’t get through basic interviews.” Chotiner similarly points out in a parenthetical that at the time she was complaining about the Democrats’ inability or unwillingness to defend Biden, she was the White House press secretary.
At this point, I’m almost ready to call the fight. The Democrats now mostly anonymously slagging off Jean-Pierre invented all the low standards and groupthink that they now want to disavow because it lost them an election. They fueled Jean-Pierre’s professional rise and then demanded she perform as if it had all along been a strict meritocracy.
In fairness, it is possible to be a decent communications strategist behind the scenes while not being particularly good as the on-camera talent. Jean-Pierre also got the job after most of Biden’s best years were behind him. Jen Psaki was more skilled at the podium, but she also had the gig at a time when defending Biden was an easier task.
Critically, one of the reasons Jean-Pierre was bad at the job was that she didn’t seem to enjoy lying. And her widely panned book reveals that she sincerely believed much of her pro-Biden spin, however implausible it may seem to the rest of us. She is willing to stake her career on it.
Other liberals may no longer be willing to stake theirs on DEI when it conflicts with excellence and ruthlessness in political combat.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/kjp-kills-left-wing-identity-politics/