The recent convention of the Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP) became a microcosm of the inanity of identity politics found in forums ranging from politics to higher education. Participants were given familiar “equity cards” as literal card-carrying members of groups demanding preferred treatment. The problem is when one identity group demands preference over another. The result, as seen in Winnipeg, was calamity and quickly became comedy.
Many in education have long pushed equity cards and “identity markers” to get students to define themselves by their race, disability, gender, or other criteria. Even computer science teachers are told to tailor their lessons to identity markers. Such markers are treated as essential to creating “Identity safe classrooms.”
There are even DEI games where children are encouraged to “match” their identity groups.
At the NDP convention, people were given equity cards to give preference to certain identities over groups such as males or whites. The problem is that the cards create an entitlement that can clash with others’ claims to speak first.
The cards were based on identity categories, including gender, race and ethnicity, LGBTQ+ status, and Indigenous status. You were supposed to be able to jump ahead of others because of your priority identity.
One video shows a person holding up their green gender equity card to claim the right to speak first as another woman waves her pink race equity card to speak. What followed were objections to people not yielding to those with greater priority or right to speak with one noting that cards for people who identify as Black women “have no value outside of this space.”
Then there was the speaker who called out another delegate for the sin of misgendering the speaker who identified as “non-binary.”
The collapse of the equity house of cards is due to the inherent myth that identity politics produces equity. It is, in fact, a separate system of privilege and entitlement. It is used to marginalize other voices in the name of amplifying other voices.
The greatest impact is to balkanize a population or party rather than emphasize common identities. The alternative is to enforce uniform treatment of any speakers based on such novel devices as a line to speak.
Under this cutting edge approach, people are guaranteed to speak in the order in which they line up to speak. It may be a radical experiment for the NDP, but it has been shown to have some success in other areas.
Today’s installment of the Turdley Report in a nutshell: “The President gave an absurdly embarrassing and pathetic justification to his manufactured war last night in a prime-time address which caused futures markets to plummet lower than the popularity of the orange dotard such that I’m going to try to do a headfake to a fringe issue in Canadian politics.” Brilliant work, Professor – I’m sure your readers will love it.
Oh look a NDP Privilege Card.
Yet another completely irrelevant and absurd push piece from Turley for the sole purpose of distracting the Mindless MAGA Moron Mob from the total humiliation of the Trump administration yesterday at the SCOTUS birthright citizenship hearing.
And unsurprisingly, the MAGA mob falls right into line with their absurd comments about how this story somehow proves that Canada is in a state of dysfunction.
The NDP is a fringe party. They hold 6 seats in the Canadian parliament of 343 seats. Before the recent election they held 24 seats, so their support has been slashed by 75%. They are no longer recognized as an official party in parliament. When a party holds less than 12 seats in parliament, they actually lose status as an officially recognized party. Their salaries are reduced and they lose funding to hire staff. They cannot hold committee seats, and they are not guaranteed a right to speak in debates. The Speaker can completely ignore them in the house. They are simply physically present and can vote, but have absolutely no other official function in parliament.
The NDP is completely irrelevant in the Canadian government. The party has only 100,000 members, so they represent a minuscule fraction of the Canadian electorate.
But nevertheless, Turley pushes out this absurd piece about fringe elements of Canadian politics as if this represents a complete breakdown of the Canadian government and society.
And you MAGA morons lap it up in a frenzy of absurd comments responding like Pavlov’s dogs to Turley’s blatant misrepresentation of reality.
Rabble rabble rabble. Does anyone hear anything? All i hear is white noise taking up data on the site.
Yes, the unnamed “Anonymous” is quick to bash Turley for anything he posts. My thoughts are this “Anonymous” can’t discuss issues with real people, so he uses the computer to spew all kinds of garbage at Turley and others. My guess is he’s a male and wanting to prove his points, but as long as all he does is bash others, he will remain an irrelevant posting member just disparage Turley. . . kind of like the 2-yr old child who goes bananas when his parents take the child’s video game away from him. My parents told me years ago that if you can’t say something nice about someone, then don’t say anything at all.
phantom
Perhaps you should redirect your advice to Turley about staying silent if if you can’t say anything nice about someone.
Perhaps Turley should remain silent rather than engaging in his nasty and petty and irrelevant little commentary about the NDP in Canada.
And perhaps you should heed your parents advice and stay silent if you can’t say anything nice about me.
But of course, hypocrisy is a required attribute for membership in the MAGA cult.
phantomboldly,
It is the usual leftist nonsense and demands the good professor writes what they want on his blog.
Surely the Canadian NDP is easily dismissed as this TDSer makes clear. Meanwhile admiring the incisiveness of Ketanji’s contribution to yesterday’s S.C. hearing? Betcha think the space launch yesterday was a phony publicity stunt to divert attention from the Iran clean-up operation – obviously destined to become Trump’s Vietnam quagmire, no?! Talk about a Pavlov dog.
to quote Sarah Huckabee, Sanders the governor of Arkansas its not left vs right but normal vs crazy
Can someone please go wake up George. Thanks!
I was brought up in a multicultural home. English, German, Spanish, Mexican and Filipino. Therefore I have no idea as to which card I should raise. I am thankful because it taught me not to look at a person for their color or other attributes but to look for the person. Why is this such a challenge? Because of groups or people like this that make it an issue. Lets take steps to go beyond this.
So how many mothers and fathers did you have, you named 5 ethnicities?
It is called family history over several hundred years. If you would get out of the basement and engage with the real world you might learn some things.
So by the time you came around, you are then no more than .001% of any of those ethnicities.
Folks like to rattle off their family history, like you, claiming that they’re half Irish etc., I then ask, so you have an Republic of Ireland issued passport? Ah…. no, they say. Then you’re not Irish, if born and raised here, then 100% American. And they take offense at that. Go figure. Me, two foreign born parents, but I am 100% American. And f-ig proud of it.
.001%? You don’t have a firm grasp of percentages and ethnicities. The commenter could easily be 12.5% to 50% (or some other combination) of all of those ethnicities, going back to only the person’s great-grandparents. 12.5% is 12,500 times greater than .001%. For example, the commenter could easily have one parent who is half Spanish and half Filipino (former Spanish colony) and another parent who is a quarter English, quarter German, and half Mexican. Throwing out a patent absurdity doesn’t help make your point.
I am going to be as nice as I can here.
1. I did not claim any ethnicity.
2. If you had comprehended what I said, instead of jumping to conclusions, you would have understood “multicultural family” instead of ethnicity.
3. Again if you had read and used basic comprehension you would have realized that I am against that kind of B.S.
4. I an not an Elizabeth Warren.
5. As it happens to be my mom was a U.S. citizen born in the Philippine islands to a Spanish/American citizen and an American citizen, my father was German also born in the there.
6. I was born in S.F. Ca. to a U.S. citizen and her husband, an immigrant who became a citizen.
7. If you question my families patriotism, by claiming you are 100% American: My uncle born was also born in Manila, a U.S. citizen, joined the army at 16. Was booted out due to age. He joined the underground providing info to the army. Was captured by the Japanese and let go when he was so emaciated. He rejoined and was captured again and was part in the Bataan Death March and later killed. He first touched American soil when he was buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno.
You can scream your patriotism from the highest building as much as you want, in my opinion, you should read and comprehend what was said, prior to chastising someone.
I am quite amazed when a purebred of any group crops up after 100s of thousands of years. I generally think of them as endangered. They still exist but in dwindling numbers for some.
I’m not so much amazed by the similarities as I am more amazed by the dissimilarities among groups. It’s been my experience, at times, the only similarity among groups is they all consume food of some kind.
PT filed this article under bizarre.
RCS,
I call it, “I graduated high school.” That is the exact kind of mentality we are seeing, high school.
If a person has to resort to their “equity card” or identity politics, then we have to question their emotional maturity and security as a person.
The NDP is Canada’s political nuthouse. These people make AOC look intelligent, they make Maxine Waters look sane. During my career as a newspaper owner, I regularly vilified them – and they despised me for it, a cloak of shame I wore with honour. They had no respect for those who had earned it, like Canada’s WW2 veterans, but God forbid you should try to cut down a tree.
This display of lunacy is the norm for these people.
Unfortunately, because of our political system, they too frequently become partners in a minority government with the liberals, something that explains Canada’s dismal economic performance and the laws we have to deal with.
Nuthouse? You think? Looks at your comment earlier, now look in a mirror.
Just two of many…if only they had ears to hear!
Claiming to be wise, they become fools. Romans 1:22
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. Proverbs 18:2
Come On Man! Its Canuck Craziness! Those Loons (literally haha) can’t fly straight no matter which way they yank themselves. Perfect example of why the rest of the world (sans Eurotrash) looks at Westerners and thinks – what a bunch of self-absorbed morons that willingly subject themselves to humiliation and destruction. OH CANADA, OH CANADA – your French Roots Stupidity Shines Ever Bright!
Listen jakass (sic) – this has nothing to do with the French, or Québecois. In fact, the NDP started out in Canada’s midwest provinces. How about you take your big mouth and empty head elsewhere? In other words, va te fourir, cochon. T’es plein de merde.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say the same loonies you people are mocking, is actually taking place right here and now.
Hey Wally you forgot to raise your privilege card.
What really like about Turley’s posting about liberal craziness is to see the responses here. There is no difference between the liberal retards and conservative retards here. Don’t think so, then read them.
I hope Democrats follow the Canadians lead. Democrats should hold a convention for all of the fringe freaks, misfits and malcontents in their party to gripe about how privileged the freaks are over the misfits. That will make a terrific political ad.
For Republicans.
This silliness fails the “real world” test. These people live in a self-constructed bubble determined to have the world recognize their self-importance. But the real world looks at these people as misfits with severe abnormalities. Canada is several years behind the USA where this silliness was dealt with several years ago and dismissed as too Orwellian (“All pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than other pigs.”) Rather than compete with the dreaded “white males,” they create their own world with fictitious symbols to mark what they see as important. That they see these symbols as important is meaningless outside their world because no one else sees them as meaningful. Survival competition is inherent in every species, from bacterium to human beings. Their attempt to alter this natural phenomenon only brings them greater disappointment and personal angst.
JJC,
Had a conversation with a friend who is a nurse, concerning Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Sure, we may have reach the top of the pyramid, but in doing so not only have we attained Self-Actualization, but also allows some to embrace the absurd.
Upstate, thanks for bringing Maslow into this. It really helps frame what we are watching.
Maslow tried to describe how healthy people grow, from basic survival up through safety, belonging, esteem, and finally into self‑actualization. Arendt and Desmet are describing what happens when that healthy pyramid gets flipped or blown up. You take people who already feel shaky on the bottom levels, you strip away any stable sense of belonging or identity, and you drop them back into an atomized survival mode at the base. Then you rebuild the pyramid on a darker logic: belonging and esteem are found in narrow grievance identities, safety is defined as protection from words and ideas, and “self‑actualization” turns into total loyalty to the cause.
That is why the Canadian equity‑card scene is not just goofy politics. It is a picture of Maslow’s structure being taken apart down to Step 1 and then re‑assembled into something that does not lead to free and stable citizens, but to the kind of mass formation Arendt and Desmet warned us about.
OLLY,
THAT! Is a fascinating why of looking at it, reordering the pyramid.
Actually, thinking on it, seems they are trying to take levels 3, 4, and 5, Belonging, Esteem and Self-Actualization respectively, and stuff them into levels 1 and 2.
I think that is why in the video, at one point the speaker says something to the effect of they will choose one person over another IF that person is MORE prominently displaying their equity card than another. It is absurd. It is Piggy and the Conch shell in Lord of the Flies.
Hard to say what this meeting was. It seemed like some madcap amalgamation of “Animal House” and “Idiocracy”. I guess if you’re serious you could go to the Ape Scene in “2001 A Space Odyssey” where the apes sailed right on past the card phase to clubs where decisions are made with some finality.
Yeah, It was probably “Idiocracy”.
Tribalism as high art (but not that high)
If you don’t know what the meeting was about, then why mock it? Stupidity is a high art, and your name is stupid.
Funny, anonymous GEB mocks a bunch of people doesn’t know, and an anonymous mocks someone he doesn’t know, namely GEB. A perfect irony.
It was their national convention. I kid you not.
GEB,
That is just it. We have reach the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but in the success of Self-Actualization, we have also allowed society to embrace the absurd. Some people have forgotten what the lower levels of the hierarchy are. Perhaps they need to be kicked back down the the second level to remember what it once was like to be those very apes (note, that is not a racial comment, but an observance of human nature).
I define my race all of the time. The Human Race. Lol
Take a good look at the lady, the Chair(?), and understand that this is the group (remember them from high school?) that wants to control our lives. This is Scary Poppins without the decent appearance. This is who they really are and they want to run the nation like a socialist university club. If this isn’t scary you either don’t understand it, you are an eternal optimist or you are one of them.
Of course Mr. X will come here to decry Turley for writing this column, even though it is his column to write, will defend the control freak at the mike, will claim Republicans/conservatives do the same thing and/or it really isn’t an issue compared to “gas prices”, ICE arrests or the ballroom.
Control your life? Now how can an unknown Canadian liberal control your life?
Any sentient human would know that I was referring to the “type” of person that we all went to high school with and ignored. This is why in later years they strive to control the rest of us that have normal every day lives.
HullBobby,
That is exactly what this is, re: high school. All the little cliques, groups. But rather than just a unsaid micro-society of high school, now they are not only demanding them to be identified but they are using their . . . whatever, to one up each other with their little “equity cards.”
It is like a absurd and even perverse popularity contest that is trying to look like . . . something.
Hullbobby, seems your anticipation about what my response will be is going to be the high light of your day.
Its spelt “highlight” George. That’s my “high light” for the day.
Diversity (i.e. color judgments, class bigotry), Equivocation, and Inanitiies (DEI).
That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion
It’s as if nations have been infected with a virus destroying rational thinking.
This is what happens when the hard Left seizes control over a population of essentially naive people. It would happen throughout the USA if not for continual resistance. It has happened in some states, that we now call the Usual Suspects: CA, IL NY, WA …
and if I may add, RNC too. in 2015.
The 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland faced several notable issues: Internal party division: Prominent Republicans either skipped the event or expressed reluctance to support Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee.
Ted Cruz’s non-endorsement: During his speech, Senator Ted Cruz refused to endorse Trump, leading to boos from the crowd and highlighting party fractures.
Procedural controversy: The RNC denied a roll-call vote on convention rules, which critics said suppressed delegate dissent and fueled perceptions of an undemocratic process.
Melania Trump speech plagiarism scandal: Melania Trump’s speech included passages nearly identical to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic Convention speech, drawing widespread criticism.
Security and protest concerns: Although protests were largely peaceful, there were significant security preparations and public anxiety about potential unrest.
Additionally, the lead-up to the 2016 convention in 2015 involved a contentious primary race, but no formal convention events occurred that year.
Thank you AI.
A caste system trying to sort itself out.
The end is near!
What a stupid bunch of jabbering monkeys.
One moment please, there is a method to their madness. Thinking, actually you insulted monkeys. 😉