A reader of this blog writes as a decades-long resident of the New York Congressional district just won (effectively) by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a stunning primary upset of the Democratic incumbent. Though I’ve eliminated some biographical information at his request, I can tell you that from his past comments on this site, the reader is not a Christian:

Joe Crowley was the congressman of my district, and I was rooting for him to win, more so because he recently stood up against a protected bike lane proposal on two corridors and took the side of the community. The Department of Transportation, a bunch of crazy far-left progressive activists, and the Mayor were trying to force these bike lanes down our throats despite a huge outcry, and we pushed back enough where Joe Crowley said no and our local councilman ended up not supporting the project. Now with Crowley gone, the snowflakes who demand these bike lanes might become emboldened again. That being said, I’m not at all surprised that Ocasio-Cortez won. Her campaign posters WERE EVERYWHERE! And I mean EVERYWHERE! Every single grocery store or storefront in my neighborhood had her poster up. Even my local grocery store had her poster up, and when I went to the owner (who is a good friend) and asked him if her followers asked him permission to put it up, he said, “Yea, they told me they just wanted to put a poster on my window, and I said yes.” When I told him about her politics and that she was for the bike lanes with all the progressive crazies, he immediately ripped it up and took it down. And the funny thing is, the poster was up on his window along with an ad for Joe Crowley. Just by walking around the neighborhood, I saw how bland Crowley’s campaign posters were. They were few and far between in number, and I had a sense for the last three months that he was woefully unprepared for the tidal wave that was going to hit him. Many of these storeowners who put up Cortez’s posters had no idea who she was or what she stood for. Her election, in large part, was successful due to a very well-designed PR and propaganda campaign. The activists who worked for her went door to door putting up these ads, and all they had to do was ask permission from the business-owners. If that wasn’t enough, people were actively stopping pedestrians on the street and campaigning for her at my local park EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. I don’t know where her funding came from, but big money was definitely backing her. From the T-shirts to the well-designed posters to the glossy campaign cards, something was definitely at work here. And anyone who thinks that the racial component was not in play here is fooling themselves. Her campaign poster looked like an ad for a political candidate in a Latin American country, and I guess it worked to marvelous effect with the large Hispanic population in this area. However, what was really bizarre for me was the fact that the overwhelmingly majority of activists who were campaigning for her like a bunch of fanatics were WHITES! When I see stuff like this, I can’t help but think that whites, especially white liberals, have some sort of in-built suicide complex, where they want to give away their own country to non-whites. It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me. And it’s going to be hilarious watching these whites eventually be pushed out of the Democratic Party and straight into the hands of the alt-right. Ocasio-Cortez’s far-left politics are the future of the Democrats, and if they get their way, America will be well on its way to becoming a third-world banana republic (not that the Republicans are any better). Make no mistake. This country is in big trouble. There is a lot more I can say about why I’ve come to these conclusions, but in the last three years, I’ve seen enough to believe that some sort of civil war in America is inevitable. First, it’ll happen along political lines, and then it will morph into a conflict along racial/ethnic lines. I expect that we’ll see clashes between right-wing and left-wing groups in the streets that will be very reminiscent of the bloody left/right battles that defined Turkey in the late 70s and early 80s. Out of this chaos, we’ll see the military step in and establish martial law. And that’ll be the end of the United States, falling apart like the Tower of Babel before it.

Keep in mind that my posting reader e-mails does not imply endorsement. It only implies that I find what the reader says interesting enough to share with the rest of you, and to invite your comments. Because this reader lives in the district, is not a Christian, and in the past has made intelligent comments on various threads, I want to share this with you.

UPDATE: I’ve reconsidered whether or not to take this comment down, because some of you say its racist. I’m going to leave it, because I think the reader’s observations are debatable. Not correct, but debatable. The fear voters like him have of the power of identity politics are realistic, as much as the fear left-wing voters have from right-wing identity politics.

You’ll note in my previous Ocasio-Cortez post, I said that if I were a liberal in that district, I probably would have voted for her too. This reader actually lives in the district, and sees a strong racial identity politics component to her victory. He believes that white liberals are useful idiots who will be disfranchised within their own party by ethnic identity politicians who are hostile to them, deep down, because of their race. I don’t know how one can look at broad trends on the left and not conclude that racial identity politics are moving thoroughly into the Democratic mainstream.

Would this reader feel the same way about Democratic ethnic politicians who did not run on identity politics appeals (e.g., Barack Obama)? I don’t know. I’d vote for a politician of any race who represented my ideals, but not one that I thought was going to punish or disadvantage people on the basis of race.

I hope the reader tells us more about his background. I get the idea from this and his past postings that he might not be American-born, and that he has seen fratricidal identity politics in foreign countries. I could be wrong about that.

I only saw the (now-famous) video ad that Ocasio-Cortez posted, and it didn’t seem like identity politics to me. It seemed focused on pocketbook issues, plus slamming the incumbent for being out of touch with his district. But then again, this reader lives in that district, not me.

UPDATE.3: And finally, I do not agree with the “giving THEIR country away” stuff. This is Ocasio-Cortez’s country too. That said, I suspect the reader is right about the growing racialization of American politics. You don’t have to be a reactionary from Queens to see this coming. O-C has been critical of Israel, and the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which she represents, has been generally supportive of the BDS movement. It’s going to be interesting to see if liberal Jews in the years to come move towards the GOP as the pro-Palestinian left gains ground in the Democratic Party. And, if white liberals find that their efforts to vote in diversity actually turn out to have been self-disfranchising within a Democratic Party that is sold out to identity politics, what are they going to do?

(In a similar way, Latino Republicans may find it hard to stay in the GOP if racial consciousness comes to the fore.)

UPDATE.4: A reader comments:

There’s a famous quote from Lee Kuan Yew, that “In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.” Look around the globe and you see the pattern holds … once the dominant group in a country falls down to ~60% or lower, the political divisions are nearly always about race/religion/language more than anything else. And more often than not, there is serious violence. The idea that we won’t be the same is just the liberal version of American Exceptionalism.

UPDATE.5:Here’s a report from today’s Washington Post that speaks to the original readers’s point:

The newest star of the Democratic Party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, launched her New York congressional campaign by declaring “women like me aren’t supposed to run for office” — a jarring embrace of her distinction as a 28-year-old Latina less than a year removed from a job tending bar. Her campaign slogan: “It’s time for one of us.” That appeal to the tribal identities of class, age, gender and ethnicity turned out to be a good gamble, steering her to the nomination in a year when Democratic voters are increasingly embracing diversity as a way to realize the change they seek in the country. Given an option, Democratic voters have been picking women, racial minorities, and gay men and lesbians in races around the country at historic rates, often at the expense of the white male candidates who in past years typified the party’s offerings. ­Ocasio-Cortez’s opponent, veteran Rep. Joseph Crowley, a white man representing a ­majority-minority district, fit that bill. The divide is more stark than any other so far in the primary season, and it reflects the party’s growing dependence on female and minority voters.

This is a more neutral way of saying what the original reader said in a very blunt way. The thing is, it really might be “time for one of us,” in the sense that it’s time for whites, especially white males, to give way for a more diverse slate of candidates — candidates that “look like America.” Why not? If that was all it was — a natural evolution in the distribution of power across ethnic groups as the country’s population diversifies — that might be uncomfortable for some whites, but manageable.

But that’s not what’s going on here.

Liberals typically don’t see or hear racial exclusion in their own messaging. An ideological group that has convinced itself that there are some forms of racial discrimination that are positive, and that ought to be embraced, will not be able to appreciate how its “diversity” rhetoric sounds to white people who stand to be displaced and left behind. Again, if it were simply about being more fair in the distribution of power and resources, that would be one thing. But we see how on campus, and more and more in popular culture, “whiteness” and whites — especially white males — are being demonized as somehow uniquely evil.

This is the environment in which candidates like Ocasio-Cortez are running. I watched her TV ad, and “it’s time for one of us” struck me in context not as her saying, “It’s time to throw out the white man,” but as “It’s time to elect somebody who actually lives here in our district, and who knows firsthand what our problems are.” That’s totally fair, especially when you’re up against a politician who really is out of touch with his district!

But there’s no escaping the fact that to a lot of people who look like the Joe Crowleys of the world, the ambiguity of that statement (“it’s time for one of us”) will be interpreted as otherizing those who do not have the same identity as the candidate. If Ocasio-Cortez is one of “us,” well, who is “them”?

That’s the question that the angry reader was getting at in his post.

UPDATE.6: The ever-readable Matt in VA writes: