Ian Haworth: No-One Is Historic Anymore

The downside of progress, for progressives at least, is that things that were once historic are simply no longer historic.

But since identity is all that matters — rather than virtue, competence, experience, etc. — they continually get increasingly granular in their identity specifications in order to remain historic.

Historic, historic, historic. So much historicness.

Stacey Abrams — whose claim-to-fame is her vocal and shameless rejection of democracy as she insisted that she was the rightful governor of Georgia — released an image on her Twitter account in which she partly blocked the sun, alongside the caption, “My name is Stacey Abrams, and I’m running to make history and serve as the first Black woman governor our country has ever seen.”

Stacey Abrams @staceyabrams

My name is Stacey Abrams, and I’m running to make history and serve as the first Black woman governor our country has ever seen.

August 17th 2022

And who can forget the “historic” terminology used when the utterly incompetent White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was brought in to replace the fleeing Jen Psaki?

Stacey Abrams is aiming to be “historic” because she’s black and a woman. Karine Jean-Pierre is apparently historic because she’s black and a woman and a lesbian.

Historic, historic, historic.

Except, not at all.

Lest we forget, we had a black president for two terms only a few years ago. 

I’ll say it again: the highest political position was occupied by a person who happened to be black. That was — arguably — historic. And also, by some bizarre form of identity-based transitivity, the skin color of every subsequent political position beneath or equal to the President of the United States became irrelevant.

As it should be.

Again, why is it historic to have a black woman as a governor when we already have a black woman as Vice President of the United States?

Because what’s the alternative? Do we celebrate every single person for their ever-more-specific identity group, regardless of the status of their actual or prospective job, or their ability in that job?

Why do they insist on using the word “historic” for things that just…aren’t?

The answer is simple: it’s because Democrats (and, indeed, some culturally desperate Republicans) know that hiding behind identity is far easier than standing upon ability, with the added bonus that you can reference your identity as a victim-based reason for defeat.

Instead, can we please get back to a time where skin color doesn’t matter, least of all for totally non-historic politicians?

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