Last winter, I met with a friend in Democratic politics. “Life is strange sometimes,” she replied, and told me she was staying at Alexander Soros’ Hamptons home. I joked that I came to visit her—growing up in a working-class Midwestern family, I always liked to get a glimpse into the lives of the rich and powerful. “Sorry, it’s only for black leadership people,” she wrote. “It would be weird if you were there.”

As a former Democratic fundraiser, you’d think I’d be numb to this kind of discrimination, but the truth continues to sting: Democratic Partyonce champions of civil rights in response to real injustices, it is now the main driver of racial division in America today. Lee Atwater’s Southern strategy pales in comparison to the modern one DNChis approach. No organization is more systematically racist.

How did we get here?

The DemocratsThe long-term strategy is to stoke racial resentment to build his coalition and energize non-white voters. The rhetoric is designed to convince minorities that America is irredeemably, structurally racist and only the Democrats will take care of them. Social justice ideology, DEI, and awakening are used in businesses, institutions, and schools to enforce democratic governance, and are used internally to enforce party discipline. Notice how the Democrats have put together an entire coalition around it Kamala Harris. No one wanted to sound racist for suggesting there might be a better option.

In the summer of 2020, I was at a fundraiser for Progressives and I saw some crazy things. Campaigns began replacing consultants and campaign staff with BIPOC staff to appear more inclusive. A prominent Democratic group announced that the funding was reserved exclusively for organizations led by non-whites. Another campaign outlined a donor-backed plan to source poor white people from Craigslist, pay them to be interviewed, then bait them with racially insensitive remarks. The candidate could then expose his racism as a “white whisperer” who might change his mind. The idea was crazy and was shut down by consultants who knew better, but still came disturbingly close to happening.

In the beginning, I was with the Democratic crusade for racial division. I got scolded for using yellow emojis in Slack that are complicit in white supremacy, so I switched them to white. When I talked to the BIPOC consultants, I made sure to mention that white women are the worst, so they knew I wasn’t racist. While reviewing resumes for potential hires, I tracked their race to make sure all black people got interviews and ignored most resumes from white men.

But deep down, everything started to feel wrong to me. He started to feel blatantly racist. Still, I was terrified to speak.

My personal breaking point came when a fellow BIPOC accused me of being an entitled white woman who needed “DEI training” after I disagreed with her on fundraising strategy. This was bizarre to me, being born with a genetic disease that put a massive financial strain on my family. My parents never finished college and were married 11 times between them. I attended a dozen different schools growing up, including an inner-city school where I was in a small minority as a white person. We live in apartments, houses and sometimes in a mobile home park. I paid for college with Pell Grants and loans that are still outstanding. Contrary to DEI ideology, not all white Americans are privileged.

This person knew nothing about my background and tarnished my reputation based on snap judgments about the color of my skin. I’ve tried to argue with other operatives that it hurts the progressive movement when people homogenize their identities and delegitimize instances of real bigotry. They would agree privately but refuse to support me publicly.

Finally my boss relented and asked me to take DEI courses, eventually I was demoted from the consultant campaign.

People in Democratic politics would be horrified to admit publicly that this bullying happens on a regular basis, but they all know it’s true.

Unfortunately, many in the Democratic Party see nothing wrong with that. Oppression works as a currency that can reap lucrative rewards, such as giving a candidate an edge in a crowded primary race, helping someone become the leader of a powerful organization, or helping a consultant land a campaign media contract. Ultra-wealthy elite donors like the Soros family perpetuate this ideology because they present zero challenges to their wealth. Americans uniting along multi-racial class lines scares them more than anything.

Democrats today suppress their compulsion to divide, while Harris downplays his identity, running on color-blind messages similar to Obama’s. But people don’t forget. They are now losing the working class en masse, including union rank. Kamala couldn’t even win a Teamsters endorsement.

Clearly, racial division no longer works as an electoral strategy. Fighting racism with more racism is deeply unpopular.

If Harris loses, brace yourself for an all-out meltdown of epic proportions. They will seethe the deplorable racists who reelected Trump and refuse to recognize racial shifts in support because it contradicts their ideology. They will blame misogyny for black and Latino men switching sides. You’ll hear terms like “white adjacency” and “internalized oppression” thrown around to explain why black people voted for Trump.

The Democrats have done so much wrong. They infantilize black and brown people, treating them as powerless victims. Instructing white people to never correct a minority is manual racism, which means they can’t handle criticism.

Unfortunately, individuals steeped in DEI will not change their minds easily, and those who use it for social power never will. The only way Democrats will learn is to lose elections repeatedly while hemorrhaging minority votes. Racial misalignment between parties could turn the page and open a more hopeful chapter in American politics.

Evan Barker is a former Democratic campaign operative, campaign finance reform advocate, and podcaster. You can follow it further X @evanwch.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer.