The Left's Search for a New Cause

Ben Shapiro
Wed, 21 Jan 2026 14:33:04 -0800
Opinion

Monday marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday honoring a man best remembered for urging Americans to judge one another by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It is a legacy rooted in a specific historical struggle — one that culminated in the Civil Rights Act after years of fierce resistance, largely from Southern Democrats, to dismantling Jim Crow.

Since that era ended, the Democratic Party has repeatedly searched for what might come next: a successor to the civil rights movement that once defined its moral authority. Over the decades, a series of causes have been framed in those terms, often with strained comparisons to the racial discrimination of the mid-20th century.

First came a movement centered on gender, casting women as victims of a patriarchal system in a way likened to black Americans' experience under segregation. The analogy never quite fit. Later, similar language was applied to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, with LGBTQ+- advocacy presented as the new front line of civil rights.
Updated: Wed Jan 21, 2026

Monday marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday honoring a man best remembered for urging Americans to judge one another by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It is a legacy rooted in a specific historical struggle — one that culminated in the Civil Rights Act after years of fierce resistance, largely from Southern Democrats, to dismantling Jim Crow.

Since that era ended, the Democratic Party has repeatedly searched for what might come next: a successor to the civil rights movement that once defined its moral authority. Over the decades, a series of causes have been framed in those terms, often with strained comparisons to the racial discrimination of the mid-20th century.

First came a movement centered on gender, casting women as victims of a patriarchal system in a way likened to black Americans' experience under segregation. The analogy never quite fit. Later, similar language was applied to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, with LGBTQ+- advocacy presented as the new front line of civil rights.

Now, Democrats appear to have settled on a new cause: illegal immigration.

In this framing, enforcing immigration law is portrayed not merely as a policy disagreement but as an expression of white supremacy itself. Illegal immigrants, the argument goes, must be allowed to remain in the country, and any attempt at enforcement is morally suspect.

This is a stretch — one that suggests demand for examples of systemic American racism has outpaced the available supply.

Consider a recent example. On Monday, former Attorney General Eric Holder warned that the Voting Rights Act faces an abiding threat, claiming that the Trump administration is pursuing "unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering attempts" and engaging in a "concerted effort to resegregate America."

Such rhetoric dramatically overshoots reality. There is no serious movement in the United States to reinstate segregated schools, water fountains, restaurants or public accommodations. No credible constituency is calling for a return to Jim Crow, and no sentient observer believes America is on the verge of enforced racial separation.

In fact, the post-Jim Crow story of race in America was, for decades, one of steadily improving relations. Polling data show that until around 2013, large majorities of both black and white Americans believed race relations were getting better and had improved significantly since the 1960s.

That perception changed during the later Obama years and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, which coincided with a sharp decline in public optimism about race relations. But declining optimism is not the same as renewed racial oppression, nor does it suggest that white supremacy now rules the roost.

Yet the search continues. Democrats need a new civil rights struggle to justify claims of moral urgency and political authority. That case has become increasingly difficult to make. The party is now defined, for many voters, by abortion on demand, an inability to articulate basic distinctions about sex and gender, and a posture approaching open borders.

So illegal immigration is being folded into the civil rights narrative.

History suggests that this, too, will fall short.