DDonald Trump’s victory in 2024 This was much more than a backlash against left-wing identity politics. Inflation, among other things, seemed higher. Still, Trump gained ground among Latino, Black, Asian, Arab, Gen Z and big city voters. And that, just as much as Kamala Harris’ defeat, has prompted Democrats to reconsider the role that identity politics plays in their coalition. “Identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo,” said Elissa Slotkin, who just won a Senate race in Michigan. said during a meeting of Democratic colleagues. “Identity politics did not work electorally and failed miserably strategically,” Rahm Emanuel said Policy. “Some Democrats are finally waking up,” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote“and realize that the revival is broke.”
It is a significant change. At the height of the “Great Awakening” As white liberals moved to the left of the typical black voter on issues of race and racism, a faction of progressive intellectuals convinced themselves that identity politics was the future of liberalism. They had noble intentions: they saw persistent inequalities in society, felt frustrated that change was not happening more quickly, and therefore advocated for increasingly radical measures to redress what they perceived as injustices. And they changed the Democratic Party. Harris was one of the politicians who seemed to buy into their rhetoric, in a way that would haunt her he later ran for president.
Most Americans agree with progressives that racism And sexism are still problems. But proponents of identity politics erred in assuming that the same majority would engage in the pursuit of fairness rather than equality. The results are therefore promising: it is necessary to put the Democratic Party back in line with ordinary voters. And America would benefit if either of its major parties rejected policies that view race, gender, and other identities as the most important elements of a person.
But there is also a danger: identity politics is vague and rarely defined. When press To express their objections, most critics of identity politics can cite examples. But making fun of specific excesses…unpopular neologisms such as Latinx, racial litmus teststhe push towards change from LGBTQ to comically untenable LGBTQIA2S+ ––doesn’t specify how to stop them without giving up worthy policy efforts has help identity groups.
“There is a real risk of overcorrection,” said Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner. warned in a recent opinion article. “Without a thorough critique of what went wrong and a thoughtful path forward, we could end up abandoning a vital tool for connection and understanding. » Democrats need a guiding principle. The most promising is equal treatment. Majorities of each racial band appreciate it, probably because they see how much good the civil rights movement did by rooting itself in that ideal, and how abandoning that ideal could harm everyone. Violation of equal treatment should be prohibited.
The is a progressive identity The attack on equal treatment is explicit and radical in its implications. In a 2020 Voice essay who defended identity politics, Zack Beauchamp favorably cited the late philosopher Iris Marion Young. She argued that “the specificity of each group requires a specific set of rights for each, and for some a more comprehensive system than for others.” According to Beauchamp, identity politics was both the savior and future of American liberalism, and “true equality requires treating groups differently rather than the same.”
But “treating groups differently” is not politically viable: Try telling a diverse group of Americans who gets the best treatment, who gets middle-of-the-road treatment, and who will be treated worst.
Most Americans prefer a universalist view: True equality requires treating people the same, regardless of their identity group. So no segregated dining, no firing an employee for being gay, no stops and searches that racially profile black pedestrians, And no college admissions officer who slanders Asian American applicants. When progressive identitarians argue for “good” discrimination against members of groups they deem privileged, they sever their coalition’s historical connection to equal treatment and civil rights laws. They also weaken vital, hard-won norms and invite sectarian excesses.
A useful assessment would reaffirm equal treatment and its fundamental corollaries. For example: stop slandering entire identity groups. And view any group discrimination as both irrational and wrong.
During Donald Trump’s first campaign for president, ideologically diverse critics denounced him for stating that “when Mexico sends its citizens, they are not sending their best… They are bringing drugs . They bring crime. They are rapists. And some, I suppose, are good people. This backlash has been fueled in part by Americans like me who believe attacks on groups are misleading, divisive and weaken the country.
But even if the populist right accelerated his corrosive rhetoricthe identitarian left violated similar norms against several groups. During Trump’s first term, Harvard was caught giving lower personality scores to Asian American applicants. Joe Biden declared in 2020, black Americans aren’t sure they’ll vote for him “isn’t it black.” In a secretly recorded meeting in 2022, Los Angeles City Council members denigrated Oaxacans and Black people while discussing how to consolidate Latino political power at the expense of Black Angelenos. After the October 7 attacks, some Jewish students and faith-based organizations were targets of anti-Israel activists simply because of their Jewishness. White women are a particularly common target of left-wing identitarians – these headlines have all appeared in major media outlets in the past five years: “How White Women Use Themselves as Instruments of Terror” (The New York Times); “White women, come and get your people” (The New York Times); “I refuse to listen to white women cry” (The Washington Post); “How White Women Condemned Kamala Harris and the Democrats – Again” (The New Republic); “I broke up with her because she’s white” (The New York Times); “The Role of White Women in White Supremacy, Explained” (Voice).
Just like Republicans paid the price when Rush Limbaugh made offensive statements about womenDemocrats pay the price when prominent individuals and institutions associated with their coalition show contempt for a large group of voters. And regardless of the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects, peddling negative stereotypes about any identity group is wrong and contagious.
Adopting “equal treatment for all” will also mean rejecting racially discriminatory practices. Some proponents of identity politics favor crossing the line into discrimination – arguing, for example, that rare, life-saving vaccines should be given to members of “structurally and historically disadvantaged” groups, “even if this means that overall life years gained may be lower.”
Other examples include: a Democratic mayor of a major city announcing that she will not grant interviews to white journalists; a first-time homebuyer program in Washington state exclusion of candidates on the basis of race; guidelines for access to COVID-19 treatments in New York which included race as a consideration; faculty search committees where the race of the candidates is openly and illegally discussed as a hiring factor; progressive activists organize a day when they tell white people to stay away from a public college campus; a large medical institution penalization a doctor of Filipino origin for “internalized whiteness” after opposing racial segregation in healthcare; submit a professor from a Pennsylvania state university to a racially hostile climate during training sessions.
This trend is not Jim Crow or even stop and frisk, but it is a worrying step backwards. And politically speaking, “equality requires treating groups differently” is a losing message. In California, one of the most progressive states in the country, voters decided in 1996 that college admissions should be done without regard to race. Progressives attempted to restore differential treatment in 2020, and California voters racial preferences rejected Again by an even wider margin than before. In 2019, the Pew Research Center request whether employers should consider a candidate’s race and ethnicity when hiring and promotions, or consider their qualifications exclusively, even if it results in less diversity. Seventy-four percent of respondents were in favor of considering only qualifications. Majorities of white, black, Hispanic and Democratic respondents all agreed on this conclusion.
To do good for the country – and to perform better in the next election – Democrats don’t need to abandon identity politics entirely. Their coalition can celebrate Pride and Black History Month, oppose Muslim bans, urge companies to recruit from racially and ethnically diverse candidate pools, and much more, as long as it rejects also the least popular and most harmful identity excesses of the party. If Democrats renounce identity stereotypes and discrimination, their coalition will benefit, and so will America.