Why Americans Can’t Avoid ‘Identity Politics’
We keep discussing our identities. With reference to the book ‘The Once and Future Liberal’.
Writing for the political moment shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Mark Lilla identified what he saw as a core problem: The rights and quality of life of certain identity groups are threatened by American conservatism. His solution: Liberals need to win elections, including local elections to create broad support to accomplish nationwide agendas, so they can restore rights to all citizens.
Just win. Focus on that first. The ends may justify the means.
Lilla said in The Once and Future Liberal that liberals needed to quit “identity politics” to gain sympathy, win political battles, and ultimately have the power to actually uphold rights for specific groups. The strategy was “top-down”: If we could just put good people in power (one imagines), they would manifest rights, representation, and inclusion for specific identity groups, and therefore all our energy should focus on putting good people in power.
Unfortunately, explicitly talking about these rights somehow (in Lilla’s view) was causing liberals to lose elections. And, when liberals lose elections, of course they lack political power to enact their principles. He made a pragmatic…
