All Politics are Identity Politics

[Meldread]

In the wake of our wipeout in this election, I have returned to reading some books I had started earlier in the year. One of the most important books I am reading is Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government by the esteemed political science professors Christopher H. Achen of Princeton and Larry M. Bartels of Vanderbilt University. Their book examines the how and why people vote, and it directly challenges the popular perceptions that we have of how democracy actually works. If we are going to properly examine what went wrong in this election, it's my belief that this book has to be the cornerstone of any argument that is made. It explains so many things that we consistently run into, such as why people reject facts in favor of their whacked out beliefs. It explains why people vote against their self-interest. It makes many of the questions and problems that we face much more clear, and the short version of the book is this: all politics are identity politics.

For those of you not interested in reading an entire book, there is a lecture given by the professors online. That lecture can be found here.

What is most disturbing is that they seem to have inadvertently validated the philosophical work of Carl Schmitt, a man who went on to become a Nazi. ...which is frightening, considering the neo-Nazi White Nationalists so-called "Alt-Right" that is backing Donald Trump. You can learn more about Carl Schmitt's work and how it relates to Donald Trump here in this video.

I am interested in the thoughts people have on this.

[Bucky]

1. there is identity which affirms including all Americans in our culture. That's the good kind of ID

but too many white Americans heard expressions of identity as being anti white. Whiteness became a punchline or a synonym for racism. Not in a deliberate way, of course. Doesn't matter.

In politics, as in advertising, you're not responsible just for what you mean to say, but also for how people come to understand your message through the filter of opposition rhetoric. Message is strategy. We will win when we start to message more inclusively

[Meldread]

2. I was thinking...

...that we needed something more akin to a 'Super Identity' one that draws upon the core values of the left, emphasizing things like individual liberty, unity, etc. Think about Obama's 2004 DNC Convention Speech about 'red states and blue states.' A highly patriotic and unifying message and identity.

However, for things to be effective, we also need an enemy. This is how the right does it. They just single out minorities. We could target the so-called "Alt-Right" as the enemy. This creates a contrast between them and us and allows us to use fuzzy patriotic messages to unite a supermajority under a single banner.