Identity Politics. Nobody Likes It, But Everybody Does It.

on Nov 12, 2024

SAN DIEGO -- Had she won, Vice President Kamala Harris would have broken two barriers at once -- becoming the first woman and the first Indian American to be elected president.

And so, naturally, when the Democrat was defeated, Republicans were quick to deliver last rites to what they call "identity politics."

Not so fast. This election was a defeat for Harris, but identity politics will live to fight another day.

What the term means depends on whom you ask. Here's my definition: Identity politics is when you take a personal characteristic of an individual -- gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, etc. -- and construct a political strategy around that one characteristic.

For instance, if a female candidate makes everything about gender. Or if a candidate who is gay builds an entire political campaign around his orientation. Or if a Black person is appointed to a position and it's pretty clear that his or her race provided an advantage.

Identity politics is anything that makes a straight white male feel displaced, uncomfortable or irrelevant. And it's one of the worst things on Earth, at least according to straight white men.

You don't say? Well, look who all of a sudden went colorblind.

A couple of generations ago, white men went out of their way to draw attention to differences between human beings so they could discriminate against those they considered inferior.

Now, some of those same white men want to paper over those differences and pretend that everyone is the same because they're afraid that someone is going to discriminate against them.

What changed? Demographics. This is all about the changing complexion of America and the power shift -- real or imagined -- that occurs when those who were the majority become the minority.

Demographers predict that, perhaps as early as 2042, white people will be a statistical minority in the United States.

It's a reality with which white supremacists -- including those with easy access to deadly assault weapons -- are obsessed. We know this because the mass shooters who slaughtered Mexican Americans in El Paso in 2019 and Black Americans in Buffalo in 2022 left behind manifestos decrying "Great Replacement Theory." That's the racist idea that white people are being displaced and marginalized by immigration and high birth rates within nonwhite populations.

A popular breeding ground for fear and racism is the cultural right. Those folks oppose anything that gives a leg up to anyone who doesn't look like them. They despise affirmative action, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), multiculturalism, race-based scholarships, ethnic studies, critical race theory and, yes, identity politics.

As a Mexican American, much of the outrage over identity politics seems awfully convenient to me. white men get advantages, or a leg up, all the time. And no one tries to make a federal case out of it.

Besides, no one practices identity politics as skillfully as President-elect Donald Trump. When he promotes a philosophy of "America First," Trump wants people to think like Americans. When he talks about how immigrants are "poisoning" the blood of this country, he is appealing to those of us who are native-born. Other times, when he degrades women with an insult or a crude joke, he is signaling to men that we should see things through the lens of their gender.

Also, pick up a textbook on U.S. history. Identity politics is as American as apple pie -- or baklava, or flan, or cannoli.

In the 1700s, Benjamin Franklin used identity politics to rally the Englishmen to keep out German immigrants who were flooding into Pennsylvania. In the 1800s, Chinese immigrants felt the sting of identity politics with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which sought to prevent their kind from entering the country. In the 1900s, anti-Catholic nativists played on the fears of the English and the Germans that Italian immigrants were invading the country and taking jobs.

In any case, I'd find the argument that Trump's victory repudiated identity politics more persuasive if the Trump campaign hadn't printed so many "Latinos for Trump" yard signs, organized so many events targeting Latinos, put Trump before a town hall organized by Spanish-language network Univision and moved so quickly to disavow an anti-Puerto Rico joke told by a racist comedian at a Trump rally.

All that Latino-pandering by Team Trump seems to have paid off. Trump got 46% of the Latino vote, the largest share earned by any Republican presidential candidate in U.S. history.

Republicans shouldn't be attacking identity politics. They should just say "thank you" -- and move along.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.