The Problem Isn't Identity Politics

[Written November 2016]

In the wake of a historic electoral defeat, it’s no surprise that the economic left and the classical liberal wings of the Left are using it against the dominant movement of identity politics. Many if not most of the things they are saying about IP’s contribution to the defeat are overblown, but that’s how most rhetorical battles are going to go. IP in the Left overall has earned a lot of enemies, and it’s no surprise their enemies are striking back when it’s looking bearish.

But don’t get misled. There is nothing inherently bad about identity politics. It is not responsible for the current state of affairs of terrible tumblr discourse or Democratic Party losses. It’s not even responsible for who is on the various sides of these debates. Check out this video from 1995.

Yeah that’s Bernie Sanders calling out someone for using a politically incorrect term about gay people. In 1995, when most centrist liberals, like the Clintons, were passing the Defense of Marriage Act (forbidding same sex marriage), he was kicking ass, taking names, and defending gay people from rich white men calling them “homos”.

Now he’s considered one of the leading figures against IP in the Democratic Party. Funny that. Why?

Because some people, Bernie included, will always stand up for what they feel is right. They aren’t afraid of censure even if it’s an extreme minority opinion. And sometimes that “standing up” means “my allies are focusing too much on this issue, I will redirect it to this other issue, even though I agree with both.” Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong, but the world is a much better place for the few times at least they are willing to defend their values against the tide of popular opinion and hatred.

In 1995 few would stand up for IP, so he did. In 2016, few on the Left were talking about economic revolution, so he did. Both times he lost, and both times I’m glad he was there.

(This isn’t about praising Bernie. I find a lot of his plans misguided, and he doesn’t think through the details of his broad goals in a way that reminds me of Trump. He ain’t perfect, and I voted Hillary for various reasons I still stand by. You just can’t deny that he fights the good fight.)

The problem is a monolithic system that can not stand anyone speaking off message, and talking about anything but The Issue Of The Day. A system that supports a centrist who sold them out twenty years ago because she conforms, over someone who stood for gay rights when it was a lonely cause. And then labels that old warhorse a traitor because he doesn’t fall in line on what to emphasize now.

Such a totalizing force is very powerful over its allies, but incurs anger and passion from its enemies. At some point the actual substance of what it’s fighting for doesn’t even really matter, so much as the toxic, constant dynamic of “Are you for us, or against us?”

This is why I don’t talk about why social justice or some candidate is right or wrong so much here. The problem is the system it’s executing as a movement. That’s why I find the study of ideology so interesting, and so important.

Bernie talked about racial minority rights less than Clinton did. But if Trump ever actually gets his jackbooted thugs going and starts kicking out me and my friends, who are you going to trust to hide you: the johnny come lately ideological allies, or the guy in that video from 1995?