I tend to dislike identity politics. I find it shallow and regressive, and as a straight, white man, it is none too fond of me either. I had heard rumblings about liberal backlash against identity politics after the election of Donald Trump, as if women of colour existing had suddenly brought about the rise of fascism, but I disregarded this because it’s stupid. Then, like too many stupid things, it became my problem when I had to listen to someone defend this position in a podcast that I follow. They asserted along similar lines that because the Democrats had too closely linked themselves to identity politics, that Trump was able to seize the economic narrative and soar to authoritarian heights on promises of increased prices through tariffs and trade wars with traditional allies. Clearly a persuasive argument.
At this point I think it’s important to define our terms because what was described in the podcast was any reference to white supremacy or gender issues as “identity politics.” This is never how I’ve ever understood the term. Identity politics in the pejorative sense is the inclusion of a traditional minority into the established mainstream and calling it progressive without changing anything real or substantial. So Disney remaking all of its classics with women of colour in the lead role is identity politics because it’s a shallow cash grab pretending to be something new and edgy because Ariel is black now. Or Hilary Clinton platforming her gender as the primary reason to vote for her in the “I’m With Her” campaign slogan. Or corporations coming out with rainbow-tinged logos for Pride month while raising prices to accommodate such woke largesse. All this capitalistic tokenism is then interpreted as leftism because homosexuality and vaginas are seen as intrinsically leftist concepts! It’s all stupid and fake, but because the people behind this empty astroturf ideology often have all of the money, it becomes the focus of political discourse because it’s so polarizing and in your face (Am I saying that women of colour shouldn’t be movie leads or run for president!?! How dare I!? Get at me in the YouTube comments!).
I didn’t see a ton of that in the last election from the Harris and Walz campaign, and though I didn’t obviously see every single campaign ad, I certainly heard contemporary coverage approving of that campaign for not fixating on Harris’s identity as a Homeric blasian heroine. Somewhat ironically, the worst I saw were ads focusing on Tim Walz as the folksy white football coach, trying to pander to the superficial identity of the traditional right. Frankly, I saw more identity politics from the Republican side with Trump literally questioning Harris’s blackness, and their ad saying that, ”Harris is for they/them, and Donald Trump is for you!” using the identity of non-binary people in purely shallow framing to fearmonger an Us versus Them dynamic. Per this metric, identity politics were actually quite successful in this last election, and maybe the Democrats should have done more to categorize people into these simplistic labels for the sake of petty politics!
The important thing to keep in mind during this tiresome deliberation is that class is a marker of identity! To suggest that the Democrats ought to focus solely on the economy and not “identity politics” is to miss the truism that all politics is inherently based on identity! The suffragette movement was identity-based. The civil rights movement was identity-based. The New Deal’s G.I. bill was identity-based – it was dedicated to veterans! Drug laws are for drug users; prostitution laws are for sex workers; healthcare is related to the spectrum of ability. All of us exist across intersections of identity, and all laws and policies bleed across them in varying ways. The G.I. Bill brought so many Americans into the middle class after World War II, but only if we define those Americans as white. So too the Nazis brought Germany out of the Great Depression, but their own infamous identity politics left much to be desired beyond the economic recovery. Class and more populist economic policy is something the Democrats certainly need to absorb into their political philosophy (as per their stunning defeat to Donald Trump on this issue), but this literally cannot be detached from identity, nor should it. We cannot talk about Trump barring refugees from everywhere in the world save for those “fleeing” from a manufactured genocide in South Africa without discussing white supremacy. We cannot talk about the impacts of overturning Roe without acknowledging that the people affected by that the most are those with a uterus. These are atrocities, and ignoring them is tantamount to ignoring the “identity politics” of the Nazis as they resurrected Germany’s economy. We cannot and should not. Identity is a web; class is connected to everything else which is in turn connected to class.
So what the fuck are people even talking about? The podcast guest later in the show gets in a heated argument with the host over how Palestinian deaths aren’t being fairly reported in American mainstream media, in blatant hypocrisy to his earlier dismissal of identity politics as worth mentioning. Per his meltdown, you would think he had forgotten that being Muslim or Palestinian is just as much an identity as being white or a woman. Should we ignore the genocide in Gaza? He would disagree, strenuously, but that is “identity politics” per his definition! I guess identity only matters when it’s one of your own. While this was not explicit in the show, and I think I’m just extrapolating this from the broader political discourse and think it’s irrelevant to what they actually think on that podcast, but this disregard toward identity is entirely about trans-people. When people say that Democrats should focus on the economy and not on “identity politics” without giving a definition of what that means, they mean that they’re fine with throwing trans-people under the bus if it means that everyone else can get the Medicare for all. This is the only thing that makes sense given the arguments and hypocrisies they are making.
Harris was criticized because she believed prisoners should be able to access gender-affirming care if they needed it. This is not identity politics in the actual definition of the term, this is a genuine, honest-to-goodness policy. It’s policy for a particular identity, in the way that voting rights have historically been for particular identities, but it’s healthcare policy. People on the left and the right spoke about it as if it were superficial and unnecessary identity politics because acknowledging the healthcare needs of the transgender community is seen as superficial and unnecessary, akin to a rainbow Nike swoosh. If we don’t see transgenderism as a real thing, if it’s a disguise for attention or sexual predation, then it’s easy to dismiss their legitimate needs as shallow and fake. This isn’t something unique to the right. Much of the so-called left struggles with the needs of transgender people too, which, to be clear, is mostly social acceptance and healthcare and is not to participate in elite-level sports.
Democrats, and liberal governments across the globe, are failing in how they address the economic needs of their citizens, and it is fair and necessary to criticize them on that failure. More than criticize, disrupt and dismantle them for something better. Do not, however, try to suggest that “identity politics” is the barrier to that kind of economic and social change when you really mean acknowledging the existence of trans-people. Corporate gimmicks and Disney remakes should also be criticized too, but they are not leftist; the capitulation to fascism among the ownership class shows the hollowness of their “progressivism” quite clearly. You can continue to trash identity politics, as I am sure I will too, but be honest in your bigotry and stop pretending that you’re advocating for a social restructuring for all.
Blog for Chumps 