Identity Politics Come From the Center, Not the Left.
Let's set the record straight.
If you’re like me, you probably feel a lot like the time-traveling Doctor Manhattan. Captured in the flat circle of time, we’re currently hearing the Democrats offer the same excuse as their last loss to Donald Trump. It’s “identity politics,” they say. Given the party’s chronic inability to change, they’ll likely still be parroting this when Candace Owens becomes the first woman President in 2036. The reason for this repetition is clear as day. Centrist Democrats have used identity politics to browbeat the left for so long that they forgot they’re the ones who promoted hollow platitudes in place of progressive policy.
Say A Lot, Do Nothing.
Identity politics means something different to everyone. When I speak of identity politics, I mean the superfluous language that helps a politician or entity imply they are pursuing the interests of an identity group without actually doing so. It’s the last part of that definition that is important. Too often, identity politics is derided as “helping minorities or marginalized identities.” But a politician pledging to reduce police violence in Black neighborhoods or protect gay marriage isn’t doing identity politics. That’s actual politics, the process of earning votes through pledged action and policy changes. Identity politics is when someone uses symbolism to gain favor with an identity group, but ultimately has no intention of materially helping them. Here’s an example of identity politics that will make your skin crawl. Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton told The Breakfast Club she carries hot sauce 24/7. It was a pathetic attempt to pander to Black voters, which she was immediately called out on.
As is common in the political environment, somewhere along the way, the term identity politics lost its meaning. It soon became a derisive catch-all for anything considered to be favored by the political left: land acknowledgments, pronouns in your Twitter bio, or any other linguistic device that challenges Americans’ sensibilities that we’re Jesus’s Favorite Country. Nowadays, identity politics has become just another blanket term (woke, political correctness, etc.) used to conjure images of blue-haired leftists for other people to blame their problems on. Notable Democrats are currently doing just that. From Fox News to MSNBC, politicians are blaming identity politics as the reason their party handed Republicans a trifecta. In the video below, Senator-elect Elissa Slotkin tells former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki that the Democrats “have to stop obsessing about identity politics.”
As reported by Dave Weigel, Slotkin’s claim wasn’t just for the cameras. She repeated it to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Slotkin is correct about identity politics. But not in the way she thinks.
Other Democrats have joined this wave, pointing the finger at “politically correct language” and identity advocacy groups (The ACLU, GLAAD, etc.) that operate inside the Democratic coalition. Recently, New York Congressman Dan Goldman told Bloomberg:
“Identity politics does not work. Those who are focusing on, you know, all of these identity issues and political correctness are generally not the ones who are worried about the price of groceries.”1
Pennsylvania representative Brendan Boyle echoed similar points to Politico:
“Every time some group tells us to use some language, we get scared we’re going to get canceled or primaried, so we clam up and look stupid and out of touch.”2
Adam Jentleson, the former chief of staff for Senator John Fetterman, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times reiterating this point.
Jentleson provides a few examples of such groups.
Based on these statements, you would think the Democratic National Committee is a group of vulnerable , powerless politicians, endlessly bullied left by the woke mob. Reading these, my mind can only fathom one question for those who think the Democratic Party is beholden to the left’s identity politics — What the hell are you talking about?
We Tried to Warn You
If you only listened to Jentleson, Slotkin, Goldman, and Boyle, you would think identity politics is a product of the progressive left, forced on Democrats who would rather focus on the kitchen table economic issues. This is backward. Identity politics have been establishment Democrats’ tool against the left, not the other way around. Returning to Bernie Sander’s presidential bids, we see clear as day how centrist Democrats use identity-based language to give the appearance they are to the left of progressive challengers.
Faced with a leftist challenger in 2016 and 2020, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden played up their progressive rhetoric to combat Sanders’ more progressive policies. Instead of adopting his economic messaging, Hillary Clinton pretended Bernie Sanders was a secret bigot, saying his popular economic policies were not enough to end systemic racism and sexism.
This statement suggests that Clinton is to the left of Sanders (she wants to end racism and sexism, he doesn’t) while ensuring her Wall Street donors that she won’t threaten their capitalist dominance. As we all know, Clinton’s non-existent economic message was a critical factor in her defeat. That’s identity politics from the “reasonable centrist” candidate, not the leftist one.
During his second attempt at the Democratic nomination, Sanders went on Joe Rogan’s podcast and discussed the economic issues people like Elissa Slotkin are only now catching on to. Joe Biden, then his primary opponent, tried to yet again appear to be more progressive than Sanders through rhetoric, not policy. He published the below tweet, implying the Vermont Senator shared Rogan’s transphobia.
Sanders has led the charge on Medicare For All, a policy that would materially improve the lives of trans (and cis) Americans by helping them access necessary health care. Joe Biden ran against that policy. Again, centrists wielded the meaningless identity politics language as a cudgel against the progressive left. It was not forced upon them by ultra-woke special interest groups but an attempt to deceive voters into choosing the more conservative option.
Despite the name, identity politics aren’t just limited to politics. They have become the weapon of choice for progressively-branded companies that wish customers would forget they are profit-obsessed capitalist behemoths. Back in 2022, the CEO of REI gave us the identity politics crown jewel while attempting to bust his workers’ union.
This corporatist lunacy is a *chef’s kiss* example of why centrists employ identity politics and the rhetoric (but never the practice) of progress. By sharing his pronouns and acknowledging the genocide of Indigenous populations, REI’s CEO is attempting to trick his workers into believing he is on the political left, so that they will trust his assessment “a union isn’t right for REI.” In reality, this performative bullshit was handed to him five minutes earlier by an anti-union consultant as a sinister (but hilariously unconvincing) cover for his actual politics, ruthless capitalism that motivates him to break collective bargaining to preserve REI’s profits. I can personally attest that this equality-sounding union busting tactic is common beyond the outdoor gear provider. I once worked for a company that used the term “folx” in a statement to end a wage transparency initiative. As someone who spends most of his time in leftist circles, never once have I encountered this bizarre term in any progressive discussion. The only time I heard it was when my job was threatened if I talked to my coworkers about our salaries.
Though less cartoonish, this is the same tactic Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and the rest of the DNC establishment wielded against Bernie Sanders. Unable to run to his left on policy but still wanting to win progressive-minded young voters in the primaries, they employed cynical identity politics to try and trick minority and marginalized identities into supporting them. And now they’re reaping what they sowed.
While I’m sure some voters were moved by their nice-sounding language, most recognized the flower-coated centrism as disingenuous. They saw through it and knew Clinton, Biden, and Harris were traditional corporatists attempting to appeal to the younger generations. But pride flags and BLM stickers are not sufficient to cover up a platform of imperialism and capitalism, which the American people no longer want. With an easy-to-see-through veneer of social progress and no compelling economic message, Clinton and Harris lost to Trump. Biden won in 2020, but that’s looking more and more like a COVID-caused fluke and not an electoral rebuke of MAGAism. Now, the very same Democrats who made identity politics a central pillar of their party are trying to pin its failings on the left. It might work when they’re sitting across from friendly news anchors, but that is as far as the lie will travel.
Ask any trans person if they’d rather have accessible gender-affirming healthcare or a President with He/Him in his bio. I’m sure they’ll choose the former, as would any worker given the choice between a union and a CEO’s shitty land acknowledgment. Identity politics were a weapon Democrats used against leftist challengers focused on economic populism, a platform they now claim to be desperate for. Elissa Slotkin is right. Democrats do need to focus more on the issues that keep people up at night. But it is the likes of her, an AIPAC-backed former CIA officer, and not the political left, that has prioritized hollow language instead of delivering gains for the working class. They chose #BLM instead of defunding the police, pronouns in their bios instead of trans-inclusive healthcare, and spent 30 minutes on a picket line instead of passing the Protect the Right to Organize Act. If Democrats adopted even the lightest form of class warfare and named millionaires and billionaires as the enemy of the working people, they would be electorally rewarded. They chose the opposite, failed, and are now trying to retcon themselves as The Serious People in the Room.
Democrats made their bed with identity politics. So, I encourage them to shut up and lie in it.
If you appreciate this article, please like (click the ❤️), share it with a friend, and subscribe. Premium subscribers are the backbone of JoeWrote. If you get at least one coffee’s worth of enjoyment or information from reading my work a month, please consider upgrading to a premium membership. Thank you!
In Solidarity — Joe
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nyc-democratic-congressmen-blast-party-164155113.html
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/13/democrats-2024-defeat-identity-politics-message-column-00189118
100% agree. Identity Politics has always been a way for the Democrats to garner support from marginalized communities without actually doing anything for them and without having to challenge private power.
And I think what exposed Identity Politics as a farce was how many of the chief purveyors of it reacted to Bernie Sanders, who was running a class-centered campaign that would've benefited everyone. You cited a few examples and here's a few more.
-Angela Davis came out and said that Bernie Sanders was weak on the issue of racism
-Ta-Nehisi Coates came out and said that Bernie Sanders was weak on the issue of reparations
-Gloria Steinem came out and said that the only reason young women were going to Bernie rallies was to meet boys
-Kimberly Crenshaw came out and said that the real revolution wasn't coming from Bernie Sanders, but from corporations like Amazon marketing themselves to BLM and Pride (yes, she actually said).
Identity Politics is a centrist farce to pretend to be socially progressive without threatening private power.
I agree. Deliverism and universalism ought to be the cornerstones of the left’s strategy as a whole.
As an aside, I recall reading a couple of articles by a Princeton and a Berkeley historian (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/17/identity-politics-history-mark-lilla-215607/ and https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/16/17242748/identity-politics-racial-justice-democratic-party-lilla-traub-trump) stating that identity politics shouldn’t be done away with because coalition-building helped Truman win re-election in 1948, and that the Party and Black labor leaders were in a dialectic that at first came from the bottom up.
I’m also reminded of the alliance of Mexican and Filipino grape pickers that resulted in the United Farm Workers (https://globalnation.inquirer.net/103659/delano-manongs-the-story-cesar-chavez-the-movie-ignored), which made UFW founder Dolores Huerta’s endorsements of Clinton, Biden and Harris a little jarring, but that’s the nature of labor leaders and their variety, I guess.