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How Identity Politics Became All About White Men
Before Trump, Sarah Palin identified the political power of ‘real Americans’
“Identity politics” has been a catchphrase in American political discourse for several decades. It connotes a politics, sometimes a movement, based on race, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality. Identity movements in the United States have typically been the province of women or minority constituencies. In effect, these paradigmatic identity movements have demanded a seat at the table — they seek to redress the condition and the experience of themselves as systematically locked out of the seats of power and well-being and justice that others — those at the American table — have taken for granted.
These movements have been habitually criticized over the years from both left and right. From the left, critics argue that identity politics deprives progressivism of its universalistic appeal that “can still stir the general public.” From the right, critics have most often seen identity politics as pleas for special privileges.
The Tea Party, the Trump movement, and the alt-right are all identity movements.
But leading up to the Trump era, conservatives carved out their own kind of identity politics. In her 2008…
