Identity Politics favors the dominant group

Because it is, after all, the dominant group.

"Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Western Civ has got to go."

And "the white race and all its works are a cancer upon the Earth."

That kind of talk plays straight into the hands of the mini-Fuhrer in America and all his like in Europe.

But it grossly distorts and misrepresents the real politics and views of the overwhelming majority of the center-left and left voters and their parties, who are after all both white and native born, both in Europe and in America.

Still, it's not the Democrats - nor the whites who are the majority of them - who today defend and even revere monuments to the white people who betrayed the Union in 1860 and fought a war to build a rump republic that would never end black slavery for as far into the future as anyone could then see, on purpose and for that very reason and no other.

Or who either by implication or outright attack the president who defeated those traitor armies.

How are the left and center-left - most of whom by far don't say - or think - such extreme things, anyway - supposed to talk about the criminal and vicious tribalism of the right in the US or in Europe and its horrific real world effects in both places without in a measure exacerbating the problem?

It's not, after all, nothing but venting or seeking "psychic release".

These are realities that have to be named and criticized.

Not a hint, in this article.

Doubtless because it can't be done.

Still, one can and should avoid being needlessly provocative.

I suppose.

Why identity politics benefits the right more than the left

In a fascinating study, Karen Stenner shows in The Authoritarian Dynamic that while some individuals have “predispositions” towards intolerance, these predispositions require an external stimulus to be transformed into actions. 

Or, as another scholar puts it: “It’s as though some people have a button on their foreheads, and when the button is pushed, they suddenly become intensely focused on defending their in-group … 

"But when they perceive no such threat, their behavior is not unusually intolerant. So the key is to understand what pushes that button.”

What pushes that button, Stenner and others find, is group-based threats. 

In experiments researchers easily shift individuals from indifference, even modest tolerance, to aggressive defenses of their own group by exposing them to such threats. 

Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richeson, for example, found that simply making white Americans aware that they would soon be a minority increased their propensity to favor their own group and become wary of those outside it. 

(Similar effects were found among Canadians. 

Indeed, although this tendency is most dangerous among whites since they are the most powerful group in western societies, researchers have consistently found such propensities in all groups.)

. . . .

Understanding why Trump found it easy to trigger these reactions requires examining broader changes in American society. 

In an excellent new book, Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason analyzes perhaps the most important of these: a decades-long process of “social sorting”. 

Mason notes that although racial and religious animosity has been present throughout American history, only recently has it lined up neatly along partisan lines. 

In the past, the Republican and Democratic parties attracted supporters with different racial, religious, ideological and regional identities, but gradually Republicans became the party of white, evangelical, conservative and rural voters, while the Democrats became associated with non-whites, non-evangelical, liberal and metropolitan voters.

. . . .

This social sorting has led partisans of both parties to engage in negative stereotyping and even demonization. 

(One study found less support for “out-group” marriage among partisan Republicans and Democrats than for interracial marriage among Americans overall.)

Once the other party becomes an enemy rather than an opponent, winning becomes more important than the common good and compromise becomes an anathema. 

Such situations also promote emotional rather than rational evaluations of policies and evidence. 

Making matters worse, social scientists consistently find that the most committed partisans, those who are the angriest and have the most negative feelings towards out-groups, are the most politically engaged.

What does all this mean for those who oppose Trump and want to fight the dangerous trends his presidency has unleashed?

The short-term goal must be winning elections, and this means not helping Trump rile up his base by activating their sense of “threat” and inflaming the grievances and anger that lead them to rally around him. 

This will require avoiding the type of “identity politics” that stresses differences and creates a sense of “zero-sum” competition between groups and instead emphasizing common values and interests.

Stenner, for example, notes that “all the available evidence indicates that exposure to difference, talking about difference, and applauding difference … are the surest ways to aggravate [the] intolerant, and to guarantee the increased expression of their predispositions in manifestly intolerant attitudes and behaviors. 

Paradoxically, then, it would seem that we can best limit intolerance of difference by parading, talking about, and applauding our sameness … 

Nothing inspires greater tolerance from the intolerant than an abundance of common and unifying beliefs, practices, rituals, institutions and processes.”

Relatedly, research suggests that calling people racist when they do not see themselves that way is counterproductive. 

As noted above, while there surely are true bigots, studies show that not all those who exhibit intolerant behavior harbor extreme racial animus. 

Moreover, as Stanford psychologist Alana Conner notes, if the goal is to diminish intolerance “telling people they’re racist, sexist and xenophobic is going to get you exactly nowhere. 

"It’s such a threatening message. One of the things we know from social psychology is when people feel threatened, they can’t change, they can’t listen.”

This has obvious implications for recent debates about civility. 

Incivility is central to Trump’s strategy – it helps him galvanize his supporters by reminding them how “bad” and “threatening” the other side is.

. . . .

By engaging in even superficially similar tactics, Democrats abet Trump’s ability to do this – as one Trump supporter put it, every time Democrats attack him “it makes me angry, which causes me to want to defend him more” – potentially alienate wavering Republican-leaning independents, and help divert debate from policies, corruption and other substantive issues.

Of course, there is a double standard here and this, along with the psychic release that comes with venting the anger and grievances that have been building over the past year, are the rationales given by the left for incivility. 

But against these must be weighed incivility’s impact on upcoming elections as well as the overall health of democracy. 

(Scholars consistently find that incivility spreads rapidly, generates anger and defensive reactions, demobilizes moderates and activates the strongest partisans, corrodes faith in government, trust in institutions and respect for our fellow citizens.)

. . . .

Perhaps ironically, identity politics is a both more powerful and efficacious for Republicans (and rightwing populists more generally) than it is for Democrats, since the former are more homogeneous.

As long, therefore, as politics is a fight between clearly bounded identity groups, appeals and threats to group identity will benefit Republicans more than Democrats, which is presumably why Steve Bannon infamously remarked that he couldn’t “get enough” of the left’s “race-identity politics”. 

“The longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em ... I want them to talk about race and identity … every day.”