THIS IS THE book-length-essay version of the NYT op-ed Lilla published about a week after Trump was elected, which got a lot of reaction at the time, both favorable and un-. The key point: the Democrats will never be first past the finish line as long as their main appeal is "identity politics," i.e., issues of moment to women, ethnic minorities, and the LGBTQ community.
Lilla sees identity politics as a legacy of the 1960s New Left, which moved on to academia and left electoral politics behind as too prone to compromise, too grubby, with little of the nobility of movement politics. So the left got any number of English and Sociology departments, and the right got the halls of power.
He has a point, I'd say; identity politics do not lend themselves to coalition building or broad appeals. Thomas Frank made some similar arguments in Listen, Liberal!. Frank concedes, though, that while the Democrats cannot win on identity politics alone, they cannot win without identity politics, either. They matter a lot to lots of people, for excellent reasons. But some partnering has to happen.
That's why Lilla's subtitle seems wrong-headed in its echo of the many calls for the left to get "past" identity politics or "beyond" identity politics. I too find it a little surprising that my students feel passionately about bathrooms but are scarcely interested in raising the minimum wage, or protecting the right to organize a union, or workplace safety. But Lilla's scolding tone--"you kids get off my lawn and go vote for a Democrat!"--would not sway them.
Identity politics will be around for quite a while, I suspect. Where are the candidates who get that, but who also know how to talk about income inequality, affordable higher ed, health care--the Sanders stuff? They have to be out there--I just hope they emerge soon.
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