A PUBLICATION OF HILLSDALE COLLEGE

ImpriOVER 3,700,000mi READERS MONTHLYs November 2017 • Volume 46, Number 11

The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution Matthew Continetti Editor-in-Chief, Washington Free Beacon

MATTHEW CONTINETTI, the editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, received his B.A. from . Prior to joining the Beacon, he was opinion editor of . The author of The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine and The Persecution of : How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star, Continetti’s articles and reviews have appeared in , , the Financial Times, the , and .

The following is adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on October 24, 2017, during a two-week teaching residency at Hillsdale as a Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Journalism.

The beginnings of identity politics can be traced to 1973, the year the first volume of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago—a book that demolished any pretense of communism’s moral authority—was published in the West. The ideologi- cal challenge of socialism was fading, its fighting spirit dwindling. This presented a challenge for the Left: how to carry on the fight against capitalism when its major ideological alternative was no longer viable? The Left found its answer in an identity politics that grew out of anti-colonialism. Marx’s class struggle was reformulated into an ethno-racial struggle—a ceaseless competition between colonizer and colonized, victimizer and victim, oppressor and HILLSDALE COLLEGE: PURSUING TRUTH • DEFENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1844

oppressed. Instead of presenting col- new departments of “studies”: African- lectivism and central planning as the American Studies, Women’s Studies, gateway to the realization of genuine Queer Studies, Chicano Studies, Gender freedom, the new multiculturalist Left Studies, and so on. “What these radicals turned to unmasking the supposed blandly call multiculturalism,” wrote power relations that subordinated Irving Kristol, minorities and exploited third world nations. is as much a “war against the The original battleground was the West” as Nazism and Stalinism American university, where, as Bruce ever were. Under the guise of Bawer writes in The Victims’ Revolution: multiculturalism, their ideas— The Rise of Identity Politics and the whose radical substance often goes Closing of the Liberal Mind, beyond the bounds of the political into sheer fantasy—are infiltrating The point [became] simply to our educational system at all levels. “prove”—repetitively, endlessly— certain facile, reductive, and This revolution in American uni- invariably left-wing points versities was accomplished swiftly and about the nature of power largely outside the public eye. What and oppression. In this new little resistance the radicals met was version of the humanities, all vanquished with accusations of racism. of Western civilization is not It was not until the late 1980s, with Jesse analyzed through the use of Jackson’s presidential campaigns, the reason or judged according to battle over the Stanford core curriculum, aesthetic standards that have been and the publication of Allan Bloom’s The developed over centuries; rather, it Closing of the American Mind, that the is viewed through prisms of race, rise of identity politics on campus and class, and gender, the idea of “political and is hailed or correctness” became Imprimis (im-pri-mis),−´ condemned in [Latin]: in the first place a page one story. By accordance with that time, however, it certain political EDITOR was too late. Alumni, Douglas A. Jeffrey checklists. DEPUTY EDITORS trustees, and parents Matthew D. Bell had no recourse. The Timothy W. Caspar Under the new Samantha Strayer American univer- leftist dispensation, ART DIRECTOR sity was irrevocably Shanna Cote the study of English MARKETING DIRECTOR changed. became the applica- William Gray There have been PRODUCTION MANAGER tion of critical and Lucinda Grimm liberal critics of iden- literary theory to STAFF ASSISTANTS tity politics through Robin Curtis disparate texts so Kim Ellsworth the years. In 1991, as to uncover the Mary Jo Von Ewegen historian Arthur

hidden power rela- Copyright © 2017 Hillsdale College Schlesinger, Jr. pub- tions they concealed. The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not lished The Disuniting The study of history necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. of America: Reflections Permission to reprint in whole or in part is became the study hereby granted, provided the following credit on a Multicultural line is used: “Reprinted by permission from of social history or Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.” Society. Schlesinger “people’s history,” the SUBSCRIPTION FREE UPON REQUEST. noted that the Soviet record of Western ISSN 0277-8432 Union had collapsed Imprimis trademark registered in U.S. Civilization’s oppres- Patent and Trademark Office #1563325. in a heap of warring sion of various nationalities and that groups. And popping the state of Yugoslavia up everywhere were was in the process of 2 NOVEMBER 2017 • VOLUME 46, NUMBER 11 < hillsdale.edu doing the same, and asked whether on American society. America would be next. Presenting This year another liberal academic, America as a nation of nations, a shared Columbia humanities professor Mark national culture whose diverse citizenry Lilla, has taken up the banner. “Identity is united behind principles of liberty politics on the left,” he writes, and equal justice, Schlesinger quoted Jean de Crèvecoeur’s 1782 Letters from was at first about large classes an American Farmer: of people . . . seeking to redress major historical wrongs by He is an American, who leaving mobilizing and then working behind him all his ancient pre- through our political institutions judices and manners, receives to secure their rights. But by new ones from the new mode the 1980s, it had given way to of life he has embraced, the new a pseudo-politics of self-regard government he obeys, and the and increasingly narrow, and new rank he holds. . . . Here exclusionary self-definition that individuals of all nations are is now cultivated in our colleges melted into a new race of men. and universities. The main result has been to turn people back onto In 2004, Harvard political scientist themselves, rather than turning Samuel Huntington published Who them outward towards the wider Are We? Huntington examined the world they share with others. stunning immigration, both legal and It has left them unprepared to illegal, from Mexico and argued that it think about the common good was undermining longstanding notions in non-identity terms and what of American national identity. America, must be done practically to Huntington said, has both a creed and a secure it—especially the hard and culture. The creed is formulated in the unglamorous task of persuading founding documents of our nation and people very different from in the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. themselves to join a common The culture derives from the Anglo- effort. Protestant settlers who first peopled North America. Huntington worried Lilla exhorts Democrats to replace about a “hispanicization” of American identity liberalism with civic liberal- culture. ism in the mode of Franklin Roosevelt. This book was controversial, to say That Lilla’s opponents wasted no time the least. Nor was it without weak- in labeling his argument as racist is a nesses. It is hard for this descendant testament to how divided the Left is on of Irish and Italian immigrants to this issue. accept the notion that America’s culture is mono- lithically Anglo-Protestant. Lilla notes that a visitor to Clinton’s Furthermore, Huntington website could open tabs related to tended to underestimate ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities, the importance of the creed but not one related to a shared vision in shaping the culture. But of American community. such criticism should not obscure the fundamental point: Huntington, a Democrat who Despite these intellectual dissi- advised Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 presi- dents, the Democratic Party and liberal dential campaign, shared the same con- elites appear committed to the idea cerns one finds today among Trump that multiculturalism and identity supporters about immigration’s effect politics, combined with the changing 3 HILLSDALE COLLEGE: PURSUING TRUTH • DEFENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1844

demographics of America, will bring Democrats fooled themselves into about an enduring Democratic national thinking that identity politics won majority. The two victories of his two terms when in fact Obama strengthened their assump- precisely the opposite had occurred. tions and set the template for Hillary Obama made his debut on the national Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Lilla notes, stage in the summer of 2004, during for example, that a visitor to Clinton’s the Democratic National Convention website could open tabs related to eth- that nominated John Kerry for presi- nic, religious, and sexual minorities, dent. The only reason anyone remem- but not one related to a shared vision of bers that convention is because of American community. Obama’s keynote address, where he This approach has had catastrophic repudiated the division of American consequences for the Democratic Party. society and famously said, “There’s not “The fatal conclusion the Clinton team a black America and white America made after the Michigan primary and Latino America and Asian debacle,” Democratic pollster Stanley America; there’s the United States of Greenberg writes, “was that she could America.” From the start, Obama’s not win white working-class voters, appeal on the campaign trail was to the and that the ‘rising electorate’ would noblest and most unifying aspects of make up the difference. She finished the American political tradition. her campaign with rallies in inner This didn’t last. Shortly before cities and university towns. Macomb Obama was reelected, he gave an inter- [County, Michigan] got the message.” view where he said his top priority in But the Democrats’ theory behind a second term would be immigration support for identity politics rests on reform that included an amnesty for shaky assumptions. Liberal journal- illegal immigrants. The reason, he ist John B. Judis, who helped originate explained, was that Hispanic turnout the theory with his book The Emerging would win him victory. Here Obama Democratic Majority, has recanted was wrong. Targeted appeals to his thesis. “The U.S. census makes a Hispanic and black voters did not win critical assumption that undermines him reelection. What won him reelec- its predictions of a majority-nonwhite tion were his attacks on Mitt Romney country,” he writes. “It projects that the for not understanding the economic same percentage of people who cur- condition of working Americans. rently identify them- selves as ‘Latino’ or Identity politics is a veneer over the class ‘Asian’ will continue to politics that truly defines our society, and claim those identities education is the best prism through which in future generations. In reality, that’s highly to view class in America today. unlikely.” Intermarriage and assimilation will The most significant and effective affect immigrants from these groups advertisement of the 2012 campaign just as they have affected other immi- was a testimonial from a factory grant groups. What’s more, voting worker who had been laid off during allegiances can change as newcomers one of Romney’s corporate downsiz- are integrated into the majority. There ings. What came to be known as the is also the problem that, as Democrats “coffin ad” drove a wedge between the become more closely identified with Republican nominee and the voters on identity politics, non-minority vot- whom Republican victory depended. ers may swing even more decisively to Four years later, when the Republicans Republicans—continuing the trend we nominated a very different sort of saw in 2016. candidate, these voters switched 4 NOVEMBER 2017 • VOLUME 46, NUMBER 11 < hillsdale.edu

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CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

Walter Russell Mead Nick Lloyd Václav Klaus Roger Kimball Victor Davis Hanson John Steele Gordon Larry P. Arnn

Additional speakers to be announced.

5 HILLSDALE COLLEGE: PURSUING TRUTH • DEFENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1844

allegiances and backed . self-righteous way they meet opposition It is no accident that identity politics to their designs—is seen from outside is most rampant today in the academy, their bubble as provocative. in entertainment, in the media, in As political analyst Sean Trende has Silicon Valley, and in corporate board- written: rooms. Identity politics is a veneer over the class politics that truly defines Consider that over the course of our society, and education is the best the past few years, Democrats and prism through which to view class in liberals have: booed the inclusion America today. Higher levels of educa- of God in their platform at the tion are not only correlated with higher 2012 convention . . . endorsed incomes and better life prospects, but a regulation that would allow also with a greater acceptance of the transgendered students to theories behind identity politics— use the bathroom and locker including the idea, rejected last year room corresponding to their by the voters of the rural Midwest, identity; attempted to force that they are the beneficiaries of white small businesses to cover drugs privilege. they believe induce abortions; The condescension of liberal elites attempted to force nuns to toward the white working class, evan- provide contraceptive coverage; gelical Christians, gun owners, and forced Brendan Eich to step supporters of immigration control and down as chief executive officer of cultural assimilation is as pronounced Mozilla due to his opposition to as it is repulsive. It is summed up in marriage equality; fined a small Hillary Clinton’s writing off of so Christian bakery over $140,000 many voters last year as belonging in a for refusing to bake a cake for a “basket of deplorables”—the converse same-sex wedding; vigorously of Mitt Romney’s similarly destructive opposed a law in Indiana that class-based dismissal of the 47 percent would provide protections of Americans who do not pay income against similar regulations— taxes. (They don’t pay income taxes despite having overwhelmingly because they don’t make enough money supported similar laws when to qualify.) they protected Native American Liberals seem blind to the connec- religious rights—and then tion between the high levels of income scoured the Indiana countryside inequality they criticize and what they trying to find a business that would otherwise call the hegemonic would be affected by the law discourse of identity politics. This is before settling upon a small pizza why Clinton’s comment that breaking place in the middle of nowhere up the big banks would do nothing for and harassing the owners. the minority groups at the base of her campaign was so revealing. It might We tend to view these stories as not do anything for them as members examples of the culture war. They are of identity groups, but perhaps it would more than that: they are examples help them as workers and as citizens. of a coastal, metropolitan, highly Ensconced in affluent city centers schooled upper class warring against and tony suburbs, liberal elites tell the traditions and freedoms of a middle themselves that identity politics will American, exurban and rural, lower- carry them to the progressive future middle and working class with some of their dreams. They appear utterly or no college education. In short, unaware that the radical cultural examples of a privileged few attempting transformation they support—not to to impose their will on a recalcitrant mention the insulting, dismissive, and majority. 6 NOVEMBER 2017 • VOLUME 46, NUMBER 11 < hillsdale.edu

Here is Democratic pollster Stanley from the intermingling of dynamic Greenberg again: peoples and unchanging principles. To combat identity politics, we must empha- Obama’s refrain [of building size an American nationalism based on “ladders of opportunity” for both a commitment to the ideals of the those left behind in the economic American Founding and a shared love recovery] was severely out of touch of our national history and culture—a with what was happening to most history and culture of individual free- Americans and the working class dom and religious pluralism, resistant to more broadly. In our research, centralized authority and ever expanding “ladders of opportunity” fell far into new frontiers and new possibilities. short of what real people were looking We are united by our creed of freedom for. Incomes sagged and equality, and also by our habits, after the financial our manners, our national language, our crisis, pensions lost territorial integrity, our national symbols— value, and many lost such as the National Anthem, the Flag, their housing wealth, while people faced and the Pledge of Allegiance—our civic dramatically rising traditions, and our national story. costs for things that mattered—health care, education, The American people are united housing, and child care. People by our creed of freedom and equality, faced vanishing geographic, and also by our habits, our manners, economic, and social mobility. . . . our national language, our territorial At the same time, billionaires spent integrity, our national symbols—such as massively to influence politicians the National Anthem, the Flag, and the and parked their money in the big Pledge of Allegiance—our civic tradi- cities whose dynamism drew in the tions, and our national story. We should best talent from the smaller towns tell that story forthrightly and proudly; and cities. we should continue our traditions of local government and patriotic displays; we The result of this class conflict is an should guard the symbols of our heritage America in danger of coming apart. against attack; and we should recog- “Liberals must take seriously Americans’ nize that the needs of our citizens take yearning for social cohesion,” writes priority. Peter Beinart in The Atlantic Monthly. We should also remember the words But despite the efforts of liberals like of a great American nationalist, Abraham Beinart and Lilla, the Left faces obstacles Lincoln, at the close of his First Inaugural to stitching America back together. The Address: wealthiest and most energetic segments of the Left are committed to multicultural- We are not enemies, but friends. ism on the one hand and transnational- We must not be enemies. Though ism on the other. What is more, the Left passion may have strained it must rejects the natural rights theory of the not break our bonds of affection. American Founding at the core of our The mystic chords of memory, tradition. stretching from every battlefield What has traditionally held Americ- and patriot grave to every living ans together is the idea that each of us heart and hearthstone all over this is made in the image of our Creator and broad land, will yet swell the chorus endowed with certain unalienable rights. of the Union, when again touched, But not only that idea. We are also held as surely they will be, by the better together by the culture that emanates angels of our nature. 7