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When you think about how much this election is about identity politics, it's really very interesting.
We have the question on Muslims. We have a question on evangelicals. We have the question on Hispanics. We have the question on African Americans. We have the question on whites. We have the question on women. This particular election seems entirely about how much different subgroups are going to identify with the candidates (or their party) and it's taken priority over the actual policy positions. The guy on one of the Sunday morning talk shows was mentioning that, since 2012, the GOP has spent more time and money on outreach to blacks, hispanics, and women than any political party ever. I thought it was insightful.
This isn't a new phenomenon. It's really just the latest manifestation of what has been a steady trend in political strategy since the days of integration. I'm not going to highlight the Southern Strategy, although it certainly plays a role.
The reason it matters more now than ever before is because various subgroups represent larger shares of the electorate than ever before. This means that if those subgroups feel excluded from a political party, they have little reason to take that party's policy positions seriously...even if it's beneficial to them. Similarly, so long as a political party feels that they can ignore a subgroup, they have little reason to explore the nuances of policy that actually benefit everyone over the subgroups they don't ignore. We end up with political parties preaching to the choir so to speak.
If parties found a way to be more inclusive of identity groups, instead of holding them up as the enemy, then we might be able to return a world where competing policy positions were really about the best overall strategy and less about championing one identity group and/or dismissing the needs of the others. Which is where I think we are - I don't think many of the domestic policies that we hear about are really about improving the nation, so much as they are about telegraphing to one identity group or another a sense of inclusion...or, in some cases, a sense of exclusion.
And because someone is always going to assume otherwise - yes, I'm talking about both parties equally and yes, I'm including white people as a subgroup...because they are. White middle class and white upper class and white working class all vote differently based on their sense of inclusion/exclusion to one party or another (more specifically, I think they vote differently based on their birth circumstances, not their actual achievement outcomes). But back to the point - yes, they're an identity subgroup for the purpose of this post.
Anyway, that's just my quick opinion given the various threads on the state of the GOP, both now and following the 2012 election and how this trend is actually leading to inferior policy positions for the nation.
We have the question on Muslims. We have a question on evangelicals. We have the question on Hispanics. We have the question on African Americans. We have the question on whites. We have the question on women. This particular election seems entirely about how much different subgroups are going to identify with the candidates (or their party) and it's taken priority over the actual policy positions. The guy on one of the Sunday morning talk shows was mentioning that, since 2012, the GOP has spent more time and money on outreach to blacks, hispanics, and women than any political party ever. I thought it was insightful.
This isn't a new phenomenon. It's really just the latest manifestation of what has been a steady trend in political strategy since the days of integration. I'm not going to highlight the Southern Strategy, although it certainly plays a role.
The reason it matters more now than ever before is because various subgroups represent larger shares of the electorate than ever before. This means that if those subgroups feel excluded from a political party, they have little reason to take that party's policy positions seriously...even if it's beneficial to them. Similarly, so long as a political party feels that they can ignore a subgroup, they have little reason to explore the nuances of policy that actually benefit everyone over the subgroups they don't ignore. We end up with political parties preaching to the choir so to speak.
If parties found a way to be more inclusive of identity groups, instead of holding them up as the enemy, then we might be able to return a world where competing policy positions were really about the best overall strategy and less about championing one identity group and/or dismissing the needs of the others. Which is where I think we are - I don't think many of the domestic policies that we hear about are really about improving the nation, so much as they are about telegraphing to one identity group or another a sense of inclusion...or, in some cases, a sense of exclusion.
And because someone is always going to assume otherwise - yes, I'm talking about both parties equally and yes, I'm including white people as a subgroup...because they are. White middle class and white upper class and white working class all vote differently based on their sense of inclusion/exclusion to one party or another (more specifically, I think they vote differently based on their birth circumstances, not their actual achievement outcomes). But back to the point - yes, they're an identity subgroup for the purpose of this post.
Anyway, that's just my quick opinion given the various threads on the state of the GOP, both now and following the 2012 election and how this trend is actually leading to inferior policy positions for the nation.
