Identity Politics

“Can you explain to me why Americans voted for Donald Trump?”  came the Facebook message from my friend.  We live and work in Japan, and his question was a mixture of distress, confusion, and genuine desire to know.  In the “information ecosystem” created by the American liberal media and Japanese government here, the only information the Japanese receive about Donald Trump is negative to say the least, and alarming at worst.  So indeed, why?

In reply, I gave him some talking points cited by liberal CNN host Jake Tapper: illegal immigration, the economy, concern over foreign wars, and of course, the economy – or did I say that already?  Inflation…milk…gas…restaurants…did I mention the economy?  In support of that last point, I pointed out that for the first time in my life (and I grew up in Japan as the son of missionaries) Japan has a cheaper cost of living than the US.  People want money back in their pockets.

However, while I agree these are reasons for the landslide Democratic defeat (though I do not applaud them all), upon reflection a larger reason seems to rise, one we call identity politics.

What is identity politics?  The term is relatively new, and hard to define except by anecdote.  However, to take a stab at a definition, it is the proposition that external features of a person such as their race, gender, or sexual behavior, form their core identity.  As a result of these features, certain behavior, character, and values exist in that person and can be expected of them.  So this played out in the selection of Kamala Harris as a candidate.

What do we know about Kamala Harris?  Speaking as an educated and probably averagely-informed American voter, relatively nothing.  We know she rose to political power in California.  That history presents us with several negative or at least suspect facts: she was the mistress of San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and while in that relationship received political favors that catapulted her career.  This incidentally associates her with San Francisco, a city embodying most of the far-left, liberal values much of the country does not hold.  As AG of California she had a predictably liberal record of being soft on crime and pardoning the guilty.  She became a Senator, and appeared abrasive and abusive in several video clips.  Then, all of a sudden she was chosen to be Vice President for no other apparent reason than her race and skin color.

So voters are left scratching their heads: what we know about Kamala is that she is a liberal woman from California who apparently slept her way to the top, pardoned a bunch of criminals then threw her weight around in the US Senate before being chosen to be VP.  There is nothing positive in that assessment about her character, vision, or accomplishments.  We know nothing about what she did except to vote against a border wall 50 times (then say she approved it while running for president), be against fracking, and for trans rights.  So we know nothing about her and are left to wonder, why is she even the candidate for the Democratic party?

The answer seems to lie in identity politics.  It seems that the main reason Kamala was chosen to represent the votes of 71 million Americans, is that she is supposedly black and a woman.  Her being black (although Jamaican and not African-American) we are told means certain things: she is sympathetic to the underclass, compassionate, perhaps anti-capitalist?  I don’t know.  As for her being a woman, the main idea there seems to be that it’s high time a woman was president instead of a man.

But again, we are left with the idea that externals are more important than internals, that features external to what a person really is, are what define that person and what we should value and therefore elect that person.  Or to reverse the aphorism of Martin Luther King Jr., we are told the color of skin is more valuable than the content of character.  And to add to that, more important than accomplishments and values. 

The problem is, Americans are looking for character over color, especially in a year when months are longer than money, and Putin slaughters Ukraine. Many of us don’t really care if she is black or not – it is certainly not a liability in our minds but nor is it necessarily an automatic positive.  The issue of gender is admittedly a little more significant, for those of us who believe there are measurable differences between the sexes.  However, this does not mean we would automatically reject a candidate because she is a woman.  No, what we are really looking to see is who are you on the inside?  Are you a courageous, fair but tough, kind person who can take criticism?  Are you honest?  Do you believe what you are saying, or are you just saying whatever? 

We want to know about your accomplishments: what, concretely, have you done politically besides pardon a bunch of criminals in the most liberal state in the Union and get elected Senator from there?  What adversity have you faced in accomplishing a goal?  This is important to us in our leadership and in selecting a person for what is arguably the most responsible job in the world.

We want to know about your values: what do you really believe?  Having positions and then changing every single one in an election year is not showing courage, principle, or honesty.  Answering questions evasively with “word salads”, or with pivoting to “Donald Trump” does not inform us or build trust.  Who are you?  What do you believe?  What are your strengths and weaknesses?

So in the end, the ideology of identity politics, that your identity comes from your skin color, gender, etc., proved illusory and unable to withstand the winds of real people voting in an election year.  And in the end, I wound up feeling sorry for Harris.  In a way, she is a victim.  She has been fed (and believed) the lie that she is a certain way due to her race and gender, rather than the beliefs she holds that show themselves in character and behavior.  She has been led to believe that people will love and accept her for externals, not internals.  And so she thinks she can dissemble and mislead because she always has those externals on her side. 

I do not like Trump and share the concerns of many Democrats about him.  But here is a key difference: we might not like him, but we understand his words and know who he is and what he has done.