VDH: The End Of Identity Politics
This shift from the
ideal of the melting pot to the triumph of salad-bowl separatism occurred, in
part, because the Democratic Party found electoral resonance in big government’s
generous entitlements and social programs tailored to particular groups. By then,
immigration into the United States had radically shifted and become less
diverse. Rather than including states in Europe and the former British
Commonwealth, most immigrants were poorer and almost exclusively hailed from
the nations of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, resulting in poorer immigrants
who, upon arrival, needed more government help. Another reason for the shift
was the general protest culture of the Vietnam era, which led to radical
changes in everything from environmental policy to sexual identity, and thus
saw identity politics as another grievance against the status quo.
A half-century later,
affirmative action and identity politics have created a huge diversity
industry, in which millions in government, universities, and the private sector
are entrusted with teaching the values of the Other and administering de facto
quotas in hiring and admissions. In 2016, Hillary Clinton ran a campaign on
identity politics, banking on the notion that she could reassemble various
slices of the American electorate, in the fashion that Barack Obama had in 2008
and 2012, to win a majority of voters. She succeeded, as did Obama, in winning
the popular vote by appealing directly to the unique identities of gays,
Muslims, feminists, blacks, Latinos, and an array of other groups, but
misjudged the Electoral College and so learned that a numerical majority of
disparate groups does not always translate into winning key swing states.
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