OPINION: Both political parties do identity politics

Wikipedia defines identity politics as one “based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, and social class.” The definition also includes immigrants and “far-right nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic others.”

Some pundits are saying that Kamala Harris lost the election because she was doing identity politics and that her policies were too “woke.” My answer to the first charge is that Trump campaigned on demographics just as much as Harris did. The principal difference is that Trump deliberately excluded people while Harris’ policies were inclusionary.

My answer to the second charge is that our constitutional government came out of the European Enlightenment and that being awake to people’s needs is always better than not addressing them at all, or convincing them that they will always rise on their own merits or benefit from “trickle down” economics. For more see my “The Founders Were Woke; Why Aren’t You?” at bit.ly/3Tauj7o.

Trump does identity politics by excluding, confounding, and demonizing groups of people. He called Mexicans rapists, criminals, and drug dealers. He banned Muslims from entering the U.S. because he claimed that they were all terrorists.

Even though the law allowed it, then-President Trump did not permit Haitians to participate in a visa lottery system because they all, he falsely claimed, had AIDS. (In 2016, only 2% did.) Trump of course played up the lie that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets.

The Trump campaign targeted Black and Hispanic males and those under 45 increased their vote for Trump in far greater numbers than in 2020. A “traditional wives” campaign succeeded in reducing to 46% of white women who voted for Harris. The number of Latinas voting for Trump rose to 39%.

Another demographic that increased its support for Trump — from 60% to 65% over 2020 — was veterans. This despite well documented comments from Trump that he denigrated soldiers and their generals. Particularly reprehensible was his criticism of Sen. John McCain’s military service and imprisonment in North Vietnamese prisons. How does Trump get away with insulting large sections of the American electorate and still receiving their support?

In an interview with Black women journalists Trump questioned Harris’ identity as a Black woman and deliberately confounded the issue. Here’s what he said: “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black.” People of mixed heritage all over the country were angry and spoke out against Trump’s cynicism and loathsomeness.

While racism based on color is a recent phenomenon (see bit.ly/49ejeu8), discrimination against women is, as they say, as “old as the hills.” It is the deepest irony that Black Americans got the vote before American women did, but both are still fighting for equal rights and opportunities today.

Recently, I wrote about the Women’s Center at the University of Idaho. In the early 1970s, a group of faculty women were concerned about being paid less for equal work and qualifications. In addition to receiving an acceptable salary settlement, the women faculty insisted that what is now called the Women’s Center be established. For more see bit.ly/4fDRWjh.

One of the principal reasons given for having this center was the alarming attribution rates (as high as 30%) among female students. Fast forward 50 years, the UI student population is now 51% women, a little less, but still significant, than the national figure of 60%. In stark contrast there was 75% male enrollment in American higher education in 1947.

Under pressure from right-wing Republican legislators the Idaho State Board of Education is preparing the way for the elimination of the UI’s Women Center and the other offices that deal with minority rights. UI spokesperson Jodi Walker said that “the school was discussing closing its DEI-related units as part of its overall discussions on how to meet the expectations of our board and the Legislature.”

I challenge anyone to dispute the claim that the advancement of American women, Blacks, and other minorities was a substantial achievement for this nation. The civil rights movement was identity politics at its best.

If critics want to call it “woke,” then enlightenment is what advances the founders’ goal to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.” The founders were progressive politicians.

Gier is professor emeritus at the University of Idaho. Read more of his articles on civil rights at bit.ly/3vPiVD1. Email him at ngier006@gmail.com.