Identity politics and the irony of the 2008 campaign
MoDo’s column about identity politics in the Democratic Party today actually got me thinking. Particularly this part: Dianne Feinstein onto the Fox News Sunday-morning talk show to promote the idea that Hillary should not be forced out, regardless of the results of Tuesday?s primaries, simply because she?s a woman. ?For those of us that are ...
MoDo's column about identity politics in the Democratic Party today actually got me thinking. Particularly this part: Dianne Feinstein onto the Fox News Sunday-morning talk show to promote the idea that Hillary should not be forced out, regardless of the results of Tuesday?s primaries, simply because she?s a woman. ?For those of us that are part of ?a woman need not apply? generation that goes back to the time I went out to get my first job following college and a year of graduate work, this is an extraordinarily critical race,? the senator said. With Obama saying the hour is upon us to elect a black man and Hillary saying the hour is upon us to elect a woman, the Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts. People will have to choose which of America?s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny? As it turns out, making history is actually a way of being imprisoned by history. It?s all about the past. Will America?s racial past be expunged or America?s sexist past be expunged?This leads to a central irony about this campaign. I don't doubt that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have suffered a multitude of small slights in their professional and personal lives because of their gender or race. However, if you think about this as a contest to see who has suffered the greatest because of their identity, it's not even close. The candidate who has suffered the most in his lifetime is.... John McCain. As an individual, he has paid a much higher price for his identity as an officer in the United States military than Obama or Cinton has individually paid for their race or gender. And there's simply no way to spin it otherwise. As a collective entity, of course, African-Americans and women have white males beat on the suffering front. It is interesting, however, that the avatars of identity get all jumbled up once we look at the candidates' individual biographies.
MoDo’s column about identity politics in the Democratic Party today actually got me thinking. Particularly this part:
Dianne Feinstein onto the Fox News Sunday-morning talk show to promote the idea that Hillary should not be forced out, regardless of the results of Tuesday?s primaries, simply because she?s a woman. ?For those of us that are part of ?a woman need not apply? generation that goes back to the time I went out to get my first job following college and a year of graduate work, this is an extraordinarily critical race,? the senator said. With Obama saying the hour is upon us to elect a black man and Hillary saying the hour is upon us to elect a woman, the Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts. People will have to choose which of America?s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny? As it turns out, making history is actually a way of being imprisoned by history. It?s all about the past. Will America?s racial past be expunged or America?s sexist past be expunged?
This leads to a central irony about this campaign. I don’t doubt that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have suffered a multitude of small slights in their professional and personal lives because of their gender or race. However, if you think about this as a contest to see who has suffered the greatest because of their identity, it’s not even close. The candidate who has suffered the most in his lifetime is…. John McCain. As an individual, he has paid a much higher price for his identity as an officer in the United States military than Obama or Cinton has individually paid for their race or gender. And there’s simply no way to spin it otherwise. As a collective entity, of course, African-Americans and women have white males beat on the suffering front. It is interesting, however, that the avatars of identity get all jumbled up once we look at the candidates’ individual biographies.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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