Opinion: Identity Politics Backfires
Summary from the AllSides News Team
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From the Right
The Danger of a Dominant Identity
Over the past few days we’ve seen what happens when you assign someone a single identity. Pollsters assumed that most Latinos would vote only as Latinos, and therefore against Donald Trump. But a surprising percentage voted for him.
Pollsters assumed women would vote primarily as women, and go for Hillary Clinton. But a surprising number voted against her. They assumed African-Americans would vote along straight Democratic lines, but a surprising number left the top line of the ballot blank.
The pollsters reduced complex individuals to a single identity, and are...
From the Left
How identity politics blew up in Democrats' faces
What's the matter with America? That seems to be the burning question on the tongues of many liberals in the wake of Donald Trump's stunning upset victory over Hillary Clinton. And in a way, that question is a mash-up response to two popular theories on America's political landscape, the first laid out in Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?, and the second in The Emerging Democratic Majority by John Judis and Ruy Teixera. These books offer a clear window into how liberals understand not only the broad political landscape,...
From the Left
The End of Identity Liberalism 
It is a truism that America has become a more diverse country. It is also a beautiful thing to watch. Visitors from other countries, particularly those having trouble incorporating different ethnic groups and faiths, are amazed that we manage to pull it off. Not perfectly, of course, but certainly better than any European or Asian nation today. It’s an extraordinary success story.
But how should this diversity shape our politics? The standard liberal answer for nearly a generation now has been that we should become aware of and “celebrate” our...
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