Identity Heft: Why the Politics of Race and Gender are Dominating the 2016 Election

Jeet Heer, The New Republic – November 18, 2015

There’s a tendency among a certain class of pundits to act as if identity politics were a distraction from more fundamental matters like economics and foreign policy. What this line of thought ignores is the fact that economics and foreign policy are themselves saturated with questions of identity. Donald Trump is right in emphasizing the question of whether “we’re going to be a country.” Politics is inevitably about not just policy but people: who is included, who gets excluded, who has power, and does not.

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