You can think of the whole cosmopolitan urban vs salt-of-the-earth rural aspect of American politics as one example. Or southern identity/culture. “As a veteran who served”/“As a parent”, or the cross-denomination “moral majority”— it’s all based around the idea that your lived experience as something shapes your political perspective and is intrinsically valuable to the political conversation.
And even Occupy: was occupy simply making a statement about economic politics or was it the identity of “the 1%” or “Bankers” vs the rest of Americans? These categories were somewhat arbitrary and basically represented which group you identified with.
That's what I mean by defining the phrase so broadly it becomes useless. You can say, "I am, and I have an identity, therefore my politics is identity politics." However, identity politics is specifically when the tribal motivations exceed and dominate all other motivations. It's similar to how islands are not called bodies of water even though soil contains water.
> However, identity politics is specifically when the tribal motivations exceed and dominate all other motivations.
Then the term "identity politics" shouldn't be applied. But even if we accept that extremely narrow view: there are numerous political segments that are notorious for doing what you describe across the political spectrum. Most notable the rural Scotch-Irish, often criticized for routinely voting against their self-interest and instead choosing to vote for pols who simply provide them cultural validation and do nothing to address their material concerns.
Parent should have been more specific: all politics is identity politics in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state. The USA of the Vietnam war no longer exists, and isn't comparable to the USA of today.
In a nation state, politics tend to be divided more on ideological and regional lines, because everyone shares an identity.
This is very weird comment. Are you saying that the USA was not a multi-ethnic/multi-religious state in the 1960s?
In a nation state, politics tend to be divided more on ideological and regional lines, because everyone shares an identity.
There has never been a "nation" where everybody shares an identity in the sense discussed above.
The comment makes sense, but the US isn't best example. Although last century the US was somewhat dominated by one identity (which is now waning and leaving room for others to grow) it has always been multi-ethnic and multi-religious.
A better example would be European nations like Hungary, which have reinforced their national identities in the face of the recent migrant crisis.
You can think of the whole cosmopolitan urban vs salt-of-the-earth rural aspect of American politics as one example. Or southern identity/culture. “As a veteran who served”/“As a parent”, or the cross-denomination “moral majority”— it’s all based around the idea that your lived experience as something shapes your political perspective and is intrinsically valuable to the political conversation.
And even Occupy: was occupy simply making a statement about economic politics or was it the identity of “the 1%” or “Bankers” vs the rest of Americans? These categories were somewhat arbitrary and basically represented which group you identified with.