The End of Identity Politics (1960s – 2013ish)

Our fringes, left and right, won’t like this, but there is more evidence all the time that identity politics is a dead issue with the public. I wrote about this last year and the proof just keeps on coming. Observe.

For those who don’t know, identity politics is a political strategy pushed originally by the left to drive a wedge between minorities and the rest of America so the left could secure their loyalties. The idea was to make these groups paranoid so they would identify only with others of their own kind, who would then band together and vote for leftists who promised to protect them from whites, males, straights, etc. Hence, black leftists told blacks that whites want to return them to slavery. Women were told that males want to take away their jobs and their right to control their bedroom lives. Gays were told that straights want to criminalize their lifestyles again. And so on. And each group was told they were oppressed to make them feel like victims. Talk radio hosts then brought this same tactic to the right and told whites/males/heterosexuals that they were the real victims and that everyone else was out to get them.

Both of these sides now spend their time scaring their own audiences with quotes from obscure idiots on the other side and with boogeymen tales to keep their audiences paranoia of the enemy... "Did you hear about that one guy who said that thing? You know THEY all think like that, don't you?"

But the public at large has rejected all of this. How do I know?

Well, for starters, there was the shocking poll from Rasmussen that I mentioned last July. Rasmussen found the following:

● 37% of Americans think “most blacks are racist.”
● 18% of Americans think “most Hispanics are racist.”
● 15% of Americans think “most whites are racist.”

These numbers were shocking because they were a total repudiation of everything the left and right had been saying. The left routinely claims that all whites are racists, even those who fight racism, because it is inherent in our natures. The talk radio right counter that blacks and Hispanics are racist militants who are determined to oppress whites and turn America in a Browndystopia. Yet, the public clearly rejects this: 8 in 10 reject the liberal claim and more than 6 in 10 reject the conservative claim (this number is likely higher because of the near-constant use of false racism charges by blacks who get into trouble).

Then there’s this. Even though a Pew poll found that women earn just 84% of what their male counterparts earn, only 15% of women say they have been discriminated against personally because of their gender. So much for accepting the idea that all women are oppressed.

But the best evidence comes from other sources. As I’ve always pointed out, the problems with polls are threefold: (1) bias by the pollster, who coincidentally is never held accountable if they are wrong, (2) bad methodology, including limitations of the questions and poor sample selection, and (3) the fact that people don’t tell the truth. And in terms of telling the truth, I don’t even mean that they necessarily lie. When confronted with polls, a lot of people will tell the pollster what they have been told is the appropriate answer, whether they believe it or not. Others will respond with their aspirations rather than the reality. So we need to look somewhere else.

To give you an example, people tell pollster that they have nothing against fat people. That is the “politically correct” answer. But this isn’t borne out in reality, where voters willing vote for things to try to force fat people to lose weight (like the 16 oz. tyranny), where surveys have shown that fat people earn less and are held in lower esteem than thinner colleagues, and where neither Hollywood nor Madison Avenue (advertising central) cast fat people as anything other than comic relief.

If you think about it, you will realize that Madison Avenue (and to lesser extent Hollywood) are the ultimate source of information about the state of our culture. Why? Because their livelihood depends on them correctly diagnosing cultural trends. If they misunderstand a prejudice and cast a fat guy to sell their cologne, sales will tank or even worse they might spawn a negative meme or protests by outraged groups, and they will be fired. Get fired a couple times and you’re done as a company. So getting it right is vital... unlike with pollsters and talking heads.

So why am I talking about advertising? Because I’ve seen two fascinating ads lately that relate to the issue of identity politics. In the 1990s, when identity politics was in its heyday, you took your professional life in your hands if you made a woman or a black the villain or the butt of a joke. The Nazi-like forces of identity politics proclaimed not only that all films ads must include blacks and women, but they must always be shown in positive, stereotype-rejecting ways. Thus, women and blacks were portrayed as bosses, professionals, leaders and winners. If two people competed, the black or woman won. They could never be portrayed as stupid, out of touch, or as the butt of jokes nor could be they be cast as criminals, racists, sexists, or as nasty people. Was. Not. Done. Television and films were the same way. Heck, even if the film was about gangs, the gangs were typically shown as multiracial, with a white businessman ultimately being behind them and with the white gang members being the psychotics.

Little by little though, this seems to be breaking down. The first sign was the return of white male managers and smart white males. Suddenly, not every woman on television was automatically smarter than the males around her. Girls being shown playing sports have vanished too -- a trend that was pushed heavily by feminists in the 1990s.

Then came the Microsoft tablet ad. In this ad, a white guy(and white woman) are upset to hear that the new guy got a great new tablet simply because the new guy spilled coffee on the older computer they gave him. In the abstract, this makes the new guy sound clumsy. But there’s more. The new guy is shown essentially bragging about the event in such a way that the commercial suggests that the coffee spilling was intentional. That makes the new guy a bit of a villain. Here’s the catch. The new guy is black. Showing a black guy as either clumsy or a villain or "working the system" and bragging about it would have been impossible in the 1990s... but there is it.

At the same time, in the remake of Red Dawn, there is one collaborator shown... the mayor. Guess what? He’s black. It has long been a stereotype that blacks are of questionable loyalty to America -- this was the counterargument to desegregation of the military. Portraying a black character as a collaborator in an invasion would have brought screams of racism in the 1980s or 1990s... but there it is.

Then came the Jack in the Box ad. In this ad, Jack is walking to a meeting and the woman walking next to him is a real dingbat. She doesn’t know how to complete words (she speaks in text speak) and she doesn’t know what a watch is. Essentially, this is a dig at young people. But had this been done ten years ago, the assistant would have needed to be male... this was a woman.

So what you have here is advertisers, who need to be at the forefront of culture and need to be right in their diagnosis of culture, are no longer afraid to poke fun at women and blacks. This tells us that they are no longer worried about the public freaking out about identity politics.

Finally, we have this. The two most popular female characters among women right now, without a doubt, are Anastasia Steele from Fifty Shades of Grey, a woman who is submissive and needs a strong man to take control of her life and make her happy, and Stephanie Plum... a horribly incompetent bounty hunter who can’t compete with the much more competent men in her life. Both characters would have been savagely attacked by feminists in the 1990s and probably suppressed. Similarly, fat and incompetent Melissa McCarthy and incompetent Kristen Wiig are quickly becoming the two most bankable female stars of the moment. And don’t forget, this is a country that elected a black man as president and may elect a woman soon. This is a country that has happily embraced a large number of black leading men and several tough-gal leading women in action films. News readers can be male or female, black, white or other, as can athletes. None of this would be true if the public was as obsessed with race as the fringes are.

All of this above strongly suggests that the public at large has rejected identity politics and is “moving beyond” race and gender. That’s good for the country and ultimately great for conservatism.