Embracing Identity Politics

The intensity of my support for Barack Obama spiked up considerably after Palin’s mocking culture-war speech at the Convention, and then spiked up yet again after she revealed, in her recent interview with Charlie Gibson, that the two words “Bush doctrine” don’t really ring a bell for her.

How could anyone ever think Palin would make a good vice president? The answer, of course, is that I’m asking the wrong question. No one cares about her competence. What they care about is that Palin is “just like me.” Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that identity politics works so well (I worried about her “hockey mom” appeal in a previous post). But I nevertheless find myself shocked at the degree of hostility towards “elitists” expressed and the Republican Convention, and at the near hysterical response Palin has received on the campaign trail from the “she’s just like me” crowd.

Call me crazy, but when it comes to governing, I don’t give a hoot about “who the candidate is” or whether or not I think they identify with me. I care about what I think the candidate will DO, if elected. That is why I am constantly harping on the Democrats and Barack Obama for their poor policies on (deep breath) Russia/Georgia, Israel-Palestine, Iran, foreign policy in general, ethanol, “foreign oil,” wire-tapping, faith in the public square, and campaign finance, among other issues. The fact that Barack is a cosmopolitan city person who went to Harvard Law and drinks cappuccinos while reading the New York Times only factors into my support for him in so far as those things inform his policies and the decisions he makes.

[Side note: there is one exception to the I-don’t-care-who-someone-is rule. It matters if there is some symbolic significance wrapped up in “who that person is.” In other words, it does matter that Hillary and Palin are women, and that Barack is black.]

But this whole Palin phenomenon is really making it tough to resist getting dragged into the identity politics game. What makes me so upset is that I feel like Palin’s popularity is due, in part, to the fact that it seems like she just won American Idol. Marc Fisher explains: “In this hyperdemocratized society, the national conviction that anyone can succeed is morphing into a belief that experience and knowledge may almost be disqualifying credentials.”

This is crazy. And horrifying. We’ve had nearly 8 years of an anti-intellectual president who is proud of his gentlemen’s Cs, and who makes many decisions based on what his gut tells him rather than what his brain tells him. Please, can we elect someone based upon competence and not because we think we might enjoy having a drink with him?!

If Palin’s “regular gal” image, together with intense anti-“elitist” attitudes, end up putting McCain over the top, I think there is no other response but to embrace this identity politics bull. This, after all, is what happens when one identity group decides to attack another identity group. The line between the two groups hardens, even if one group never thought they were a coherent group to begin with. As illustration, in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, most Russian-speakers who lived in Ukraine did not consider themselves “Russians” at all. Many of them considered themselves “Soviets” first and foremost. But when the government in Kiev began making laws restricting the use of Russian language in schools, the “Russian” identity quickly came into being. It was not pre-existing, but emerged out of a response to perceived attacks from another identity group.

And so it is in America. I never considered myself a member of this so-called group “elitist.” But if much of America is going to vote against Barack Obama because he is in this so-called group, or for McCain/Palin because they are in the “just like me” group…well, then I guess I’ll have to band together with my fellow “elitists” and fight the good fight. It seems like the only way to defend ourselves against more bad governance.

So I say: “elitists” unite! Let’s take back this country of ours from those who want a another president who would be a good drinking buddy! Bring. It. On.

P.S.: The first order of business for team “elitist” is to abolish the Electoral College.