Ever since Donald Trump rode a wave of white working class support to defeat Hillary Clinton in last month's election, a pernicious debate has emerged among progressives over whether the Democratic Party should continue to prioritize “identity politics” or instead reorient its message around economic populism.
Mark Lilla, a Columbia University professor and prominent advocate of the latter approach, argued in a post-election New York Times essay that liberals' focus on identity has made them “narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life.” He called for a “post-identity liberalism” to “concentrate on widening its base by appealing to Americans as Americans and emphasizing the issues that affect a vast majority of them.”
Read Full Article »