The lessons are many. First, whether we admit it, politics is tribal, grounded in a series of identities and relationships. Politics IS “identity politics” and political success is predicated on solidifying in-group dynamics and sowing seeds of division on the other side. Leftist politics are anti-White and anti-Christian because those forces unite a coalition of groups that would otherwise be at one another’s throats.
“In coping with identity crisis,” Samuel Huntington wrote in Clash of Civilizations, “what counts for people are blood and belief, faith and family. People will rally to those with similar ancestry, religion, language, values, and institutions and distance themselves from those with different ones. … In a very fluid world, people are looking for roots and connections to defend themselves against the unknown.”
At root, politics is about identity, not ideas — and demography is destiny. Transform the make-up of a people and you transform their politics. The ideological politics of the post-WWII period was an aberration and rested upon a largely homogeneous racial and cultural foundation. Spurred by the forces of modernization and dislocation, politics is being reconfigured.
In a multicultural social order, politics is a form of ethnic and religious warfare. Conservatives must begin crafting public policies that unapologetically strengthen their constituencies and weaken their enemies. But that first requires identifying allies and co-belligerents and separating them from adversaries.
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