By Aoife Paul Healy ’26
Staff Writer
Image courtesy of James Boast via NDLA.
It’s no secret that tensions have been consistently rising in the United States between the two political parties. One explanation often cited for this growing divide is the concept of “identity politics,” where individuals evaluate issues through the lens of their association with a specific group, such as their gender, religion, race and more.
Often, when the impact of identity politics is analyzed, it is treated as a recently developed problem negatively impacting American citizens’ ability to work together as a collective. This impact is attributed to increasing divisiveness and political polarization in the United States.
While I do not necessarily agree with every criticism or application about identity politics, these arguments are often well-founded in logical reasoning and statistical evidence, comparing political polarization to the overall happiness of a citizen and their possible identity divisions. For example, a 2023 study by George Yancy associates political progressiveness with “lower levels of well-being.” with identity politics contributing to this pattern. The data isn’t wrong, nor is it intentionally misleading, but it neglects to assess the bigger picture. I argue that these identity-based tensions between parties are a completely natural development for the party institutions we have in place. The rise in identity politics is a symptomatic aspect of the two-party system, not a causal problem. Single-issue voting or voting for one party out of necessity in opposition to the other is not a successful democratic process in terms of accurate representation.
Critics of identity politics often blame the opposing party for driving them so far in the opposite direction on the political spectrum, citing radical religious collectives on the right or minority collectives on the left. When each of these groups is considered in an analysis, it is often noted how they became the pinpoints of each party. The parties deliberately aim their campaigns at particular demographics to build their coalition, but why do politicians feel the need to “niche” their parties?
Two-party systems need time to establish themselves within the electorate to have a consistent appeal to its voters. Once each party has a consistent voter base within the general electorate, campaigns will typically target swing states and spend most of their funding on them. With massive populations of supporters essentially secured, politicians need to find niche collectives and target campaign strategies toward gaining their votes, especially in these swing states.
Examples of this include the “Southern strategy,” where the Republican party practiced political racism towards Black Americans to appeal to racist white southerners in the early 1960s, or when Bush had his presidential campaign manager Lee Atwater — who was notably very aware of Southern strategy — target the vote of Evangelical voters, as they made up much of the southern electorate at the time.
In her editorial for The Guardian, legal scholar Ammy Chua advocates against identity politics and seems to criticize identity groups of any kind for “tribalizing” both parties. Here, the solutions are often a reformation of one’s self-importance in relation to one’s identity. Is it really a reasonable request for identity groups to mold themselves around what is most convenient for the political parties at the time? Is the answer really to let go of the political aspects of one’s self-identity completely and is that even possible?
While there are many different labels that Republicans and Democrats like to use for one another, there is also an impressive amount of overlap with these labels. Interestingly, according to the Pew Research Center, each side calls the other both “close-minded” and “immoral.” These personal critiques of moral character extend beyond political ideals, as “majorities in both parties say those in the opposing party do not share their nonpolitical values and goals.”
Over time, our political lives relate increasingly further to our personal ones, critiqued on grounds of empathy, humanity and shared values. This is not surprising and is a side effect of associating ideological practices with political identities. Ethical associations with political individuals allow political life to permeate our lives as a whole, which leads to identity politics seeming to be the main driver in our nation’s divide. There is merit behind this approach, but here's where expanding the picture comes in: Let’s take it further than that.
To begin, it is completely reasonable that individuals within marginalized identities targeted by federal-level institutions are often currently and historically politically active. When the right to exist as a person of a certain identity becomes a political question, it is impossible not to become “tribal” in the political party sense. Take the developing legislative attempts to erase gender-affirming support for transgender citizens, for example. In this case, as in others, one cannot put their identity aside in political consideration when whoever they vote for could legally legislate against their right to healthcare and safety.
Similarly, identities targeted by electoral campaigns, like Evangelical Christianity, have been polarized. Though they are not targeted at an institutional level for erasure or suppression like the aforementioned identities, Evangelicals have been subject to pointed political campaigning designed to politicize them. In these cases, the politicization of the individual is not self-imposed. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect a self-directed depolarization for some intangible concept of a greater community.
On top of this, niche identity politics seem a natural, reasonable response to feeling underrepresented in government. According to the Pew Research Center, a quarter of American adults say neither party represents the interests of the people, and 37% “wish there were more political parties to choose from.” Dissatisfaction with representation and identity affiliations are directly tied to our limiting party number.
With that in mind, and understanding how politics are directly tied to personal identity, it seems an unhelpful and even unreasonable approach to suggest the solution of bridging “tribal” politics to unify the parties into more homogenous voters again. People can’t just let go of their identities in an effort to improve a current political climate that is simultaneously failing them.
Citizens often feel driven to vote for someone they never would have voted for otherwise, citing “lesser of two evils” reasoning, but this is not a true representation of democracy. As a collective nation, this lack of thorough representation and collective dissatisfaction with the state of the parties is obviously not truly pursuing the democratic philosophy that we were founded upon.
With parties trying to pick apart the nation for votes instead of attracting coalitions based on their legislative beliefs, identity politics has an ever-evolving and increasingly permanent presence in the mix. Citizens need to feel seen and represented — legislatively, ideologically and at a personal level — and that responsibility is no longer on the average citizen, as their voices are no longer heard.
This is a reform that must be practiced at a federal level. Our developing identity politics are a sign that America has far outgrown the two-party system.