Identity Politics and Why We Lose All the Time

Us Democrats out here are not going to start winning again until we understand how identity is shaped, why it is important, and how to get past identity barriers to persuade voters to vote for Democrats.

We rarely persuade someone by shouting at them. If we are in a position of power, we can force someone to do something by shouting at them. But if we are just trying to persuade a voter, who is free to vote for other candidates, shouting doesn’t work very well.

The work of Wright County Indivisible has devolved into little more than shouting. This satisfies the passive-aggressive urges of those who have emerged to lead the mob, but it is not likely to bring us victory. In my view, they are hurting candidates like Doug Chapin, not helping. It might make some of us feel good, but it does little else. Of course, we will know on the night of November 3.

Hopefully there will be a national blue wave that will carry Chapin to victory in Minnesota’s CD6. If that happens, Indivisible and everyone else will take credit. But the fact is that Chapin is working harder than any candidate in the recent past, and if he wins it will be because of him and his efforts, not the angry shouting happening on the fringe.

People are not born with an innate identity. They do not come with a SIM card. Their identity is shaped by their parents, their siblings, their relatives, their teachers, their friends, their employment, everything that they like, everything that they don’t like, sources of pleasure, sources of pain, and so much more. The identity a person experiences at any one time can change. While watching a Vikings game they might identify as a Vikings fan (or, God forbid, a Packers fan). While listening to music they might identify as a Taylor Swift fan or a Bruce fan. While watching TV they might identify as a Gilligan’s Island fan or a Survivor fan. They might identify as Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist. Each of us is a bundle of different identities that come to the fore of our consciousness depending on the context we find ourselves in.

When we are at a football game cheering for the Vikings, we don’t really think about being Lutheran, for example. And when we are screaming at a Taylor Swift concert, we don’t really think about being from Delano, or being a hockey fan. The communities we live in are mostly imaginary communities, and context matters.

People identify as Republicans and people identify as Democrats. These identifications are strong.  People derive their self-esteem from being Republicans or Democrats. Out here, party identity has become much stronger because of neoliberalism and the devastating impact that has had on the so-called middle-income earners and lower income earners. Neoliberalism has made relatively few people rich, while making everyone else poor, anxious, and angry. They don’t know why. For most people, the answer is to cling to their own political identity while blaming “Others.” It makes them feel good. It makes them feel intelligent. It makes them feel superior. Fascist Republicanism would not have emerged if there were not so many people being forced to the margins of American society by neoliberal economic policies (which began with Reagan) that has made so many people rich, so many people poor, and so few people in between.

People want to blame others for their predicament. This is human nature. Many Republicans blame woke, snowflake liberals and their support of immigrants (legal or illegal, it doesn’t matter to them). And out here, we Democrats blame Others and the fact that this is a so-called “Red” district for our own failure to implement effective, winning campaigns. Of course, the “Others” I refer to are the allegedly stupid Republicans who just don’t get it. (Newsflash – Democrats – they obviously get something, because they know their lives could be better.)

Identity is a psychological barrier that shuts down conversation, rational thought, and the constructive exchange of ideas. If you challenge someone’s identity you lose the ability to persuade.

As an aside, it is not lost on me that I am challenging the identity of many fellow Democrats out here. In doing so I have already lost the argument, and I will likely continue to lose the argument. But I don’t know how else to express that our DFL “group think” out here is the wrong “group think” to win an election. We should be committed to winning elections and not just making ourselves feel good by telling each other how smart and liberal we are.

So how do we win elections in a heavily Republican district? We do not directly challenge the identity of the voters. Instead, we find issues that are important, or issues that we can make important, and explain to voters what we will do for them with respect to those issues.

What does the Indivisible-DFL do? They directly challenge identity. For example, Indivisible-DFL has had billboard ads saying, “Dump Emmer,” believing this will help their candidate, Doug Chapin. It won’t. Democrats are already going to vote for him. This kind of message acts as a trigger to Republican identity barriers that make it more difficult for us to persuade them. It is a passive aggressive message that, essentially, accuses voters of being stupid for having voted for Emmer in the first place.

Like, sure, that’s so going to work. What, me worry?