The Identitarian Nature of Politics

There are many Christians and conservatives that assert that Identity Politics is immoral and improper and that the American right should not devolve into a party of Identity Politics to combat the left which is perceived as being overtaken by Identity Politics. While it would be ideal that the electorate within democracies voted according to the persuasion of the platform, political behavior has long demonstrated that people vote in accordance with their identity. Simply put, people are tribal and vote in accordance with their tribe. These tribal characteristics are used to predict turnout models and allocate resources for electoral purposes. One can spend hours toggling various demographic factors and determine electoral outcomes based on simple adjustments to turnout or voting percentage. No amount of denial changes the identitarian nature of politics.

This rejection of Identity Politics is to our collective peril as a nation and to the detriment of those seeking to fight back against the leftists who have overtaken every institution in society. If a movement wants to succeed, it must cater to those who will support its cause and those who are winnable, not pander endlessly to garner growth from hardened soil.

The Republican Party hates its own voters. In fact, the party loathes its own identity. The disgraced former speaker Kevin McCarthy made that very evident when he said, “When you look at the Democrats, they actually look like America. When I look at my party, we look like the most restrictive country club in America.” Since the 2012 election, the GOP has been adamant that the party must cater more towards minorities, which has progressively included homosexuals. They hate the image of their party as a party of white people, yet that is the very demographic they must embrace if they are to win elections.

Rampant Anti-White Racism

Getting Republicans to confront anti-white discrimination is a herculean challenge, as they only rouse themselves when systemic discrimination occurs against Asians and lament antisemitism despite the two demographics being overwhelmingly liberal. Colleges have been discriminating against whites for decades to little resolution, even in red states. Sadly, SBC seminaries are guilty of participating in this anti-white agenda. This agenda has spilled over into corporate America as corporations have partaken in widespread anti-white discrimination in their hiring practices.

The largest corporations are discriminating against white people in both their embrace of “diversity” with regard to their corporate culture and through favoritism of minorities in their hiring practices. According to Bloomberg, following the overdose of George Floyd, the S&P 100 added 323,094 jobs in 2021, and 94% of these jobs went to “people of color” with only 6% going to white people. Bloomberg would assert that while corporations upheld their commitments to diversity, they contend that it is not enough. This is only 88 of the top 100 companies in the S&P, so imagine this trend if applied to the rest of corporate America.

It would be political malfeasance for the GOP not to confront rampant discrimination in corporate America that disproportionately affects their own voters. These are the jobs of the college educated whites they need to win back in 2024. Unfortunately, the GOP and Conservative Inc. care more about toppling Claudine Gay than they do fighting for the average middle class white person. Juxtaposed to the party’s identity, the GOP brand has long preferred corporations over people, much to its peril as the corporations have been captured by liberalism, which makes a corporatist GOP the privatized liberal wing of the uniparty.

The Lone Bulwark

When Stephen Wolfe infamously posted that “White evangelicals are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America,” he was obviously speaking in terms of voting blocs in politics. The same would be true that Africans are the bulwark of moral sanity within the Methodist, Anglican, and even Catholic denominations whereas their European counterparts are predominantly given over to Satan. The Big Eva types spent years lamenting the white evangelical support for Trump following the 2016 election. Like the world, they feel the need to apologize to the plebeians rather than to embrace them.

There are two causes for the aversion to Wolfe’s tweet. The first is that many of his opponents internalize anti-whiteism whereby they adopt much of the world’s beliefs that highlighting anything positive regarding white people is tantamount to white supremacy. The second is that many have internalized platitudes that discount race, like “one race, human race” which sounds great as a slogan—even idealistic. But this is contrary to human behavior. Furthermore, it distracts from issues that pertain to individual races, like crime in the black community. Certain issues committed by one group often impact the rest of society, but unless one acknowledges that a particular group is responsible, then the root issue cannot be properly addressed.

The great replacement is both ideological and racial. Because white evangelicals are the lone bulwark of moral sanity, then they must be diluted in order for the Spirit of the Age to have total control over the populace, as they are the only sizable bloc of resistance. Yet there is a large, undeniable racial component in the destruction of Western Civilization. Why are secular Scandinavian nations importing immigrants from the third world? Why would France need more people dissociated from its historic roots? Or Canada? These nations have very little Christian presence. They are already secular, liberal, and feminized. Yet there is a satanic desire to destroy what Christendom once built that was good, to give entire nations of people that which they did not build, that which they did not inherit, and that which they do not deserve.

Identity Politics and Ordo Amoris

Identity Politics in its pure form is an execution of Ordo Amoris, which is Order of Loves. The classical understanding can be traced to the Greeks, but historically, Christians had no qualms rationalizing Ordo Amoris with Christianity, which would include Augustine, Calvin, Johannes Althusius, and Thomas Aquinas. Simply because a concept has extrabiblical realization does not mean that it is unbiblical, but it is in fact evident even in Scripture itself. God designed the nation of Israel to preserve the various tribal integrities. Why not 12 tribes, but they can reside wherever they desire in the Promise Land? Why was tribal integrity maintained by divine sovereignty? The censuses in the wilderness were conducted as tribes. In war, the tribes fought within their cohorts. In Judges 20, God sent Judah first into battle. The priesthood was exclusively Levite. Paul would later describe himself as a Benjamite, and express love for his kinsmen of the flesh in Romans 11.

There were practical reasons God maintained their tribal integrity. As it follows, each tribe has its own interest, and consequently, its own issues—sinful or otherwise. It is not sinful in itself for a group to recognize its collective identity and for that identity to have its own self-interest. In fact, it is expected and only condemned if it is one particular race. Black identity is not inherently bad. It is a fulfillment of Ordo Amoris, thereby making it natural, so it is expected that they vote according to their perceived self-interests. The perception of that which is evil as their own self-interest is the true disease at hand within the black community. One would think they would despise immigration displacing them in already overpriced cities, adversely affecting their already struggling schools, or taking away potential employment opportunities. But if the true self-interest is the preservation of the government dole, the bureaucratic patronage (ex: public sector unions, DEI positions), and abortion as a right, then that would reflect a pattern that is distinct to a particular group, which spiritually and politically must be redressed to that specific group.

For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

1 Corinthians 1:22-25 NKJV

Whether in politics or in the gospel, the message must be tailored to the context of their identities. With different groups, there are different stumbling blocks that must be addressed. In politics, blocs form coalitions to win elections. Too often, the GOP forsakes the voters it has for the voters it wants who will never vote for them. Pathetic tokenism and liberal drift are but a feature of becoming a big tent that stands for nothing. Against the establishment’s desires, the GOP is perceived as the “white party,” but rather than embrace the identity politics of being the “white party,” they prioritize appealing to voters whose identitarian interests are juxtaposed with the voters they already have.

There is a legitimate collective interest for white people to not want to be displaced minorities in nations their ancestors built and avoid the calamities of replacement via crime, dilution, and incompetency. There is a legitimate collective interest that history is preserved and respected, rather than torn down and rewritten. There is a legitimate interest in fighting anti-White discrimination.

If the GOP functioned as a party that embraced Identity Politics, then it would sure up the support it should have with white voters and make gains with white swing voters that should be voting for them, particularly those who are middle class with school children. Other blocs can be added to the coalition through identitarian messaging that relays how the cost of living is affected by mass immigration, that green energy makes vehicles more expensive, or that government schools want to make children gay. With the political divide being increasingly Masculinity versus Feminism, projecting masculinity would make inroads with men of other races.

Rather than pander to minorities and gays, DeSantis directly challenged CRT in 2022 along with other pertinent issues. Amongst other major issues, DeSantis went after the anti-white agenda and received 65% of white voters in his reelection, an 11% improvement from his narrow 2018 victory. Since Hispanics have children in public schools, perhaps this was a driving force behind DeSantis winning 58% of Hispanics in 2022. Even his gains with blacks predominantly came from black men at 19%, which is a 7% improvement compared with women at 2%, with an overall 4% improvement with blacks (the only racial demographic he lost). Achieving the policy outcomes desired by white evangelicals resulted in an electoral improvement and Florida is the only state with a 2022 red wave.

Trump and Identity Politics

The ascendancy of Donald Trump in 2016 was because he successfully employed Identity Politics, winning over working class whites in states the GOP had not won in decades while maintaining evangelicals through the promise of overturning Roe v Wade. When Trump famously said, “They’re not after me, they’re after you,” he was entirely correct. Unfortunately, Trump did not live up to his words, often pandering for minorities once in office, yet this relationship he established has been retained and will carry him through the GOP primary.

To those voters, Trump is like a first lover, one who seemingly cared about their concerns after decades of political betrayal. He was the loudest voice to speak against the mass migration that is replacing the American population with foreigners. He spoke against free trade and globalism that outsourced their jobs from rust belt states to China and elsewhere, advocating in favor of economic protectionism. He was the anti-war voice in a party controlled by neoconservatives that salivated over meaningless Forever Wars. In many ways, the MAGA movement is the continuation of Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. The 2016 Trump resonated with these white Americans with his “Make America Great Again” slogan because it captured the essence that America was in decline combined with a platform that addressed root causes. People latched on to America First because it was a reflection of Ordo Amoris. In 2016, the MAGA message overcame the moral quandaries that deterred many from voting for him.

After decades of spurning their own voter base, the neoconservative establishment has created a void that was filled by the idolatry of Donald Trump where the president became the identity itself. For this reason, his voters are sticky even when his record largely failed to realize the MAGA agenda. The rejection of Identity Politics on the right has not eliminated or precluded its presence but metastasized a greater perversion.

Conclusion

Identity Politics is merely an extension of Ordo Amoris. Black or white, it is not sinful for a man to identify with his race and vote in the best interest of his race. The politicization of race is the inevitable product of a multicultural democracy. Under a homogenous democracy, the identities would be religious, vocational, gender, or urban vs. rural—all of which also presently persist in America. In democracy, political forces predictably champion group interests to win majorities, with the minority groups being pawns for the competing factions. Over time, the electorate will inevitably become further diluted by expansion to other groups to where even illegals voting is openly discussed.

If the case is that Identity Politics is sinful, then best make a case that democracy is the worst form of government because popular sovereignty results in identarian politics. The argument that democracy is unbiblical would find no disagreement with this treatise. But if a movement wants to succeed within a democracy, then Identity Politics is a necessary ingredient to political victory.