Brandon Morse of RedState recently wrote a clear-eyed analysis that deserves wider discussion:
Like many on the left, (James) Carville sees the population as boxes of identities, just like (Ilhan) Omar does. To be clear, it’s not an unproven way to view the voting populace. Even Republicans do it, but the difference is in how the left classifies these identities.
This isn’t just an observation; it mirrors where our politics now lives. Americans are being subdivided with surgical precision, not into communities with shared dreams, but into silos with weaponized grievances.
It wasn’t always like this.
The Long View: From Melting Pot to Sorting Hat
There was a time when the American ideal was assimilation, not as erasure, but as elevation. The immigrant of 1900 stepped off a ship onto Ellis Island not to preserve his Polish, Irish, or Sicilian identity in amber, but to become something more: an American. Not perfect, not free from bias, but united by creed.
That’s a far cry from today’s politics, where hyphenated identities aren’t merely tolerated, but institutionalized. Instead of melting into something shared, our political parties, especially the modern left, encourage people to clutch their labels like lifeboats in a storm. We are now black voters, queer voters, Latina voters, trans voters, each with a customized message, grievance, and call to action.
James Carville and Rep. Ilhan Omar aren’t anomalies. They’re missionaries of a gospel that reduces Americans to a matrix of race, gender, and history. Their brand of politics insists that group identity isn’t just relevant, it’s defining.
But what happens when you train people to see each other only by what’s different?
You lose the soul of the country.
The Left’s Machinery of Division
Here’s the trick: Identity politics isn’t just about recognizing difference. It’s about weaponizing it for leverage.
To many progressives, identity isn’t a trait; it’s a political claim. Your skin tone, your sexuality, and your ancestral trauma are now currency. The more boxes you check, the more your voice matters. In a perverse inversion of Martin Luther King’s dream, character becomes irrelevant, and color becomes king again.
All institutions are built to enforce this mindset.
- Academia rewards it.
- The media amplifies it.
- HR departments operationalize it.
- DEI training turns it into corporate dogma.
And those who question this orthodoxy? They’re swiftly labeled phobic, supremacist, or privileged. In this worldview, disagreement isn’t debate, it’s oppression. Dissent becomes hate speech. Silence becomes violence. And forgiveness? That’s off the table.
It’s not justice. It’s revenge with a new face.
The Conservative Contrast: One People, Many Paths
Now, to Morse’s second point. Yes, Republicans recognize demographic distinctions. But most on the right are still clinging to an older, wiser idea: that unity is achievable, not by erasing identity, but by elevating shared values.
The conservative ideal isn’t a colorblind fantasy. It’s a rooted belief that anyone, regardless of background, can succeed if given freedom, opportunity, and responsibility. The goal isn’t to highlight differences, but to transcend them.
A black child in Milwaukee, a Hispanic father in Laredo, and an Appalachian single mother are not pawns to be sorted and counted; they’re citizens. And while Republicans often bungle the messaging, their core instinct is sound: build bridges across differences, rather than dwell in division.
It’s not always sexy. It doesn’t generate hashtags. But it offers dignity.
History Knows the Cost
Let’s not pretend this is a theoretical debate. History is replete with examples of what happens when identity becomes the cornerstone of power.
In Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis were once indistinct neighbors, until colonial powers codified tribal differences for easier control. The result? Genocide.
In Yugoslavia, ethnic divisions inflamed by political manipulation led to a bloody civil war. Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, once neighbors, turned enemies.
Even in America, we’ve felt this burn before. The 1960s brought righteous fury and overdue reform, but also saw militant splinter groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers push identity to dangerous extremes. They didn’t want unity; it was supremacy, retaliation, and power.
We’d be fools to think ourselves immune.
The New Priesthood: Activists as Gatekeepers
Modern activists claim to speak for communities, but often speak over them. Try being a conservative Latino. A pro-life black woman. A gay man who believes in the Second Amendment.
You’ll find yourself excommunicated from your own “tribe” faster than you can say “heterodoxy.” Why? Because you’re not following the script. You’re not checking the right boxes.
Once pitched as a means of liberation, identity politics has become a prison. Its gatekeepers are self-anointed prophets who punish apostasy and enforce purity. They’ve replaced the old establishment with a new one, just as ruthless and far more fragile.
The Path Back: Character Over Category
So what’s the answer?
We return to something we were once proud to proclaim: E pluribus unum, out of many, one.
We need leaders who will talk about fathers and mothers, not “birthing people.” They will praise excellence instead of redistributing outcomes. They will believe the son of a truck driver and the daughter of a refugee can sit side by side, not as icons of their tribes but as Americans with equal dignity.
It means rejecting the soft tyranny of low expectations. It means raising children to believe not that they’re oppressed, but that they’re capable. That victimhood is not a virtue, and grievance is not a strategy.
We don’t need color blindness. We need clear-eyed leadership that sees color and honors culture but unites under creed.
We need politics that builds, not bleeds.
Closing Thought:
Walt Whitman once wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” He meant that a soul, like a country, can hold differences without division.
But today’s political class, especially the progressive left, sees the American multitude not as poetry but as parts on a spreadsheet. The right isn’t perfect, but it believes a shared horizon is possible—that black, white, gay, straight, rich, and poor can walk together, not despite their differences but through them.
Identity politics has tried to reduce the American spirit to a checklist. It’s time we reminded it that this country doesn’t fit in boxes—it breaks them.
