WASHINGTON, D.C. – Identity politics is not new. It’s politics based on a specific identity like race, ethnicity, gender, employment and more. Political scientists explain how they’re seeing identity politics being used in this year’s elections.
Hours after President Joe Biden announced he’s stepping out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, more than 40-thousand Black women joined a Zoom call to organize support for Harris. They ended up raising about two-million dollars for her campaign. The event made headlines.
Since then, similar organizing calls with other identity groups supporting Harris have formed; “Black Men for Harris,” “Caribbean-Americans for Harris” and we’re seeing some unique groups forming too, like organizing a call among “crazy cat ladies and dog lovers” as well as “Dead Heads for Kamala” referring to people who are fans of the rock band The Grateful Dead.
“Of course everybody has been getting in- I love the White Dudes for kamala which raised four million dollars,” said Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett (D- Virgin Islands). Plaskett has been on a couple of these organizing calls, including one for Caribbean-Americans for Harris. She said their goals on the calls are to organize, rally and come together for a common cause.
“I think it was important to show everyone we come from all walks and islands and we’re all about one purpose and one love,” said Congresswoman Plaskett.
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity like race, nationality, religion, gender and more. It’s not necessarily new.
“When we say identity politics in the past we’ve kind of phrased it as a weaponization of certain camps of voters right and we paint of two broad of brushes of a race or a religion or a gender all vote the same way and if they don’t then they’re wrong,” said Casey Burgat, Assistant Professor and Director of Legislative Affairs at George Washington University. “But now the Harris campaign is recognizing that hey maybe this is a way to energize these types of people while bringing them into the conversation and letting them speak for themselves instead of us telling them what to care about.”
Burgat said identity politics is taking hold and working by raising a ton of money.
“Campaigns are won by appealing to your base and trying to pick off some of the other person’s base,” said Burgat. “We’re made up of a lot of these competing identities and campaigns are smart to recognize where those overlaps are and especially those that may not overlap cleanly, they can pick off in terms of – appeal to their message otherwise they wouldn’t be hearing it.”