McKenzie - Oral Presenation

The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics 
Mark Lilla, Professor of Humanities at Columbia 

   “We must understand that there is a difference between being a party that cares about labor and being a labor party. There is a difference between being a party that cares about women and being the women’s party. And we can and we must be a party that cares about minorities without becoming a minority party. We are citizens first.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (1985)

                Part 1 - Anti-Politics: Reagan Dispensation

                Part 2 - Pseudo-Politics: New Left’s Identity Politics = Evangelism

                 Part 3 - Politics: Reset!

“This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially radically politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.”

“The Combahee River Collective Statement” (1977)

From We to Me //The Personal is Political

“The line between self-analysis and political action is now blurred” (p. 85)

“The more obsessed with personal identity campus liberals become, the less willing they become to engage in reasoned political debate” (p. 90)

Lilla calls for an end to Identity Liberalism: “In recent years American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing.” (NY Times Op-Ed)

-       Clinton’s calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, LGBT and women voters = strategic mistake: “If you’re going to mention groups in American, you had better mention all of them.” - Lilla