- Family / religion: Ethnicity, which is unavoidably tied into one's family, has long been a major factor in partisan voting tendencies, as a quick glance at virtually any exit poll makes plain. Further, while I don't have any data on it handy, I think it can also be safely said that how a person's parents vote and view the world have a major impact on any individual's worldview. Yet further, marital status also makes a big impact on how people vote.
- Religion: A voter's religion, or lack thereof, is just as determinative of how an individual votes as ethnicity. Again, a quick glance at any exit poll will confirm this.
- Education: Once again, it goes without saying that people with different education levels vote differently. We see this both within both parties, and between the two major parties. Further, as anyone in academia will tell you, different fields of study attract people with differing politics. English departments tend to the left, and business schools tend to the right, for example.
- Workplace: Unionized workers vote very different than non-unionized workers. High income voters break different than low-income voters. Stockholders vote differently than non-stockholders. It goes on and on in this category.
- Media: This is more of a general grab-bag to account for everything else, including how different genders are portrayed. Further, we also know that people who follow different forms of media, and different media outlets, vote differently
The way the people come to terms with who they are is inextricably intertwined with how they view the world around them. Assuming that one doesn't come from an identity based position has long been the assumption of culturally dominant identity groups. Who we are, how we came to be that person, and how we live now unavoidably impact how we view any set of political issues (impacts, but does not necessarily determine, I should note). We are all impacted by identity politics. In addition to the difference I listed above, we even consume different cultural products. Hell, we even have sex differently
- 25% of all Republicans and 35% of all Democrats have had more than 10 sexual partners in their lifetime -- a higher percentage than vote in congressional and local elections.
- 55% of Republicans have sex at least once a week, compared with just 43% of Democrats.
- 14% of Thompson supporters and 12% of Obama supporters claim to have sex "almost every day." Just 5% of Clinton and Giuliani supporters have sex that frequently.
- On average, Republicans say they were 18.4 years old when they first had sex. Independents were 17.6 and Democrats were 17.5.
51% of all Republicans and 67% of all Democrats have watched porn with their sexual partners.
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Most of the time, as it is these cultural differences that are driving our different partisan inclinations, our different ideological inclinations, our different positions on discrete issues, and even our different prioritizing of discrete issues. It isn't that we join a union because we are Democrats, or that we become born-again Christians because we are Republicans. Rather, it is because we are in a union, because we are African-American, or because we are unmarried that we become Democrats. The same can be said for white evangelicals, gun owners, or high-income voters: people don't do those things because they are Republicans, but often times doing those things can turn someone into a Republican. And it isn't just about being a Democrat or a Republican, or being a conservative or a progressive,
And the same thing goes for the blogosphere, too. Why does the progressive blogosphere, when considered as a whole, tend to favor Obama significantly more than Clinton? Even if, as Matt notes below, most new progressive media has remained neutral, I think we clearly have preferences. I have to conclude that one of the reasons is identity. Bloggers and blog readers fall disproportionately into almost all the same categories in which Obama does better than Clinton nationwide: highly educated, younger, more liberal, higher income, more male, and more secular. About the only Obama-leaning demographic that is not disproportionately represented in the progressive blogosphere are African-Americans. Given this, how can there not be a connection between our identity politics and our preference in the Democratic primary? Certainly, it isn't the only reason, and possibly not even the main reason. However, it is a big reason, and I don't think there is any escaping it.
Maybe identity politics are being discussed in crasser ways than we would like right now, but the fact is that we are all children of identity politics in this country. Pretending otherwise is to compartmentalize, just as Thomas Jefferson was able to compartmentalize his belief in rational, democratic discourse with owning and raping slaves. We are all children of identity politics in America. We need to work to improve the situation, but I don't see that ending anytime soon, if ever. |
