Trump's Divisive Identity Politics
In his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, former President Obama, then a state senator, declared that ‘There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there is the United States of America’. Obama was attempting to create a unifying message around identity in the U.S., that despite differences in race, ethnicity, or gender, among other identifiers, the U.S. remains a diverse, inclusive nation. Obama went on to describe the U.S. as somewhere a person like himself, a ‘skinny kid with a funny name’, has a place.
Identity politics have long played a role in American politics, but since Obama’s DNC speech, they have been of central importance. They have frequently been criticised for emphasising division rather than inclusion, a power that former President Donald Trump has taken advantage of since before he was a presidential candidate as a champion of the ‘birther’ movement which asserted that Obama was not born in the U.S.
The birther conspiracy was an attack on Obama’s legitimacy, a statement that someone like Obama with his ‘funny name’ could not be president.
Identity politics also took centre stage in the 2016 election, when Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be a presidential nominee from either of the major parties in the U.S.
Steve Bannon, a former strategist for Trump currently in prison for contempt of Congress, declared then that the Democrats’ focus on identity politics was an opportunity for the Trump campaign to win on policy. The 2024 presidential campaign is different: Vice President Kamala Harris has actively avoided talking about identity, while Trump has embraced it.
Suggestions that illegal immigrants are taking ‘Black jobs’ and ‘Hispanic jobs’ are attempts to appeal to demographics he tends to be less popular with than Harris. They also represent attempts to pit communities against each other by way of embracing stereotypes and untruths.
Another troubling statement came when Trump suggested that, were he to lose the November election, Jewish-Americans would be partly to blame. Excusing his potential defeat as in part the fault of a certain demographic is a dangerous idea, opening up room for a more violent and pointed election denial than occurred after his loss in 2020. Trump hosted commentator Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022. Both guests have repeatedly made openly anti-semitic comments.
Comments made by Trump to Time Magazine suggest that there is a ‘definite anti-white feeling’ in America. This sort of idea could resonate with voters who feel they have been hurt by policies like affirmative action and corporate moves toward diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Trump has also addressed gender, stating at a rally this September that ‘[w]omen will be happy, healthy, confident, and free’ if he is elected. He then addressed women directly: ‘You will no longer be thinking about abortion,’ claiming that he will be the ‘protector’ of women’. Polls suggest that most women in the U.S. believe that some form of abortion should be legal. Trump was also found liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
Trump does not just make use of identity politics to appeal to large demographics: the former president attacked Harris’s racial identity, saying at a conference of Black journalists that she ‘only recently became a Black woman’. He also asked ‘[i]s she Indian? Or is she Black?’ These attacks echo Trump’s questioning of Obama’s heritage more than a decade ago. Harris has always identified as both Indian and Black, and the U.S. has a large, growing multiracial population, according to the 2020 Census.
Harris addressed those comments in an interview, stating that Trump had ‘attempted to use race to divide the American people’. Harris has actively avoided framing her campaign as one where a woman of colour could become president for the first time, but identity politics remain an important factor in Democratic strategy.
The Harris Campaign has placed ads designed to appeal to certain demographics, including Spanish-language ads directed to Latinos. Others have emphasised the factors of Harris’s identity.
The third Trump Campaign for the presidency has been an especially emotive one. He has tremendous skill at attracting voters who feel disadvantaged by the system, and images of his face bloodied by an assassination attempt are not ones that will be soon forgotten. His appeal is not limited to certain categories of voters: he has a broad base, and is gaining support with some typically left-leaning communities.
However, his statements both about identity and about his policy stances lack substance. The use of untruths, while evocative, are misleading and often offensive. His comment in September’s debate with Harris that he has ‘a concept of a plan’ about the economy is telling. While he has ideas, his strategy to return to the White House is one where he is elected on voter’s feelings. His suggestion of the deportation of a million illegal immigrants, his shirking of the unpopular Project 2025, and his false claims of immigrants eating pets reflect that.
Perhaps Steve Bannon was right in 2016 when said that one side talking extensively about identity is an opportunity for the other side to win on policy. Or perhaps Trump’s unsubstantiated claims and emotional appeals to identity politics will be successful. Either way, it is important to recognise divisive and misleading language, especially at the highest level of politics.
Image courtesy of Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons, ©2018. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
