Is Identity Politics Good or Bad for Liberal Democracy?

Is Identity Politics Good or Bad for Liberal Democracy?
Name
Department
Course
Instructor
Due Date
Is Identity Politics Good or Bad for Liberal Democracy?
Identity politics often focuses on the concerns, needs, and interests of marginalized and opposed groups, and often there is a focus on ensuring equality and allowing democratic participation for all. Populists using identity politics have over time targeted the disaffected people in places left behind economically. While these people are aggrieved for lacking economic opportunism and facing stagnation, identity politics has been used to mobilize people without addressing socioeconomic inequalities. Equality under law does not necessarily result in socioeconomic inequality, and discrimination is a persistent problem even in liberal democracies (Fukuyama, 2018). Discrimination further widens inequalities in liberal democracies, but justice, freedoms, and equality are essential in liberal democracies. Identity politics is bad for liberal democracy as political leaders use grievance to achieve narrow interests and fail to represent all people. Nationalist populist leaders also undermine democratic institutions. There is also an appeal to divided groups and not a focus on shared interests and equality.
Grievances and narrow self-interest
Increasingly, political leaders mobilize communities and groups incorporating grievances on certain causes and groups regardless of outcomes to out-groups. While there are shared grievances that ought to be addressed, the challenge with identity politics is a focus on narrow self-interest issues at the expense of most other things. Furthermore, grievances have been used to divide people such that there is an emphasis on grievances to target those who do not address the specified grievance, whether legitimate or not. There is less focus on ideological position now in the US than before, and identity politics is now common in leftwing and right-wing politics (Fukuyama, 2018). However, this has widened differences and conflicts across the political spectrum that there is less bipartisanship among US legislators, and working with legislators from the opposing party is discouraged.
Identity politics tends to encourage herd behavior based on grievances where political polarization has increased with divergent political actors using identity politics to mobilize. In identity politics and herd, there is less political goodwill to work together and demonize those with contrary views. Identity politics predates politics in the 21st century, but those fighting for the rights of marginalized communities tended to use identity politics in the past. On the other hand, identity politics has been identified in democratic societies reflecting growing political tribalism in the US political process. The US is diverse, but there is too much focus on grievances in identity politics, yet working together can help deal with shared interests without further fracturing the country’s divisions. Different groups preserve their cultures without the national interests, but identify politics divides the people.
While identity politics was often associated with support for marginalized groups, there is increased focus on appealing to divided grou...