Voting for Identity

It used to be said that economics and foreign affairs (the latter to a lesser extent) were the crucial psephological factors in democracies. They continue to matter, and can have determining effects. But other elements have become central as well. And a series of remarkable plebiscites and elections in the recent past has been contested with direct reference to social identities. Thinking back to 2016 plebiscites, the vote against peace in Colombia—albeit a narrow one, and with a minority of voters participating—was partially about evangelical Protestantism’s obsessions with sex. Hence the remarkable sight during the campaign of men and women from vastly separate racial, geographical, and class formations linking arms in large demonstrations to denounce feminism and LGBT rights. That same year, the British vote against Brexit was tied to nostalgia for imperialism. In the contemporary moment, in 2022, the success of the far right in Italy is again related to sexual obsessions, blended this time with racial ones. The vote against the new draft constitution in Chile was, inter alia, connected to similar concerns, namely marriage equality and indigenous rights. The collapse of Swedish social democracy was animated by anti-Muslim rhetoric. Such trends are paradoxically tied to longstanding demands from formerly new, now rather middle-aged, social movements, notably those linked to the environment, gender, and race. For those themes have been reanimated by reactionary social movements, both venerable and emergent. Right-wing activists have learnt from ‘our’ side’s doctrines of direct action, exemplified by their January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol and claims about threats to cultural/social identity, per “The Great Replacement.” Such movements are closely tied to patriarchal monotheism, lack of faith in democracy, cynicism re the state, profound nationalism, doctrines of white supremacy (and anxiety), a loathing of difference, terror in the face of immigration—and the use of spectacle. Six decades ago, Tom Lehrer sang of how the left clung onto culture in the face of defeat. Looking back to the Spanish Civil War and the Lincoln Brigade’s part in what proved to be a futile struggle against Francisco Franco’s fascism, Lehrer drolly noted in troping “Venga Jaleo” that “he may have won all the battles,” but “We had all the good songs” (Lehrer, 1965). That emphasis on spectacle became even more relevant with the stress on cultural politics and identity that came with the soixante-huitards and les événements, feminism, civil rights, anti-globalization protests, and Occupy. Today, the angry populist right has picked up on spectacle. It chants, it dresses outrageously, it cocks a snook at authority, and it opposes globalization and representative politics. Progressive tools of resistance have been seized and used against their origins. The new politics of spectacle, dominated by the right, produces uncomfortable echoes of popular resistance to tradition and reverence. Cultural progressives got what we wanted after many decades of struggle: identity at the center of politics and socio-political analysis. But it wasn’t Queer Nation and Stuart Hall. It was evangelical Christianity and Samuel Huntington. To respond successfully, we need to rearticulate social identities to the economy and capital ‘p’ politics in ways that speak to the popular classes beyond the din of fear about the nation.