President Obama's efforts to bring about a "post-identity" politics is rightfully praised by one and all, right? That depends on what is meant by the term "identity" politics. It appears that most consider it a synonym for "partisan" politics, which is why Obama has used the term "post-partisan" politics as well. Should we be willing to cast off partisanship? Should we, as is constantly advocated by partisans on all sides, "put partisanship aside to do what's right for the American people?" If partisanship and "identity" politics refer to what has come to be called "the politics of personal destruction," then good riddance to them. However, if these terms apply to "ideological" politics and debate, then we would surely be throwing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak. Despite being horribly misunderstood in the public mind, ideological politics and politicians are exactly what we need. Ideological politicians arguing about policy from ideological perspectives, rather than the emotional, irrational, and personal prejudices that frequently animate political debate would be marvelous. Unfortunately, it may also require divine intervention.
Washington Post columnist Michael Kazin, in a column called A Liberal Revival of Americanism wrote the following, "But if Obama believes one can enforce a truce in the long battle over how to apply the founding ideals of the nation, he will be disappointed. Since the 1790s, when Vice President Thomas Jefferson accused President John Adams of betraying the republic's "true principles" with his Alien and Sedition Acts, this conflict has been a vital matter in our politics." Kazin's caution speaks directly to the danger of further burying from public view the real and appropriate intellectual (i.e. ideological) cleavages in American politics. If the labels "post-partisan" and "post identity" politics are used to mean (and demean) ideological disagreement and debate, rather than what they really describe (the battles between the personal prejudices that form parts of everyone's identity), then hopes for a smarter, more civil political discourse will have been squandered.
The fact that politicians routinely equate ideological and partisan politics is ironically both appropriate and disastrous. It's appropriate because real partisanship is based on (or at least motivated by) ideas and philosophical preferences, which should be encouraged and nurtured both for the attendant productivity in policy making as well as the potential to more productively educate citizens. It is disastrous because virtually everyone thinks that ideology means "a selfish view of how we should be governed that necessarily conflicts with the public interest." The assumption, though profoundly out of step with our democratic principles, is that the public interest exists as an objective reality realizable only when everyone puts aside their personal views and interests.
If more Americans realized that partisan attacks on the character or personal conduct of political opponents was actually a strategy to enhance the power position of an "ideological" approach, not just to gain power for power's sake, they may be able to minimize petty personal attacks in politics the old fashion way; by reducing the effectiveness of such tactics. For those who play it at the highest levels, politics is NEVER about character or personal conduct. These things only become relevant when they present opportunities to reduce the power of competing ideas by reducing the credibility of those who espouse those ideas (i.e. "attack the messenger"). Whenever you hear someone link corruption or some other bad behavior to a particular party or group of people, you should understand that the speaker is either just trying to create controversy to sell books or commercials, or they are really employing a tactic in the service of an ideological agenda. The ideological agenda is legitimate, as long as it is held up to public scrutiny and debate. Efforts to forward ideological agendas by making the messengers for and against them the subject of public debate are neither legitimate nor in the long term interests of American democracy.
If Americans can be awakened from their cynical slumber and convinced to see politics as more than a battle between good and bad, smart and dumb, people or groups, but instead as something driven by competing ideas, then we would definitely look back at the present time as one of profound change in America.