An interesting look at how politics has become an increasingly powerful source of identity, not just an outcome of it.
People sometimes decry identity politics — “I’m an X, so I vote for That Party” or “I’m a Z, so I only vote for other Zs or Z supporters,” with religion, race, gender, class, etc., taking the part of the variables.
But there’s evidence that political party or political identity along one or another spectrum is beginning to trump the others. Looking at long-term surveys (where the subject was given the same questions across multiple years), researchers are seeing those other identities changing based on political identification. E.g.,
Liberal Democrats were much more likely than conservative Republicans to start identifying as Latino or saying that their ancestry was African, Asian or Hispanic.
Conservative Republicans were more likely than liberal Democrats to stop describing themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual; liberal-leaning Democrats were more likely to start identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual.
Again, it’s not that these people were “actually” changing — their genetics weren’t switching around — but that how they perceived or identified themselves was realigning based on their (unchanged in labels) politics, or how those other labels were seen as part and parcel of those political ideologies, rather than separate factors.
That change in the last decade or so may also go along with other observations as to the rise of Big Ideas and the decline of compromise within politics; when political ideology becomes not just an outcome of your identity, but your identity itself, emotionality and an unforgiveness for backing down become more natural reactions.
Americans Are Shifting The Rest Of Their Identity To Match Their Politics
Welcome to Secret Identity, our regular column on identity and its role in politics and policy. We generally think of a person’s race or religion as being fixed…
This result was surprising:
"Conservative Republicans were more likely … to stop describing themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual."
While the Log Cabin Republicans have been around forever, society in general has become more accepting of LGBT people, to the point where several supporters of Trump are identified as LGBT, including Milo Yiannopoulos, Caitlyn Jenner, and at least one other whose name escapes me.
However, the data suggests that these people are the exception rather than the rule.
Yeah, but those are relatively fringe, media-focused individuals. (The article also doesn't quantify "more likely" — it's called out as significant, but that's very different from "all" or "most," certainly.)
The question would be is it that those people who no longer describe themselves that way don't do so because they are repressing / ignoring their sexual orientation, because they find the label too fraught for their social communities, or (slightly different from the previous) because being "lesbian, gay, or bisexual" has become associated with being "liberal" and therefore is not seen as acceptable or accurate.
>""Conservative Republicans were more likely … to stop describing themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual.""
Both of them?
Vear nice
+communities stars thanks you well come send any picture
+John E. Bredehoft I live in West Hollywood and right-wing LGBT individuals are about as common as Jewish Holocaust deniers! NOT being sarcastic because there are right-wing self hating Jewish individuals who are apologists for antisemitism just as there are self hating LGBT individuals who are apologists for homophobia like the log cabin republicans.
I've noticed that more republicans are coming out as "white nationalists" now!
https://thinkprogress.org/oregon-legislator-anti-immigrant-white-supremacist-hate-group-2d86b50c4129/
+Cy Husain Although there is a difference between coming out and being outed. In this case.