Identity Politics

Since most political journalism tends to be wishful thinking, most of the post-midterm analysis this year followed predictable paths.

When identity politics are good, when they're bad, and when they're just plain stupid.

Defending an actress for being hired to do a job is apparently beyond the pale these days.

Conservative columnist defended casting Scarlett Johnansson as a trans man.

Intersectionality doesn't help when you’re trying to build a coalition.

The Pulitzer-winning novelist leaves newly ordained rabbis feeling isolated with his ranting about inclusion.

A new documentary illustrates how the transracial pretender is doubling down on delusion.

The retiring speaker addressed the Midwest Conservative Summit.

There’s something wrong with politics when it becomes personal—especially when we’re wrong about the person.

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Andy Ferguson and Adam Rubenstein discuss "white and black," the craziness raging on college campuses, identity politics, and manufactured controversy targeting Bari Weiss.

Renowned professor of psychology at Harvard and a prolific writer, Steven Pinker is the author of several prize-winning books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and The Better Angels of Our Nature. This week Pinker releases a new book, Enlightenment Now: The Case…

Just when it seemed as if the election of Donald Trump had rendered his supporters incoherent with triumphalism and his detractors incoherent with rage—thereby dumbing-down political conversation for a long time to come—something different and more interesting happened. A genuine debate has sprung…

Just when it seemed as if the election of Donald Trump had rendered his supporters incoherent with triumphalism and his detractors incoherent with rage—thereby dumbing-down political conversation for a long time to come—something different and more interesting happened. A genuine debate has sprung…

In August, your humble Scrapbook noted an alarming New York magazine article about how the world of teenage novels is now rife with “culture cops, monitoring their peers across multiple platforms for violations.”

In late August, the Los Angeles city council voted to end the city’s celebration of Columbus Day. That same week, across the continent, a furor was foaming over the fact that New York City mayor Bill de Blasio was considering taking down the iconic statue of Columbus atop a pillar in the circle…

Ta-Nehisi Coates—national correspondent for the Atlantic, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, National Book Award winner—has a new essay out Thursday, which makes it something of an intellectual holiday for America's liberals.

In The New York Times on Thursday, Lindy West has an op-ed on the recent announcement by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee campaign chairman Ben Ray Luján that the group would not impose a litmus test for Democratic candidates requiring them to be pro-abortion. West is a fairly radical…

It's getting harder and harder to be politically correct, no matter how assiduously one may try. Consider the tale of the poor feminist philosopher who has gotten herself sideways with the prickly Jacobins of her profession.

'Beauty," Camille Paglia once wrote, "is our weapon against nature; by it we make objects, giving them limit, symmetry, proportion. Beauty halts and freezes the melting flux of nature." But as today's high-culture world descends into the morass of identity politics, beauty itself has surrendered to…

‘Beauty," Camille Paglia once wrote, "is our weapon against nature; by it we make objects, giving them limit, symmetry, proportion. Beauty halts and freezes the melting flux of nature." But as today's high-culture world descends into the morass of identity politics, beauty itself has surrendered to…

A year ago, as he prepared to give his final State of the Union speech, President Obama strode the halls of the Capitol while being interviewed by NBC's Matt Lauer. Lauer asked the president, in his friendly and earnest way, if he "takes responsibility" for the fact that Donald Trump was catching…

A year ago, as he prepared to give his final State of the Union speech, President Obama strode the halls of the Capitol while being interviewed by NBC’s Matt Lauer. Lauer asked the president, in his friendly and earnest way, if he "takes responsibility" for the fact that Donald Trump was catching…

The alt-right movement, relatively minuscule but outsized in the media coverage it has received before and since Donald Trump's election, is the latest iteration of America's dalliance with identity politics. So writes WEEKLY STANDARD senior editor Christopher Caldwell in the New York Times. Here's…

A half-forgotten exchange of letters between two titans of the Republican party, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, contains an urgent lesson for the presidential candidates who will debate at the Reagan Library on Wednesday: Tell the country that you will be the president of all Americans, and…

America was going to have a national conversation about transgender issues, whether we wanted to or not. Our cultural betters decreed we would. The perfectly named Vanity Fair deployed its considerable resources to present the coming out of Caitlyn—née Bruce—Jenner in what it took to be the most…

The chapter of the Young America’s Foundation at George Washington University is currently threatened with a loss of funding for refusing to attend mandatory LGBT sensitivity training. The student government at GWU recently made this a requirement for all student leaders, and YAF is being called…

Back in December, after the mass resignation of the The New Republic staff and general implosion of the existing magazine, one of the departing editors asked pointed question about the magazine's new, reactionary left-wing direction: 

In order to make sure gays and lesbians are adequately represented on the judicial bench, the state of California is requiring all judges and justices to reveal their sexual orientation. The announcement was made in an internal memo sent to all California judges and justices.

If this story isn't just about the perfect metaphor for the decline of America, I don't know what is.

In a recent interview with Human Events, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour talks about the rise of Southern Republicans, arguing that it had to do with generational and economic transformations. Liberal bloggers Steve Benen and Steve Kornacki reject this argument in separate posts, arguing instead…