In the wake of its embarrassing defeat to Donald Trump, the Democratic Party is divided over how they lost. There are “process” people who blame the Electoral College and other structural aspects of presidential campaigns. “If only” analysts who point to James Comey, Wikileaks, and Russia.
According to these perspectives, Democrats lost largely because of factors outside their control, and their solutions range from unprecedented electoral reform (scrap the Electoral College) to “Aw shucks, we’ll get ‘em next time.”
But what if the main problem isn’t circumstantial, but the heart of the Democratic Party and its message? In his new book, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, Columbia University professor Mark Lilla makes the case that the Democrats lost because they’re beholden to identity…