There’s been plenty of talk, lately, about how people “identify.” You identify as male; I identify as female. You’re straight; I’m gay. You like Pepsi; I like Coke. You say “tomato,” and I say “to-mah-to.”
This can very quickly get silly. You might identify as a tomato. I think it might be loads of fun to identify as Wonder Woman. But if I start skipping around my neighborhood in a tiara, star-spangly bra, and go-go boots and proclaiming that I’m a superheroine, they’ll come and take me away. No “ha-ha” about it.
The problem with all this identifying is that none of the people so adamant about doing it seem to identify as individual selves. They’re all picking a team. I could wear a lot of different labels if I chose, but I identify simply as me. These days, that makes me a weirdo.
If we can be whipped into a frenzy by the exhortations of any politician, we’ve got identity-mania. And bad.
Of course there are a few genuine weirdos busy at that game. A young woman in Norway has publicly declared that she identifies as a cat. Occasionally we run across a story about some adult who’s chosen to identify as an infant and crawl around the house in a diaper, gnawing on a pacifier. We shake our heads, and maybe we very sadly laugh. Cases like these are so extreme that we might be tempted to forget just how common identify-mania really is.
Many people fail to realize that they’ve caught the disease. But here’s a handy diagnostic tool. If we can be whipped into a frenzy by the exhortations of any politician, we’ve got it. And bad.
Conservative pundits have coined their own term for it. They call it “identity politics.” Of course those they accuse of this failing all land neatly on the other side of the political divide. But as the runaway-train presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump clearly illustrates, the contagion has spread to the right.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with advocating our own best interests. Nor do I mean to imply that everyone who votes for Trump is an angry white male of middle age or older, or will necessarily be driven by pure emotion. But as a libertarian, I can find nothing to like about his authoritarian, big-government-is-magic positions. It would be irresponsible for me to cast my ballot for him just because I think he’s been ill-treated by the media, or because I detest the people who detest him.
My attitude toward my fellow Americans is that they’re OK with me as long as they don’t push me around or steal from me.
It certainly is tempting, however, to root for a candidate as obsessively vilified as Donald Trump. I’m tired of being told how outraged I’m supposed to be every time he opens his mouth. His critics in the media are a ghastly gallery of horror-movie clowns. Their instructions to us about our civic duties are a sick joke. And their fawning over Hillary Clinton makes me want to vomit.
My attitude toward my fellow Americans — regardless of the demographic group to which they belong — is that they’re OK with me as long as they don’t push me around or steal from me. I don’t believe that my best interests are at odds with other people’s nearly as often as the demagogues claim. I think that claim is a divide-and-conquer tactic, designed to keep us at odds with one another. I also believe that the political hustlers who commonly make it are the scum of the earth. No matter what party they happen to represent, they’re unworthy of my vote.
The only time when they want to make us feel (as opposed to think) is when they are trying to put something over on us — which, in my opinion, is nearly all the time. Whenever politicians attempt to manipulate my emotions, I assume they’re trying to bamboozle me. Experience has shown me that I am seldom wrong.
The notion that because I can be lumped into a particular demographic group, I owe my vote to a candidate who transparently tries to play me like a fiddle, is just plain weird. It’s as strange as a young woman who’s decided she’s a cat, or a middle-aged man who spends all day in a giant crib. It’s pathetic weird. It’s deranged weird. It is, very frankly, unworthy-of-being-an-American weird.
If we are peace-loving people, and habitually mind our own business, we need be at odds with no one except those who would push us around or steal from us. They are the enemies of anyone who wants to live a happy life. If we think Donald Trump is the best candidate, then by all means we should vote for him. My thinking has led me to support Gary Johnson. Though if she were running, I’d certainly go for Wonder Woman.
