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Vice President Joe Biden swears in Kamala Harris as a US senator in 2017. (AP/Yonhap)

By Jung E-gil, senior international affairs writer

US President Joe Biden’s decision to bow out of the presidential race has increased the likelihood that Vice President Kamala Harris will become the Democratic nominee. Should this happen, the upcoming election will feature the most contrasting candidates in history, highlighting stark differences in gender, race and class: male vs. female, white vs. non-white, wealthy vs. lower-middle class, native vs. immigrant, and majority vs. minority. 

Typically, such dynamics are romanticized as tales of rising up from humble beginnings, however, the tragedy lies in the fact that the current reality of American politics does not reflect this ideal. This is due to concerns about the worsening of identity politics, a concept also known as “tribal politics,” which is a politics that appeals to collective identities based on race, gender and religion.

Donald Trump is a product of identity politics. White lower-middle-class Americans, who see themselves as the rightful owners of the country but feel anger and frustration over their socioeconomic decline, enthusiastically support Trump, who blames immigrants and the rise of non-whites for their plight. 

Conversely, since the 1980s, the progressive camp in America, with efforts to improve the socioeconomic status of the masses having stagnated, has shifted its focus toward minority groups. The Democratic Party has championed the rights and freedoms of minorities based on race, gender and religion, mobilizing these groups as a significant part of their electoral base. The notion of “political correctness,” which emphasizes understanding and advocating for minority rights and perspectives, has practically almost become the mainstream ideology of the progressive camp. This shift has turned off white lower-middle-class Americans in socially and culturally conservative non-urban areas even more from the Democratic Party, ultimately leading to Trump's rise.

The rise of identity politics in the United States has also changed the character of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The platform adopted at the recent Republican National Convention, for example, completely omitted the traditional Republican issue of “small government,” defined by fiscal deficit reduction and social security cuts. Instead, it includes promises to “fight for and protect social security and Medicare with no cuts” and features “large tax cuts for workers, and no tax on tips” rather than simple “tax cuts.” 

The traditional policy of overseas military expansion has been replaced with commitments to “prevent World War Three, restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country — all made in America.” Moreover, the top priority of the platform is to “seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion.” The Republican Party is shifting its focus from the upper-middle class to the white lower-middle-class Americans, leaning on right-wing populism for support.

The Democratic Party, in terms of foreign policy, has shifted towards a more confrontational stance under the guise of freedom and democracy, rather than engagement, negotiation and compromise. While the party’s pro-liberalism wing argues, based on political correctness, that the US must respond strongly to authoritarian regimes abroad, a significant part of this stance is influenced by immigrant voters. For example, some point out that prominent Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, which brought US-China tensions to a new level, was largely due to the huge voter base in San Francisco's Chinatown, which falls within her district.

The expansion of NATO, which set the stage for the Ukraine war, can also be understood in similar terms. The 1999 admission of Eastern European countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary into the organization was part of the Clinton administration’s election strategy to target voters of Eastern European descent in the swing states around the Great Lakes. Initially, the Clinton administration pushed for these countries' participation in the “Partnership for Peace” program instead of NATO membership. However, after suffering a historic defeat to the Republicans in the 1994 midterm elections, they opted for NATO expansion.

In a meeting with then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin in May 1995, Clinton said, “I face a difficult campaign, but I have a reasonable chance. The Republicans are pushing NATO expansion. Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio are key; they represented a big part of my majority last time — states where I won by a narrow margin. [. . .] Don’t ask us to slow down [NATO expansion].” 

At the time, even the Pentagon was skeptical of NATO expansion. In November 1997, as NATO expansion was becoming a reality, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman criticized the decision, saying, “It was a cynical effort to attract votes from Polish, Czech and Hungarian Americans by promising their motherlands membership. This silly decision set NATO on a slippery slope to who knows where.”

Trump has already started targeting Harris’ potential nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate by intensifying his focus on issues such as immigration, refugees and overseas military interventions by Democratic administrations. Will Harris and the Democratic Party be able to navigate these issues as they have done before under the guise of freedom, human rights and democracy? A bleak dystopia of jumbled values and policies awaits us.

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