Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment

by Francis Fukuyama

On the right, some have retreated into earlier versions of identity based on race and religion. Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin once characterized “real Americans” as those residing in small towns and rural areas, something that deliberately excluded the diverse populations of U.S. cities. Donald Trump has taken this view to new heights, awakening an ugly form of populist nationalism that would reassert an ethnic or religious understanding of the country. As he said at one campaign rally in 2016, “The only important thing is the unification of the people” because “the other people don’t mean anything.”20 This implies in practice that the “real people” expel or somehow forcibly exclude the “other people” from civic life—not a formula for national unity, but for civil war.