The great struggles in American political history—over slavery and segregation, workers’ rights, women’s equality—were ultimately demands that the political system expand the circle of individuals it recognized as having equal rights. Yet the story is more complicated than that. Contemporary identity politics is driven by the quest for equal recognition by groups that have been marginalized by their societies. But that desire for equal recognition can easily slide over into a demand for recognition of the group’s superiority. This is a large part of the story of nationalism and national
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