Conflict in all democratic societies basically boils down to two great questions: “Who gets what?” and “Who are we?” Or, put another way, all conflicts are at their core either about economics and the distribution of material resources or about national identity, culture, and social group hierarchy. Sometimes these conflicts are separate. Other times, they are yoked together, and “Who gets what?” becomes a question of “Who deserves what?” Depending on which great question predominates, we get different politics.
