Tom Pepinsky

Category: Current Affairs

  • Identity, Causal Beliefs, and Partisan Competition

    Over at the Monkey Cage, John Sides and Michael Tesler argue that “white resentment” explains support for President Trump. This is a particularly timely observation given recent news that the Justice Department plans to investigate higher education institutions for allegedly discriminating against white people, and (2) a new Senate bill to restrict immigration, especially among low-skilled immigrants. Here is their key graphic.

    Source: John Sides and Michael Telser, The Monkey Cage

    On the face of it, this is an important result about white identity politics in the United States. Assuming that Sides and Tesler are correct, its first order implications are that candidates who speak to white identity issues should gain support from voters who hold such views.

    But the second order implications are more interesting, and more consequential for partisan competition in the United States. The statement “I think minorities are taking jobs from people like me” is more than a statement about identity politics. In addition to being a claim about “who I am and what I want” it also implies a set of causal ideas or beliefs—claims about “how the world works.” In this case, the causal belief is about how labor markets work. Someone who holds the view that “minorities are taking jobs from people like me” will respond differently to low wages, economic difficulties, or unemployment than someone who does not hold this view. The latter may interpret low wages, economic difficulties, or unemployment as a sign that something is wrong with how markets function. The former may hold the belief that markets would function perfectly were it not for “the minorities.”

    As a result, identity suffuses the broader structure of partisan competition, even in domains in which a party may not wish to address it. It may be the case white identity politics may be defeated by assembling a larger coalition of people who do not hold such views: this is the promise of anti-identitarian progressivism. But this is a different task than unmaking identity politics. Doing this means defeating the causal beliefs associated with identity, such as the welfare queen and images of the “deserving” poor. This has proven a hard task in American politics.

  • There Will Be a Post-Trump State Department. Who Will Staff It?

    This Foreign Policy piece on the gutting of the U.S. State Department under Secretary Tillerson is depressing.

    Veterans of the U.S. diplomatic corps say the expanding front office is part of an unprecedented assault on the State Department: A hostile White House is slashing its budget, the rank and file are cut off from a detached leader, and morale has plunged to historic lows. They say President Donald Trump and his administration dismiss, undermine, or don’t bother to understand the work they perform and that the legacy of decades of American diplomacy is at risk.

    By failing to fill numerous senior positions across the State Department, promulgating often incoherent policies, and systematically shutting out career foreign service officers from decision-making, the Trump administration is undercutting U.S. diplomacy and jeopardizing America’s leadership role in the world, according to more than three dozen current and former diplomats interviewed by FP.

    There is probably not much that can be done about such developments in the short term. However, there will be a post-Trump State Department. With the absence of foreign policy leadership in Washington right now, it is time to start thinking ahead for how to rebuild American foreign policy when that time comes.

    The single greatest challenge facing the post-Trump foreign policy community will be in reclaiming understanding and expertise after an administration that does not care about the details, about history, or about the nuance of bilateral relations and regional dynamics. With the U.S. diplomatic corps hobbled, other reserves of foreign policy and area expertise will need to contribute. Universities and colleges have a critical role to play here. Political scientists and country- and regional-specialists should be thinking now about how they might contribute: writing for the policy community about how U.S. interests interface with local political dynamics, training students to value both critical inquiry and public service, and—yes—volunteering to serve themselves.

    My advice to those in DC in the position to shape U.S. foreign policy after Trump is this: take advantage of this reservoir of foreign policy expertise. It will be especially important to have a grounded sense of the damage that the Trump administration has done to relationships with allies and partners. Make opportunities available for faculty and graduate students to contribute to this effort, and they will do so.

    You may read some of my thoughts about the relationships between U.S. foreign policy, area studies, and political science here, here, and here.