Print Column: The Absurdity of Identity Politics When Identity Is Self-Identified

There’s some weird stuff going on in the national Democratic Party, otherwise known as the organization North Dakota Democrats like Heidi Heitkamp and Mac Schneider like to pretend they aren’t a part of during election years.

In recent weeks the party has had to address the problem of superdelegates, an Orwellian classification of elite Democrats whose votes in the party were more equal than those of the nonelites. The elites no longer get a vote on the first ballot of presidential nominations at the national convention.

The party also implemented, and then reversed, a ban on contributions from the fossil fuel industry. Perhaps they realized sidelining an industry vital to areas of America where Democrats need to win elections (like, say, North Dakota?) wasn’t such a great idea.

But there may be no more odd corner of byzantine progressive politics than the Democratic Party’s attempts to address the issue of gender parity in the ranks of its leadership while simultaneously upholding the idea that gender is a fluid thing.

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