--- title: "3 Identity politics Quotes By Mark Lilla" description: "3 Identity politics quotes by Mark Lilla. Plus more from Mark Lilla and more Identity politics sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c00/mark-lilla-13300_democratic-party_you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a_543144.png" --- > [“You might have thought that, faced with a novel anti-political picture of the nation, liberals would have countered with an imaginative, hopeful…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a-novel-anti-political-picture/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c00/mark-lilla-13300_democratic-party_you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a_543144.png) > [“There can be no liberal politics without a sense of we—of what we are as citizens and what we owe each other.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without-a-sense-of-we-of-what-we-are/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/mark-lilla-13300_collateral-damage_there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without_1670953.jpg) > [“The politics of identity is nothing new, certainly on the American right. What was astonishing during the Reagan Dispensation was the development…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new-certainly-on-the-american/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1f6/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new_3166366.jpg) ## Other authors on Identity politics - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b010/author-greg-gutfeld-39360.jpg) Greg Gutfeld 7 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/identity-politics/greg-gutfeld/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b001/author-milo-yiannopoulos-1925.jpg) Milo Yiannopoulos 6 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/identity-politics/milo-yiannopoulos/) ## More by Mark Lilla > [“Democratic politics is about persuasion, not self-expression. I’m here, I’m queer will never provoke more than a pat on the head or a roll…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/democratic-politics-is-about-persuasion-not-self-expression-i-m-here/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The other component was to build cadres through political education. Republicans sought out wealthy donors to set up foundations and think tanks as safe…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-other-component-was-to-build-cadres-through-political-education/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The romantic wants to create a world where he or she will possess a fully integrated, unconflicted identity—where the answers to the questions Who…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-romantic-wants-to-create-a-world-where-he-or-she-will-possess-a/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“How we react to the presidency of Donald Trump will be the first test of our preparedness. His administration in its infancy is already…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/how-we-react-to-the-presidency-of-donald-trump-will-be-the-first-test/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The universities of our time instead cultivate students so obsessed with their personal identities and campus pseudo-politics that they have much less interest in,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-universities-of-our-time-instead-cultivate-students-so-obsessed/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The Republicans have successfully persuaded much of the public that they are the party of Joe Sixpack and Democrats are the party of Jessica…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-republicans-have-successfully-persuaded-much-of-the-public-that/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Mary McCarthy, though, had it wrong when she wrote that “Madame Bovary is Don Quixote in skirts.” Emma’s suffering is Platonic: she searches, in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/mary-mccarthy-though-had-it-wrong-when-she-wrote-that-madame-bovary/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“You might have thought that, faced with a novel anti-political picture of the nation, liberals would have countered with an imaginative, hopeful vision of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a-novel-anti-political-picture/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The Stillborn God is not a fairy tale. It is a book about the fragility of our world, the world created by the intellectual…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-stillborn-god-is-not-a-fairy-tale-it-is-a-book-about-the/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The forces at work in healthy party politics are centripetal; they encourage factions and interests to come together to work out common goals and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-politics-are-centripetal-they/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Martin Luther King Jr. was the greatest movement leader in American history. But, as Hillary Clinton once correctly pointed out, his efforts would have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/martin-luther-king-jr-was-the-greatest-movement-leader-in-american/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Like any other political doctrine, liberalism makes assumptions about things human and divine, and these assumptions are, and ought to remain, open to disinterested…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/like-any-other-political-doctrine-liberalism-makes-assumptions-about/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Better the self-torture of a godless Protestant conscience than the fantasies of a modern Prometheus.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/better-the-self-torture-of-a-godless-protestant-conscience-than-the/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Identity is not the future of the left. It is not a force hostile to neoliberalism. Identity is Reaganism for lefties.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/identity-is-not-the-future-of-the-left-it-is-not-a-force-hostile-to/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [Whoever takes it upon himself to write an honest intellectual history of twentieth-century Europe will need a strong stomach. But he will need something…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/whoever-takes-it-upon-himself-to-write-an-honest-intellectual-history/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/identity-politics/mark-lilla/#itemlist", "name": "3 Identity politics Quotes By Mark Lilla", "numberOfItems": 3, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“You might have thought that, faced with a novel anti-political picture of the nation, liberals would have countered with an imaginative, hopeful vision of what we share as Americans and what we might accomplish together. Instead, they lost themselves in the thickets of identity politics and developed a resentful, disuniting rhetoric of difference to match it. You might have thought that, faced with Republican's steady acquisition of institutional power, they would have poured their energies into helping the Democratic Party win elections at every level of government and in every region of the country, reaching out especially to working-class Americans who used to vote for it. Instead, they became enthralled with social movements operating outside those institutions and developed disdain for the demos living between the coasts. You might have thought that, faced with the dogma of radical economic individualism that Reaganism normalized, liberals would have used their positions in our educational institutions to teach young people that they share a destiny with all their fellow citizens and have duties toward them. Instead, they trained students to be spelunkers of their personal identities and left them incurious about the world outside of their heads. You might have thought a lot of reasonable things. And you would have been wrong.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Lilla" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a-novel-anti-political-picture/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c00/mark-lilla-13300_democratic-party_you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a_543144.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c00/mark-lilla-13300_democratic-party_you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a_543144.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c00/mark-lilla-13300_democratic-party_you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a_543144.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“You might have thought that, faced with a novel anti-political picture of the nation, liberals would have…” — Mark Lilla", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“There can be no liberal politics without a sense of we—of what we are as citizens and what we owe each other. If liberals hope ever to recapture America’s imagination and become a dominant force across the country, it will not be enough to beat the Republicans at flattering the vanity of the mythical Joe Sixpack. They must offer a vision of our common destiny based on one thing that all Americans, of every background, actually share. And that is citizenship. We must relearn how to speak to citizens as citizens and to frame our appeals—including ones to benefit particular groups—in terms of principles that everyone can affirm. Ours must become a civic liberalism.* This does not mean a return to the New Deal. Future liberals cannot be like the liberals of yore; too much has changed. But it will require that the spell of identity politics that has held two generations in its thrall be broken so that we can focus on what we share as citizens. I hope to convince my fellow liberals that their current way of looking at the country, speaking to it, teaching the young, and engaging in practical politics has been misguided and counterproductive. Their abdication must end and a new approach must be embraced.   It is a bittersweet truth that there has never been a better opportunity in half a century for liberals to start winning the country back. Republicans since Trump’s election are in disarray and intellectually bankrupt. Most Americans now recognize that Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill” has turned into rust belt towns with long-shuttered shops, abandoned factories invaded by local grasses, cities where the water is undrinkable and guns are everywhere, and homes across the country where families are scraping by with part-time minimum-wage jobs and no health insurance. It is an America where Democrats, independents, and many Republican voters feel themselves abandoned by their country. They want America to be America again. But there is no again in politics, just the future. And there is no reason why the American future should not be a liberal one. Our message can and should be simple: we are a republic, not a campsite. Citizens are not roadkill. They are not collateral damage. They are not the tail of the distribution. A citizen, simply by virtue of being a citizen, is one of us. We have stood together to defend the country against foreign adversaries in the past. Now we must stand together at home to make sure that none of us faces the risk of being left behind. We’re all Americans and we owe that to each other. That’s what liberalism means.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Lilla" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without-a-sense-of-we-of-what-we-are/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/mark-lilla-13300_collateral-damage_there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without_1670953.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/mark-lilla-13300_collateral-damage_there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without_1670953.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/mark-lilla-13300_collateral-damage_there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without_1670953.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“There can be no liberal politics without a sense of we—of what we are as citizens and what we owe each…” — Mark Lilla", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The politics of identity is nothing new, certainly on the American right. What was astonishing during the Reagan Dispensation was the development of a left-wing version of it that became the de facto creed of two generations of liberal politicians, professors, schoolteachers, journalists, movement activists, and officials of the Democratic Party. This was not a historical accident. For the fascination, and then obsession, with identity did not challenge the fundamental principle of Reaganism. It reinforced that principle: individualism. Identity politics on the left was at first about large classes of people -- African-Americans, women -- seeking to redress major historical wrongs by mobilizing and then working through our political institutions to secure their rights. But by the 1980s it had given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow and exclusionary self-definition that is now cultivated in our colleges and universities. The main result has been to turn young people back onto themselves, rather than turning them toward the wider world. It has left them unprepared to think about the common good and what must be done practically to secure it -- especially the hard and unglamorous task of persuading people very different from themselves to join a common effort. Every advance of liberal identity consciousness has marked a retreat of liberal political consciousness. Without which no vision of America's future can be imagined.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Lilla" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new-certainly-on-the-american/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1f6/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new_3166366.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1f6/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new_3166366.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1f6/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-politics-of-identity-is-nothing-new_3166366.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The politics of identity is nothing new, certainly on the American right. 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