For decades, “identity politics” has been a target of conservative critique. Conservative commentators have long warned against the political approach that elevates group identity, such as race, sex, religion, or sexuality, above individual character, shared citizenship, and equal treatment under the law.
They argue that it replaces personal responsibility with inherited status, fragments national unity into competing sub-groups, and justifies unequal treatment in the name of fairness. Rather than encouraging merit, civic values, or cohesion, identity politics entrenches division, incentivises victimhood, and undermines equal citizenship.
At its core, identity politics “exploits” a universal human instinct: tribalism. Humans naturally organise into groups, such as family, ethnic, religious, or cultural, and defend their collective interests. This instinct is neither inherently good nor bad; its consequences depend entirely on how it is harnessed.
For years, identity politics has been leveraged against the “straight, white, Christian,” and conservatives were correct to identify the threat. But the prescribed remedy, namely abandoning their own identity altogether, was catastrophic. We were told to dissolve our sense of shared heritage and trust that merit alone would suffice, while virtually all other groups continued to unashamedly advance their interests collectively.
The result was predictable. By disarming ourselves, we became the only group expected to deny shared identity, loyalties, and obligations. Everyone else continued to organise around their interests; we stood alone in self-imposed neutrality. The rules of the game didn’t change; only our willingness to play did.
Refusing to recognise our own identity didn’t fix the system; it just guaranteed our own disadvantage. Identity politics is not optional; it is universal. Every group practices in-group loyalty, every community defends its interests, every people invest in their continuity—except one. Ignoring this reality ensured our own inevitable decline.
Diagnosing the threat was not enough. Abandoning identity, in the belief that our own virtue and merit alone would suffice, exacerbated the problem and ultimately disqualified us from the game. Recognition of our shared identity, combined with biblically principled action for the well-being of our children, is not pride or supremacist—it is basic survival.
If we do not play the game as it is played by all others, the outcome is ethnic and cultural suicide. We’re seeing the fruits of it today, with marginalisation and decline across virtually every Western nation. Consequently, it should be evident to all that a civilisation that refuses to defend its own identity does not prove its virtue; it merely accelerates its own replacement.
