Without a doubt identity politics exploit divisions and that can make things worse rather than better if not carefully managed.

However, it is the people holding power who do the “othering,” defining this or that class of humans as different enough to require different treatment in public policies.

And I can’t avoid that some men are convinced that women somehow deserve to be disadvantaged in law. The old cases I had to read in law school describing a litigant as “femme sole” made that clear.

How do identity politics get started?

When men assert the power to control women’s bodies. And, by the way, was the woman suffrage movement not an instance of identity politics?

When the Anglo power structure refuses to announce important things in Spanish. Do they think that will force anybody to speak or read Spanish?

When police bullets seem to lodge in non-white flesh in grossly disproportional numbers. Or when non-whites are overrepresented at every point where the criminal justice system applies sanctions and, if the statistics raise questions, the answer is the demonstrably false claim that non-whites are guilty of more crimes.

Do you think identity politics result from people othering themselves? That makes about as much sense as the claim that people choose to be gay or trans. Oh yes, says the gay teenager — doesn’t everybody like to paint a target on their own ass? Can’t have too many ass kickings, doncha know?

So people who have been othered to their disadvantage get together and withhold their votes from any candidates who refuse to use public offices to undo the othering.

What would you have them do, learn to tolerate the intolerable?