Tom Piatak

April 04, 2008

Among the many attacks launched by National Review on Pat Buchanan was Ramesh Ponnuru’s dismissal of Buchananism as “identity politics for white people.”  Ponnuru has now penned a piece for TIME arguing that McCain has to offer some form of legalization for at least some illegal immigrants or some comparable assistance to Hispanic immigrants, because “Republicans have to offer Hispanics more than a fence.”  Appealing to Hispanics on the basis of presumed racial solidarity sounds like identity politics to me.  But if Ponnuru doesn’t really object to identity politics, what exactly did he find wrong with “identity politics for white people?”