As November 5th approaches, noted ‘progressive’ politicians have dusted off this old identity thesis in a last-ditch attempt to save “our democracy” (HRC) from fascism. Could it be literally true that Trump = Hitler? Why not?
Lefties might try tampering with the concept of identity. They might advance the notion that identity, although long held by reactionary racists to be a symmetrical relation, is really asymmetrical. Thus, if a = b, then it is not the case that b = a. That would allow them to say that while Trump is Hitler, Hitler is not Trump.
But they can't leave transitivity untouched. After all, David Axelrod a while back claimed that Trump is literally (his word) Nero. Axelrod is no Joe Biden. Axe knows the difference between the literal and the figurative, unlike Joe Blow. So if Trump = Hitler, and Trump = Nero, then Hitler = Nero, which is a decidedly anachronistic result. Hey hey, ho ho, transitivity has got to go! (Along with Western Civ as recommended by Brother Jesse. Remember him?)
Identity has standardly been held to be an equivalence relation (and thus symmetrical, transitive, and reflexive). What about reflexivity? Is Obama Obama? Not really. He celebrates diversity even unto self-diversity. It is precisely his self-diversity as both a white man and a black man that made it possible for him to bring us all together as he did so wonderfully while at the same time saving us from the capitalist oppression of the Law of Identity.
So I'm thinking that the Democrat Party needs a Logic Caucus tasked with undoing the racist logic of such dead white guys as Aristotle and Frege.
It stands to reason that the Identity Politics of the Dems calls for a radical re-thinking of the very concept of identity.
I hereby nominate Nancy Pelosi, the sharpest knife in the Democrat drawer, to head up the Logic Caucus. Kamala Harris, despite her impressively intersectional woke ‘qualifications’ is too dumb to cut the mustard.