Blaming “identity politics” for the bloodshed and chaos in Charlottesville misses the point. It’s like blaming “greed” for the recession or blaming gravity for a plane crash.

Yes, the white supremacists and Nazis of Charlottesville and the authoritarian leftist radicals across college campuses are peddling vile identity politics, but we shouldn’t therefore presume that only these villains play identity politics. Most politics is identity politics.