Conservatism in a Divided America

Although conservatives have for years complained of identity politics on the left, recent years have seen an increase in right-wing identity politics. This has been most pronounced in the rise of the so-called Alt-Right, a recent iteration of the American white nationalist movement. What accounts for this movement's rapid rise and fall? If identity politics really are inevitable, why did this effort to bring explicit white racial identity politics out in the open fall apart in such a short amount of time? Hawley strives to deal with the very nature of identity politics in the United States: how conservatives view and understand it, how they embrace their own versions of identity, and how liberal and conservative intellectuals and politicians navigate this equally dangerous and potentially explosive landscape.