From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

You have some people, I think, in that same ruling class who aren't really in it for anything other than themselves.

In some cases, they have the resentments that they want to work out against the kind of America they think America

was, and they want to destroy that, that older America.

This is your host, Scott Bertram, and that's Dr. Thomas West, our first guest on today's

program. Dr. West is Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College, and also has recently written

an essay over at Law and Liberty titled

The Affectual Truth of Identity Politics. Dr. West, thanks for joining us.

Good. No problem. Glad to be here.

Is identity politics something new to American politics?

Well, it's in its current form, it's basically a 60s and post-60s phenomenon.

Yes, the idea being some races and some other groups such as women or maybe gays or now

transgender is that, you know, there are some groups in society that have been systematically

either oppressed in regard to material wealth or have been held back by lack of respect

and disparagement.

Is there a particular reason that you can pinpoint why the message is is seemingly more successful in recent years?

Well, I think it's certainly more vocal. I don't know if it's more successful.

I mean, really, ever since the 1960s, our country has been governed increasingly by an idea.

You know, I'll leave aside the basic character of the ruling class in terms of their own self-interest.

But the ideas they use, the ideas they talk about, have been based on the claim that justice can't really be achieved

unless disadvantaged people are given all kinds of special help.

And that specifically means there has to be a transfer of resources

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