How The Left Fell Victim To Identity Politics

President Barack Obama speaks at the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) fundraiser gala in Gotham Hall, Tuesday, June 17, 2014, in New York.

Mark Lilla, Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, joins us to discuss his new book, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics. He argues that despite Democratic president and policy achievements that have taken place over the past 40 years, the right's focus on small government, lower taxes and self-reliant individualism has remained the country’s dominant political ideology. Lilla suggests this is because American liberalism became obsessed with identity politics and fractured itself. He writes the left now has an opportunity to reset.