Identity politics and tribalism, the first being the quasi-intellectual justification for the second, are the lens through which much of our culture sees the world today.  When leftists say Trump's startling victory Tuesday represents a "whitelash" (as in whites finding a hero and voting for him en masse), they are attempting to cash out the vital ideas that this contest was really about in favor of the Marxist idea that all political change is a struggle of class and race – a zero-sum game where for one side to win, the other must lose.  The left is wedded to this idea of struggle and identity because the conflict it engenders always gains leftists more centralized power, no matter whose ox is being gored at the moment.  But assigning the Trump revolution to "whitelash" is particularly galling because it takes the vital ideas at the core of the Trump victory and attributes them to mere tribalism.  It's up to each of us to drag the discussion back to those ideas before the left converts this pandering into the dominant narrative.

What significant ideas does Trump represent?  First, the logrolling that has engaged government since Reagan left office is rejected, where the left and the self-designated right (being a pale version of the left) exchange rhetoric and blast each other in speeches but accomplish little to change how we do government to a smaller, freer model.  The primary voters rejected the Bush dynasty, Kasich, and the rest in favor of Trump because only Trump owes nothing to Washington, and people believe that in his brashness and disrespect for political logrolling, he will actually act as a citizen-statesman and look after their interests.  When people say Trump will "drain the Washington swamp," this is what they mean.

Second, Trump, despite his past and his position changes, embraces a pretty solid set of conservative platform positions.  Since the primary elections, he has even posted a strong position on the Second Amendment.  No one, not even Ted Cruz, did that, and it is bracing.  Yes, the never-Trump people are claiming it's all lies, but I will take Trump's position papers over their crystal ball a hundred times over.

Appeals to tribalism and identity politics undergird the left's attempt to lobotomize and obscure these ideas by reducing them to "whitelash."  In truth, rural whites, urban whites, educated whites, and more blacks and other sub-groups than Mitt Romney garnered agree with Trump's ideas, and that is why he won.   

We must remind each other, and the larger culture, of this, as Trump must continue to engage the country with more good ideas as his term's beginning approaches.  Tribalism and identity politics are nothing but naked Marxism, intended to turn us to each other's throats and thereby give more and more power to the leftists as being (in their minds, at least) the only way to bring peace.  Worse, they keep us from actually doing the things we must do to return our country to greatness.