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For much of history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. It is no surprise that many who passionately believe in social justice came to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity to resist injustice.

But over the past decades, a healthy appreciation for the culture and heritage of minority groups has transformed into a counterproductive obsession with group identity in all its forms. A new ideology aiming to place each person\\u2019s matrix of identities at the center of social, cultural, and political life has quickly become highly influential. It stifles discourse, vilifies mutual influence as cultural appropriation, denies that members of different groups can truly understand one another, and insists that the way governments treat their citizens should depend on the color of their skin. This, Yascha Mounk argues, is the identity trap. Though those who battle for these ideas are full of good intentions, they will ultimately make it harder to achieve progress toward the genuine equality we desperately need.

Shermer and Mounk discuss: the identity synthesis/trap \\u2022 Israel, Hamas, Palestine \\u2022 why students & student groups are pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel \\u2022 the rise of anti-Semitism in recent years \\u2022 proximate/ultimate causes of anti-Semitism \\u2022 the rejection of the civil rights movement and the rise of critical race theory \\u2022 overt racism vs. systemic racism \\u2022 the problem of woke ideology \\u2022 Trump and the 2024 election \\u2022 the possibility of another Civil War \\u2022 What should we do personally and politically about the Identity Trap?

Yascha Mounk is a writer and academic known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. Born in Germany to Polish parents, Mounk received his BA in history from Trinity College Cambridge, and his PhD in government from Harvard University. He is a professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, the founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of numerous books, incl. The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure (featured on President Barack Obama\\u2019s summer reading list).