In recent weeks, bizarre political controversies have dominated the American and German media. The United States is still debating President Donald Trump's equivocating response to violence committed by white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia. And Germans have been responding to an essay published by Deputy Finance Minister Jens Spahn, in which he complains that English-speaking hipsters in Berlin are eroding German national identity.
These debates shed light on how history and national identity inform each country's politics. In Charlottesville, 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed when a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of people. He and many other white supremacists were in Charlottesville to protest a decision by the city to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. When they were met by counter-demonstrators, some responded with violence.
Clearly, the politics of cultural identity has eclipsed that of socioeconomic class in the U.S. By defending contested monuments and asserting that "both sides" were to blame in the Charlottesville tragedy, Trump is signaling his predominantly white support base that he will fight for their rights as a "threatened majority." His campaign promise to "make America great again" was, after all, always code for opposition to an increasingly multiethnic America.