another way to think about change

From Christopher Hitchens, natch:

Let us give hearty thanks and credit to Rudy Giuliani, who has never by word or gesture implied that we would fracture any kind of “ceiling” if we elected as chief executive a man whose surname ends in a vowel.

Yet actually, it would be unprecedented if someone of Italian descent became the president of the United States and there was a time — not long ago at that — when the very idea would have aroused considerable passion. Now that it doesn’t, is it not possible to think that that very indifference is the real “change”?

Indeed. Hitchens also nails the real problem—identity politics—with a delicious bon mot [e.a.]:

People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of “race” or “gender” alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.

So what else is new?