With the two-party system ambling toward obsolescence, it's becoming clear that race - and racism - is not just a good way to redefine political affiliation, it's just about the only sensible way to do so.
It's not about us and them anymore - at least not an "us" and "them" defined as relatively equal segments of society. Rather, it's about a large "us" and several smaller groups of "them". The clearest way to see this - and the developing obsolescence of left versus right - is through race and how people process the racial identity of others.
People on the left are busy outdoing each other in an effort to demonstrate how non-racist they are, while the right is split between those who are trying to prove how racist they are and the people who say they're "not racist, but...." Meanwhile, those of us in the middle, whether we tilt left or right, are too busy coming to grips with the fact that we have at least a generation's worth of prejudices to rise above that we can't be bothered to worry about outdoing anyone.
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