What I mean is we have issues with racial/ethnic/religious tolerance in the United States, and it's impossible to divorce politics from it. When it comes to soc

What I mean is we have issues with racial/ethnic/religious tolerance in the United States, and it's impossible to divorce politics from it. When it comes to social programs, the lines of support of/opposition to policy can be drawn pretty cleanly around identity. We can't "solve" social problems with welfare unless we "solve" the problem of identity, where we can't even agree whether its the role of government to provide (or just fund!) services if there's a large group of people who believe such support is an attack on their ethnic identity, or something they have a religious opposition to.