This seems to be a central theme/point/supposition. Can you source it? (because it may not seem apparent to all) By "subjective identification", do you mean group identities?
Have you ever worked on a political campaign? The concept is basic in American political history. Voting patterns based on identification--often with the party of ones grandparents, go on for generations. Subjective identification means how the individual voter identifies himself. It is often with a group, but not inevitably. The politicians will almost invariably target him as a member of one of more groups, but they may pick the wrong groups, if they do not understand how he is personally "wrapped."
The success of the Left in the Twentieth Century may be largely explained by a ruthless application of this reality. Ruthless in what way? The rest of the essay, illustrates some of the ways. But for another example, did you catch Al Gore's pandering to notorious hatemongers at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, during the last election. Did you catch the way the Democrats mobilized the susceptible elderly around Medicare, to create a definable political identity as "Medicare Recipients." (They are also, of course, mail recipients, water users, etc.. By contrast, the definable political identity that Conservatives want them to take is that of a proud generation of Americans who honor their forebears, and want to preserve their legacy.) The entire game is over how people are induced to see themselves in relation to a very wide array of considerations.
Application of what? Which reality? That people are shallow or that personal identification or group identity plays a significant role? I would not call it shallow. There are some profoundly deep people, who still vote according to group identity. Very few, even among the well educated, critically weigh the issues at each election; just witness the moronic sound bites that now form the bulk of every campaign.
Le Pen has also been pointedly called an "Anti-semite" and a "Vichy-sympathizer." Is there any substance to these charges or can you effectvely refute them? You seem to be giving him blanket dispensation of these charges. If so, you might as well list the charges comprehensively.
Le Pen is not the real subject, as you will find if you read the essay through. He is a subtopic, intended to illustrate the point. For me to list every single smear and reply to them separately would have been to miss the forest for the trees.
I have no knowledge as to whether Le Pen personally likes Semites or not. His opposition to largely Semitic immigration from North Africa is based upon a desire to preserve the character of the French Nation. Since those migrants have lately proven a real threat to the safety of French Jews, in this he must be seen as something of a protector of the Jewish part of the Semitic equation. On the other hand, I do not know what his personal feelings towards Jews may be. While he has offered a bit of very Gallic reverse hyperbole--the usual basis given for the anti-Semitic charge--to suggest that there has been too much emphasis placed on the Nazi slaughter of Jews, he has certainly not suggested that it was in any sense acceptable conduct. (To put this in perspective, the parties on the Left in both Europe and America, have virtually totally ignored the even worse slaughter in Russia and the Ukraine of 7-10,000,000 farmers, resisting collectivization. Does that mean that they are all Anti-Farmer? Of course not!)
The "Vichy" charge is a bit ridiculous, because Le Pen would have been a child when the Vichy Government was set up. Later, as a teenager, he fought in the resistance against the Nazis. But the image of the Vichy Government (1940-1942), as being some completely evil force in French history, is itself not only a gross exaggeration, if not an outright lie, but a very much over-worked French political football. The head of the Vichy Government was the French hero of World War I, Marshal Petain. His motive was obviously to save what he could of France, which was being soundly defeated in the North by an extremely formidable German army, supported by an air force that at the time had virtually complete domination of the French sky; and was suddenly also being stabbed in the back by Mussolini, in the South.
It was one thing for DeGaulle to go on fighting from a base outside the country. But the choice in France proper came down to some form of negotiation to save something, or total conquest and abject surrender. Regardless of how it looks from hindsight, most of those who supported the Vichy Government were not Nazi sympathizers--although with a victorious German army occupying much of their country, the new Government did not dare exclude anyone who was a Nazi sympathizer.
Having pointed all of that out, it should be obvious to anyone that no French Patriot, of any political stripe, would want to revive those totally humiliating days for the French Nation.
"Anti-Semite" and "Vichy sympathizer" were part of the stream of epithets hurled. They had nothing to do with the issues in the still active 2002 campaign, and were in fact typical of the way the Left smears, rather than debates.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
But it is one that makes me uncomfortable. French, Vichy, police were very active in rounding up French jews for deportation. That is a chapter in French history that should be cause for some national introspection. What is Le Pen's nuanced view of that era?
Like a lot of conservatives, I am sympathetic to anyone who is the butt of leftist, irrational, attacks. But I have held back from defending him until I understand precisely what kind of man he is.