The Self-Preservation of Empire in the IndividualThe inclusive policies of neoliberalism are such that struggles against empire and the rule of capital are separated from struggles over sexuality, gender, and race. The radical potential of these struggles to resist and subvert the dominant logics of the state and capital has been neutralized by the emergence of neutralizing discourses and institutional relations both domestically and abroad. The ploy of neoliberal inclusive politics has its historical foundations in the period of classical liberalism, as periods of empire and global hegemony under the rule of capital have been characterized by formal freedom at home and acts of repressive violence abroad. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Think here about how Leibniz fled to Holland during the heyday of the liberal Dutch empire, or more significantly how Karl Marx found intellectual and physical refuge in Britain which also served as the setting for his seminal work on Das Capital. Over the past 30 years of neoliberal governance in the United States, after the withering of civil rights-era activism, these formal freedoms have been extended, sexualized, and gendered to others, including some with the goal of excluding others, while racialization continues to be a prominent feature in the biopolitical tools of empire. In The Twilight of Equality, Lisa Duggan begins by providing an overview of the individualization of political activity that began with the dismantling of New Deal politics and the introduction of a competitive national and global order (p. X). For Duggan: “The overarching liberal distinction between economy, state, civil society, and family has consistently shaped and ultimately disabled progressive left politics by separating class politics – the critique of economic inequality – from identity politics – the protest against exclusions from national citizenship or civic participation and against the hierarchies of family life" (p. 7) The separation of class politics from identity politics has led to the commercialization of political action which is increasingly equated with moments of expression. Therefore, the continuity of political activity is found in the continuity of the expression of identity, whether through the choice of clothing or the choice of brand, the expression of identity as intrinsically political allows for the continuous circulation of capital and the maintenance of the status quo order. This is what Duggan has coined as the new homonormativity – “a politics that does not challenge dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions, but supports and sustains them, while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized gay culture and depoliticized, anchored to domesticity and consumption” (p. 50). While homonormativity shapes the landscape of political action and aspirations at the national level, often with the effect of refracting the actions of empire, Jasbir Puar (2013) introduced the notion of homonationalism as an analytical tool for understanding the consequences of the successes of the liberal right LGBT movements in excluding entire populations from the protection of these same rights (p. 25). While homonormativity is crucial in assembling and directing modes of affects and desires at the national level towards a politics of consumption, homonationalism arises from the collusion between racism and liberalism. Racialization is a violent and systematized mechanism of exclusion that mainly serves to draw internal boundaries and define the nation, as such its.