Time to Give Up on Identity Politics: It’s Dragging the Progressive Agenda Down

The author makes some good points, but what he doesn't delve deeply enough into is that the leadership of the Democratic party - those at the DNC, the Clintonites, and other centers of neo-liberal power who push identity politics the hardest have absolutely no interest in a "progressive agenda". They want to gain power and wealth. Winning elections is only a piece of that dynamic. Above all else, their allegiance is to their Wall Street paymasters to whom they will depend on for a paycheck long after their political careers are over. They would much rather lose an election with Wall Street backing, then reject their Wall Street funders and win. For this crowd - grifters - that would defeat the whole purpose of entering politics. How does one run as a "Progressive" Democrat with a Wall Street agenda? Identity politics! As long as the focus is on race, and gender, and "identity", the focus is not on economics, privacy, or endless war. The DNC crowd thought they could have it both ways if they just hammered identity politics hard enough and tried to shame people into voting for them. They ended up losing to Trump - a half-retarded, corrupt, boorish clown - literally the worst candidate you can imagine. The Democratic party is rotten from the head down. Unless and until we cut off the neo-liberal head of the snake and purge the party of identity politics zealots the Democrats are destined to be the Washington Generals.

I'd believe anything that Salon had to say on the matter of identity politics, if their editorial stance couldn't be clearly summed up as "white men are bad" [1].

Here are a few of the choice articles they've published:

* White men must be stopped: The very future of mankind depends on it [2]

* Mass shooters: Part of a larger epidemic of white male rage [3]

* Is male fragility to blame for Charlottesville violence? [4]

If racial identity or gender identity are such an important facets of life, it was only a matter of time before people started strongly identifying and collectivising openly as "white" or "male". When you start a dialogue with "you have too much privilege and you can't talk on certain topics" you are closing discussions before they begin and are fracturing groups so they can collectivise based on more important line such as "class" or "wealth"... which is probably the intended goal of those fanning the flames identity politics to begin with.

[1] https://www.salon.com/topic/white_men [2] https://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/white_men_must_be_stopped_t... [3] https://www.salon.com/2018/03/07/mass-shooters-part-of-a-lar... [4] https://www.salon.com/2017/08/18/is-male-fragility-to-blame-...

Identity politics isn't even a progressive idea. It's one of the central tenets of fascism.

You know it's going bad for them when Salon.com starts realizing how wrong they are.

“When racism is blamed, capitalism is exonerated”.

Identity politics has been INCREDIBLY supportive of the global rich / elite. They don’t have to give up any of their money or assets.