A brilliant left wing take down of identity politics

Spot on critique.

The reason why identity politics is both a dead-end and a trap for the left is because it’s a game that straight, patriotic, socially conservative, working-class white people can play too. We saw this in the 2016 US presidential election, when this group were encouraged to see themselves as an ignored, patronised, victimised minority ‘in their own country’.

This narrative is catnip for the populist right in all democratic societies. They can play the ‘hierarchy of victimhood’ game too, and they can play in with a brutal hardness that will crush the left.

The left must ditch the obsession with identity politics and rediscover what is supposed to be its fundamental purpose : representing the economic interests of ordinary working people and opposing the interests of globalised capital.

identity politics is ultimately a victory for capitalism

Yes, indeed. It provides nicely delineated market segments. Apparently, you can spend years at elite universities these days and yet manage to be incapable of understanding this very obvious point while declaring yourself a leftist.

I remember Bill Maher asking Ann Coulter if Trump would have found it harder to beat Bernie than Hillary. Much harder, came the reply, as Bernie cares about the people, and Hillary just cares about the Chamber of Commerce.

Bearing that in mind, it makes sense to spend more time talking about transwomen using women's toilets as it means you're spending less time talking about wealth redistribution etc (which rather proves DJLippy 's point.).

Listened to an interesting Podcast today about somebody running as a Democratic Candidate in the US mid terms. He wanted to run as a progressive (i.e. - socialist - wealth re-distribution) but when he met with donors to raise funds all - they demanded he moderate his economics - more of the Clinton era - don't rock the boat centrism. The social issue the donors all cared about was LGBT/trans rights.

Liberals LOVE this ideology because it allows them to 'look' progressive whilst leaving the status quo in place.

www.thisamericanlife.org/649/its-my-party-and-ill-try-if-i-want-to

We seem to have borrowed the 'Liberal' rather than 'Left' thing from the States, and, increasingly, their racial politics too.

I'm fed up with articles trying to push me into the 'white male' box whereas I've always thought of myself as British, and am quite happy with all sorts of races and religions coexisting under the umbrella that is British identity. In short, I think pushing people to consider themselves as white first and foremost is not just frustrating (being the bad guy that identity politics always requires) but incredibly dangerous.

It's people playing with fire who don't know that fire is hot.

I thought that was excellent. There were so many stand-out lines but I'll go with:

liberal feminism tries to be intersectional to the point of nothingness

as my favourite.

I wonder if there is also an element of trying to look good in a very simple way, while leaving the difficult issues untouched.

It worked with gay marriage.

the commonality is women are always in a state of being told what they are or should be, and deviation from this is punished and policed.

You're right, and I'm going to quotish the excellent Lisa Muggeridge in saying that socialist misogynists and capitalist misogynists will argue all day about how best to put the boot on women's necks. Both sets view us as property: the former think we're public property and the latter think we're private property.

*saying re gay liberation on the drag race thread

It’s similar to the stuff I was saying re gay liberation. Old school labour is a movement primarily concerned with economic class and they will be perfectly willing to trade on or be silent on other issues in order to get down to business on that issue.

Feminists should not necessarily trust the Labour Party to achieve real things for women. If women’s liberation comes into conflict with economic class it will be jettisoned or traded.

I think some of the activism the rightwing liberals are supporting is populated by genuinely hard left authoritarians... There is a middle group of well meaning liberals who may be a mix of soft left and soft right and I think it is being supported by a Labour Party that is deeply divided into rightwing liberals (‘moderates’) and the old school left (socialist democrats) is keeping quiet because they largely are uninterested in this crap, have been subjected to a huge amount of crap, are trying not to perpetuate any more division and desperately want to make head way re economic class...

Offred as usual you're spot on

By the left, I mean "the left", obvs.

It’s actually a problem with neoliberal postmodernism affecting both left and right in the mainstream IMO.

I concur. And I don't think the left is very good at rampant individualism. It makes a dog's dinner of it.

"Lots of them think they are left wing but they are confusing ‘liberal’ and ‘leftwing’ IMO."

I dunno, they're not exactly at the liberal end of the authoritarian scale!

Identity politics is just divide and rule.

Marxism would be turning in his grave at the breakdown in class analysis and individualisation being encouraged by the left right now.

Too long for a T-shirt ?

Where do I buy one? Great posts @Offred. Spot on.

I always find your posts very informative, Offred. I didn't know that about Blairs strategy.

Lots of them think they are left wing but they are confusing ‘liberal’ and ‘leftwing’ IMO.

Lots of people think it is ‘a problem with the left’ or ‘hard left infiltration’ because they automatically associate the Labour Party with being leftwing and also confuse liberal with left IMO.

It’s actually a problem with neoliberal postmodernism affecting both left and right in the mainstream IMO.

Blair’s strategy was directly lifted from Clinton’s success re the democrats in the US.

New labour was not leftwing politically and cemented the labour’s slide to the right by adopting Giddens’ ‘third way’.

I would characterise this as rightwing liberal.

This opened the door for the current situation so although the most recent manifesto brings the policy back into the left (comparable with atlee’s labour) the Labour Party is still populated by Right wing liberals.