So, my relationship in recent years has been very complicated with identity politics. At first, I tried to be supportive. I mean, I tried to do the liberal thing, recognize systemic issues exist, and they do exist. But, these politics have become a cancer that have metastasized in the democratic party and the left in recent years, and it's just insufferable. I dont feel like my views on the issues have really changed. I just realized I'm not as progressive as I thought I was on them. My support for them had largely been dependent on building coalitions with these groups and seeking common goals, but largely, the people advocating for them largely don't want that. We're not all in it together, and I really don't see its advocates as serious potential political allies any more, with me becoming more and more resentful toward these politics.
Before I get into the bad, let me focus on the good. I believe critical theory, the theory that these politics is based on, has validity. Critical theory is a subset of Marx's conflict theory which looks at conflict between different groups within society. While Marx focused on the ruling class vs the working class, critical theory focuses on power dynamics between men and women, people of different races, different sexualities, etc., to find problematic dynamics within these groups. This is a valid form of study and even though I'm ripping these politics a new one, I still think that this is valid. However, I have several problems with these politics now.
First of all, and this is largely the big issue, these politics come at the expense of everything else. Like, they are taking over politics and sucking all of the oxygen out of the room. You can't discuss anything without it turning into a race war these days. People are linking basic income with reparations. When student loan debt is brought up people mention most black people didn't go to college. When forgiveness comes up they wanna forgive black loans and not white loans, because that solves racism somehow. Whenever I push for any issue, some idpol person is there, telling me to check my privilege, and telling me how much worse everyone has it and I have to get on board. Well, screw you, no.
These politics are supposed to be a subset of a certain theory. A lens. One way of seeing society. They should be a secondary bunch of issues used to expand a coalition, not the end all that should define an entire political movement or party at the expense of everything else. But because the democrats rely so heavily on POC vote, and how white progressives are lambasted for daring advocate for *checks notes* basic Rooseveltian social democracy, our politics have turned into a total crapshow.
Second of all, as kind of implied, the politics are divisive. I grew up right wing. And the right isn't really inherently racist. Like there's the dog whistle stuff, and some undercurrents of racism they often don't think about or are aware of, but most conservatives believe in their heart of hearts that all people are equal. They tend to believe "I'm not racist, I don't see color." Now, to some extent that's the problem. Right wing viewpoints have principles of equality but are completely devoid of any sense of sociology. They don't understand concepts of privilege, etc. And pushing these politics tends to not resonate well with people who don't buy into critical theory. Because the perceived racism is questionable in their eyes, and the solutions are often alienating. Whites look at the idea of reparations and are like "why should they get free money I worked for?", heck resentment politics is very strong on the right. It's a huge reason I prefer UBI and medicare for all, to defeat resentment politics you need to help everyone. But these politics aren't about helping everyone, but helping one group, often at the expense of another group. Redistributing opportunities within a flawed system rather than fixing the system as a whole. And this just drives people who don't benefit, myself included to some extent, to the right. Because if this is what the left is, well, this doesn't help us, it actually hurts us, so why would we be for it.
Third, these politics are often extremely cultish and authoritarian. To them, because solving racism and the like is the core issue, at the expense of everything else, everyone is willing to contort themselves to extremes to prove how not racist they are. Privilege reminds me of the original sin of christianity, something people are often expected to constantly apologize and atone for. This is toxic behavior. No one should be forced to constantly virtue signal and give up their top priorities for identity issues. Idpol advocates are also extremely intolerant of other opinions. They are so intent on banning racism they want to criminalize hate speech in a lot of cases. And the softer ones support stuff like cancel culture, which basically involves the free market putting pressure on people and punishing them for behaving in certain ways. Believing that private coercion is still coercion, I cant help but find these politics toxic.
Finally, these politics are used cynically to derail conversations and drive wedges in politics. The biggest issue by far I have with this stuff is the fact that democrats explicitly use it to undermine progressives. I mean, at this point, it's clear to me that this is being done intentionally. When HRC ran in 2016 she used her femininity as a weapon and accused all detractors of sexism. When democrats talk about their primaries, they fetishize black voters as a voting block and use this to drive their moderate coalition. Any criticism against this comes off as racist. If you criticize Pete Buttigieg, you're a homophobe, etc. This stuff really is being used by cynical powers as a system of control to stop them from having a voice and a narrative that carries any weight. The powers that be use it to sabotage and undermine any legitimate political movement and divide and conquer people. And sadly, it works.
Well, I'm tolerating this no more. As you guys can probably tell, I'm not a bad guy. I'm not really a racist, or a sexist, or anti anything. I mean do what you want, and yes privilege is real, blah blah blah. But, these kinds of politics are literally cancer. Like, they grow endlessly, take over everything, hijack all discussions, and ultimately kill the host organism or transform it into something unrecognizable. I just can't take it any more. This doesn't change my views on the issues per se, but I'm tired of playing the nice guy with these politics on this blog and elsewhere and trying to play this fine line of "I agree with you but...". No. These politics are out of hand. It isn't just a small movement that's poisoning the rest of the well any more. The entire thing taking over left wing politics in recent years like it is, is literally cancer. I'm freaking done.
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