More people seem to be independently coming around to acknowledging right wing identity politics or the politics of social categorization.
In The Atlantic Adam Serwer writes:
among those who claim to oppose identity politics, the term is applied exclusively to efforts by historically marginalized constituencies to claim rights others already possess. Trump’s campaign, with its emphasis on state violence against religious and ethnic minorities—Muslim bans, mass deportations, “nationwide stop-and-frisk”—does not count under this definition, but left-wing opposition to discriminatory state violence does.
Right wing identity politics is used to build following for a party who’s main aim is to “to slash the welfare state in order to make room for more high-income tax cuts” and to support plutocracy generally. Free market politics is generally about removing the historical constraints on big business which might benefit less powerful people, and restraining ordinary people from having any political impact on business, no matter what is being done to them.
Let’s face it. Big Business is dominant. In Australia, where the rightwing government has a similar drive, we have a situation in which almost daily we are hearing about crimes from powerful financial institutions which are rewarded by the system at the expense of ordinary people. We also hear of employers fraudulently underpaying their workers. The government, in its wisdom, is attacking unions as a threat to democracy and the process of the free market. It is talking about boosting Christian liberty to deny the rights of others, and engages in discussions about “fair dinkum power” ie poisonous coal.
In the US we have a government, whose main achievements, apart from the taxcuts for the wealthy, seem to have been to wreck healthcare for most people, and to allow corporations to pollute with joy.
People, while willing to sacrifice for the greater good are probably not that willing, if they realise it, to sacrifice for the benefit of those who are already benefitting, and its good for the plutocrats to be able shift the blame onto migrants – especially non white migrants.
Serwer again:
Republicans have taken to misleading voters by insisting that they oppose cuts or changes to popular social insurance programs, while stoking fears about Latino immigrants, Muslim terrorists, and black criminality. In truth, without that deception, identity politics is all the Trump-era Republican Party has.
If people get indignant about this identity politics, without explaining what is happening, then it gives those identity politics more publicity and more of a boost.
To make the point again: the reason this is conservative identity politics, is that it supports the dominance of a group that identifies as predominantly white male and straight, who see themselves as being under threat (which they are from plutocracy). However, even if these people are kicked by their own party and the rich, they can still manage to be “better” than other groups of people, and help suppress them.
it looks back to an imagined past when they were doing well
Underlying the American discourse on identity politics has always been the unstated assumption that, as a white man’s country, white identity politics—such as that practiced by Trump and the Republican Party—is legitimate, while opposition to such politics is not.
The way things have been is under challenge, and the old way must be reinforced. Hence this form of identity politics is almost invisible.
few of the pundits convinced that identity politics poses a threat to democracy have displayed alarm as the president and his party have built a second nationwide campaign around it.
see:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/gop-mid-term-campaign-all-identity-politics/573991
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