I don't think you understand what the idiom "smoke screen" means.

What ideas do you want people to engage with?

All you do is whine that people wrong about you, but you never get to that next stage and explain how they are wrong by explaining your actual views. (if people are constantly getting your views wrong maybe you aren't doing a great job of presenting yourself?)

It's your ****ing term, you're the one telling us it's bad! I'm literally, by definition, incapable of defining it for you.

This is the best advice you've ever gotten tbh.

Nobody is saying it's everything though. Everyone agrees it's something. When someone said they agreed with you that there was mixed intent you emphasized how that was still where a major wedge between how the two of you view things. That's another way of saying you think very little of the intent is genuine.

It's not exclusively the press, the political class, the people or corporate interests that shape the trajectory of politics. And neither is there any point in trying to pin a percentage to these things because it's irrelevant to what we're talking about.

What's relevant is that for each group (except maybe corporate interests) there're competing priorities, where one of the major defining factors of where they stand on social spending is their position on racial differences.

There're obviously racists who are in favor of medicare for all and there're people who aren't racist that think the welfare state is already too expansive for a variety of reasons, but these are rare cases.

Do you honestly not think there's a causal connection?

If these elites are approaching politics from a completely sociopathic perspective they've done a pretty lousy job.

The former. Forget studies, just take a gander at Forbes if you want it to hit home. Up until a couple years ago Oprah was the only Black American billionaire. You'd assume there'd be a lot more David Stewards and Robert Smiths, right?

MrWookie is correct and if you were confused it'd have been better to just ask what I meant by "the same thing" and to provide an example.

You didn't do that but I'll provide an example anyhow.

Let's make a statement: 'Black people are more frequent victims of ____ because racism.' This is a true statement.

We can then look at the economic data and see that for most ____ the numbers converge closer as we look at the poorer and poorer. So maybe not 'because racism'?

But then we ask ourselves: 'Hey wait why are black people so much poorer?' And we answer 'Oh right, because racism.'

And we're back at the original true statement.

The same "thing" is the inextricable marriage between the two, not two synonyms.

Wait, do you think the reparations are free hugs?

As a counterargument I will present Exhibits A & B:





And on both sides among the bottom 90% no-one really seems to mind too much. The poor people are more interested in fighting themselves (sometimes literally) over culture war issues than taking any notice over what is going on.

Well done elites.

I actually dont believe individual people themselves are sociopathic or malicious. I think it is systemic, and it is mainly people making rational choices for their environment.

Has anyone pointed out that talking about “wealthy elites” is identity politics?

I’m not sure why you think no one at the bottom seems to mind? How do you feel about the fight for $15? Universal healthcare? Free tuition? Based on your posting, I’d imagine that you deride the poors for demanding more money than their wealthy overlords are willming to give them. In fact, I’d guess that you are against all those policies.

Also, people can focus on more than one thing. The reason you seem unaware of this and think that poor people are all worried about transgender bathrooms and
Other culture war issues is because you’re listening to right wing media constantly. People who vote for Bernie Sanders, for instance, probably don’t think like you do about what poor people are interested in.

Yeah that's what's so odd when Kelhus gets all excited to run in here and tell leftists that wealthy liberals and moderates have bad fiscal politics despite their good culture politics and are therefore the real bad guys because talking about identity politics somehow prevents discussion of inequalty:

1) Republicans are much worse on both, and

2) Kelhus only ever wants to talk about culture war ****, specifically how awful it is that right wingers get disagreed with! He is, in this story, part of the problem, right?

Thats like saying talking about white privilege is racism; or better yet the act of calling out racism is racist. In the world we live in, identity politics has a narrow meaning, and pointing out that the words themselves can be broadly interpreted to have no meaning at all isn't particularly useful.

This is probably why you have so much animosity towards me and have never seen a post I have made that you didn't vehemently disagree with. Because you bring a whole bunch of preconceived notions that are almost completely wrong. I doubt you could find a single post I have ever made on this forum that a reasonable person would believe indicates any of your guesses are correct.

I am not a policy nut. I have no moral objections to any of those policies, but I don't have a strong feel for how they would play out in the real world, or whether they would actually improve things.

Identity politics is a bunch of folks gathered together to tell identity supremacists that they don’t tell them who they are anymore.

I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but this is the definition I’m going off of, that Luckbox posted: I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say, but sorting by “wealthy elites” and then assuming their political goals are the same seems to fit quite neatly in this definition. I mean, if you’re trying to say that the definition we have been provided of what identity politics means is so broad it’s absolutely meaningless or worthless as a concept, I agree! I think fly eat al would agree, too. We’ve all more or less been saying that the label has little actual use other than as an attack on the left. When we actually try to get people like you and luckbox to explain what you mean when you say you’re against identity politics, we get pretty useless stuff. What am I missing?

You use the terms grievance studies and extreme leftist unironically. You defended JP and the IDW. You aren’t aware of the vast interest and publicity socialized redistributive programs have had in recent years. In my experience, these things correlate strongly with people who hate socialism and socialistic redistributive programs like higher minimum wages and universal health care. The problem is that you don’t seem to have strong feeling for anything, yet you constantly come in reciting right-wing hot takes. You don’t seem to realize they are right-wing, either. That makes me think that you would agree with takes from the IDW against raising the minimum wage or socialized medicine.

There are some other versions I'm working on as well. The "I know it when I see it" definition, also the definition that concerns the scope of identity politics and whether it should be considered narrow or broad. This is my first time ever in an in-depth discussion of this topic so you'll have to excuse me for not having it all ready to go.
The wealthy elites that you are talking about vs the wealthy elites that I (and possibly Kelhus) are talking about are not the same wealthy elites. The ones I'm discussing are the actual owners of the media, the banks, the MNCs, the top politicians, and their various functionaries--the ones who actually attend meetings where we can surmise agendas are set, and can be identified as individuals.
When you refer to wealthy elites they are a nebulous class that doesn't coordinate and might possibly include working individuals making low 6 figures.
It's reasonable to think that media (and not just right-wing media but the media at large--the MSM) twists the legitimate left to make it appear divisive to a general audience. That is part of my thesis. So from that vantage point you can say that identity politics is a label to attack the left with.
But that doesn't mean that identity politics isn't still some real thing once it is taken up by people following MSM that deserves to be pushed back at--on both the left and the right. And you can't make then same criticism of me as you can of Kelhus about defending the IDW.
This is the second time now you've made this statement itt without ever asking me to clarify anything fwiw.
Actually I like the idea that identity politics is the IDW for the left because it more or less is.

It's not clear to me that "identity politics" has any well established, narrow, meaning. I'm not sure where you get that narrow definition from. I think I said very early in this thread that "identity politics" is a lot like "political correctness" -- it usually is just clearly derogatory and means whatever kind of political activity which involves identity that the speaker doesn't like. It seems like you're illustrating that point here, because you don't mind politics organized around class identity as much as politics organized around racial identity? Note that you may be right that organizing political action around social class may be more desirable in some ways than organizing around race, although I think the caveat is that Wookie is right: there are issues involving race in US politics that just don't reduce to class, though they are interconnected.

Anyway, it does seem that any suitably general definition of "identity politics" would also capture class identity, e.g. luckbox's definition:

I think the comments I wrote early in the thread also apply:

Thinking back to some of the conversation about MLK, I think you can see a sort of balance. King was not afraid of aggravating racial tensions, and in fact spoke explicitly of the need to do so in order to create the possibility of change (cf. everyone's favorite: Letter from a Birmingham Jail). But I think it's also relevant that he framed the issues so as to appeal to broader values shared across the racial divide. Primarily he did that via religion, by appealing to Christian values which his white listeners were presumed to share.

I feel like where there's a legitimate complaint about "identity politics" it's this notion that for Democracy to succeed there has to be some kind of shared identity that transcends the identities which are in conflict. There's always been and always will be competing demands, interests, complaints, and injustices between different groups in a large and plural society, and the useful point about intersectionality is to recognize that everyone inhabits multiple social locations and has multiple social identities in relation to those locations. People maintain all sorts of group boundaries, including the maintenance of partisan boundaries which are so obvious in this conversation, for example. But we need at least some minimal ability to argue with each other by appealing to some values and beliefs we all share. For King, religion played that role pretty well, despite whatever other reservations plenty of people have about religion in general or American Christianity specifically.

I feel like maybe the problem is not so much that we need less "identity politics", or to judge that complaints offered from the perspective of some social groups are more valid than from others (class politics vs. racial politics). The problem is we need more shared identity. But it seems like the only ready-made sort of identity that we all even understand would be an appeal to civic nationalism -- "We are all Americans", or appeals to supposedly American ideals of equality, justice, and so on (again, despite whatever reservations we have about those, too). But then nationalism has seemingly been coopted by ethno-nationalism, or if not that then jingoistic militarism. So lots of people are also (reasonably) suspicious of nationalism too.

But I don't think the answer is to attack people for advocating on behalf of legitimate social/political issues experienced by specific groups. That's demanding too much and ignoring how politics functions, fundamentally. Almost all political action represents the interests of some group or other. Somehow the answer has to involve broadening our shared interests, rather than denying our more individual interests.

I think this is wrong*. The sort of populist anger that has "put" Trump in office and given prominence to people like Sanders and the further left side of the Democratic party can be seen as both the 90% noticing and the elites' response to that--which I've argued is putting everyone back in their boxes by directing the left's anger at Trump and immunizing the right against the left by villifying their politics with everything we're talking about re identity politics.
So people do mind and we are seeing the response from the ruling class. But the issue is that we are almost hopelessly manipulated.
*ok not wrong but there is more to it.

When Wookie asked Kelhus to name names and get specific the only individual Kelhus identified was...

2p2 poster "MrWookie".

You want to fill the roster out a bit?

The **** you talking about "we", here? YOU are definitely hopelessly manipulated, sure, I'm with you so far. Supporting Trump because he called the media "The enemy of the people"(!!!), supporting Guaido, getting mad at BLM for doing "identity politics", etc.

Everyone can buy that. But let's not throw around "we" like everyone else falls for the same transparent cons.

Keep trying fly

.

Start here with this link. Have fun.
Yes it was silly of me to think that Trump and the media were opposed. But what do you believe? You believe that ideas that both parties are corrupt is a GOP plot to make GOP voters apathetic. You also think the MSM has decieded to get in on white supremacy "for the clicks" and a whole host of other nonsense.
I've never said anything negative about BLM and I'd advise you to read a book on Venezuela or find some Venezuelans to talk to.

Dude, at least get to Bohemian Grove ****, Bilderberg stuff doesn't seem to have any connection to the identity politics issue. If I had to guess, they aren't fans either.


What? No. I think almost nothing is a "plot". I was trying to say that if conspiracies are real, it makes a hell of a lot of sense for the right wing plutocrats to get anti-establishment voters to sit out the political process as they (correctly!) regard even centrist Democrats as a threat to their position.

Because you've never exposed yourself to any left-wing criticism of the MSM you don't get the fundamental theoretical framework of why we dislike it.

BLM does identity politics, and you've had plenty to say about that. And your boy Kelhus posted up a storm about BLM in this thread without you arguing with him.

People have already mocked you for this, but that over and over you angrily deny accusations but don't refute them... people can draw some reasonable conclusions, right? Like how you got all mad when Trolly said you watch Alex Jones Youtubes without you admitting you did that(then you followed that up with defending the 'turning the frogs gay' speech and are now in here posting about the ****ing Bilderbergers). Give other people the tiniest, tiniest amount of credit. It will make the world work smoother.

What is the argument about frogs since you seem to be keen on coming back to that?
Trolly brought them up and I said my dad worked for the company that produces the chemicals in question. Like as soon as I acknowledge having any information on a subject means something? But what? Are you arguing that it isn't an actual thing? Google "atrazine frogs" or you know, read a book.
I have no idea what speech you are talking about but presumably something with Alex Jones.
It is hillarious how you can't make a post without lying and misrepresenting.
"I angrily deny accusations but don't refute them". Wtf. Do you want to see screenshots of my internet search history and YouTube history now?
What are the accusations?
Sorry to break it to you but The Atlantic is still MSM.
We were talking about wealthy elites and i said mine had names. I don't know what you expected but you got what you asked for.