> It might exist in academia or PR departments or journalism or facebook pages and twitter threads but it does very little to affect material relations and power structures, so it's if anything the Left and not anyone else who should be concerned with it.
Are you sure? It feels like it has a much stronger influence, at least in Western Europe.
The influence exerted is usually orthogonal to the traditional goal of improving the conditions of the working class. Instead identity politics focuses on a platform of "more POC female dictators" rather than one that actually fights to make a material difference in people's lives.
It also destroys any form of class consciousness, replacing it with one based on race. The white middle class get the catharsis of flagellating themselves but the people struggling to pay rent or working two jobs are understandably defensive when you try to tell them how privileged they are.
I agree completely. It reminds me of when German trade unions found out that their members are much more conservative than their apparatchiks and their response was "we'll teach them" and they pressed full force ahead, predictably losing 20% of their members in the past 20 years.
Inflation is much higher than wage increases, rent is exploding in the cities while jobs are being migrated into the cities, but thank god we have committees for identifying more and more absurd diversions and divisions.
Are you sure? It feels like it has a much stronger influence, at least in Western Europe.