Identity politics is the perfect embodiment of neoliberalism. Arch-neoliberal Margaret Thatcher articulated it when she proclaimed that “there is no society, only individuals…”

Moreover, identity politics is designed to divide and rule.

They’re not even being subtle about it. In an astonishing clip from the Cato Institute, economist, Adam Posen, head of the Peterson Institute, says a focus on domestic manufacturing is simply a “fetish for keeping white males with low education in the powerful positions they are in.”

I can’t think of a more effective divide and rule strategy than having neoliberal economists financed by Wall Street pushing offshoring and then saying that anyone who opposes having their community and livelihood destroyed is racist.

I love it when influential elites are so arrogant that they say what they really mean without all the usual nuance. Too bad we can’t offshore Posen’s job but that will never happen. Sociopaths like Posen are payed princely sums and rewarded with prestigious positions precisely because the policies they’ve promoted have allowed the 1% to Hoover up $50 trillion from middle-class Americans over the last 40 odd years as the American economy went into financial hyper-drive

This kind of open disdain for maintaining American manufacturing and decent, middle-class jobs is discrediting neoliberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans alike and has led directly to the type of populism that Trump’s emergence represented. I mean what’s the point of these political parties if they both support policies that empower the wealthy and crush everyone else? Indeed, it seems governing has become performative, rather than actual. Of course, we’re not supposed to talk about this, hence the maniacal focus on identity politics and the cultural war domestically.

Meanwhile, the neocons have gotten religion on identity politics. Which makes sense. The neocons prefer to scheme from the shadows while infesting influential US think tanks. They move between political parties while utilizing prevalent cultural trends to craft fresh justifications for American exceptionalism. Meanwhile they’ve assigned themselves license to lie and defame anyone who dissent from neocon orthodoxy as “Russian agents” or “Kremlin assets.” In this way id-pol help’s obscure the US’s ruthless foreign policies, like the recent sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines. The only conclusion we are left to draw is that the only justification for such pitiless aggression is that the US is maneuvering to avoid the collapse of its post-war global dominance, the end of its military and economic empire. The destruction of the pipelines would have to be understood as an act of desperation: a last-ditch preemption by Washington of the loss of its hegemony as Russia, China and others find common cause to challenge the American empire, and a ferocious warning for Europe to hammer home the message that it must not stray from the fold.

But it’s ok because we use the proper pronouns and perpetuate liberal-woke, activist-driven, social justice-oriented identity politics and Putin is a monstrous autocrat who persecutes gay people. Since the Russia-gate psy-op the neocons have realized that linking Donald Trump to Putin and Russia and demonizing the alleged intolerance towards homosexuals, provides a massive payoff with liberals now the most fervent Russia-phobes.

By the way, I’m not criticizing anti-racism, feminism, or other movements for social equality, but the way in which id-pol emphasizes social constructs like race or gender, rather than on material conditions and class. Identity politics is what we get after neoliberal capitalism has cleared away states, governments, borders, trade unions and other moderating forces, and this is why there’s such a frantic emphasis on being “woke”, with the accompanying censorship and propaganda. Empires and nations don’t fall because of external forces, usually, even when those get assigned as the proximate cause in history books. Rather the failures are due to inability to manage internal contradictions.