2016 Postmortem

"The real division is between working class (Black, Pink, White, Yellow, Orange, whatever) vs wealthy." - Yeah okay sure, politicians have imposed divisions for political gain - but try and tell a scared Trump voter that Muslims are not the enemy, and that immigrants haven't taken ALL their jobs. You're telling me if a Democrat says - look, Muslims aren't the enemy or Hispanics aren't really taking all your jobs, that immigration isn't the threat many claim it to be, that would be identity politics right? And would it be wrong to highlight?

"There is no inherent division between working class rights and African-American rights. Just the opposite actually. The closer you are to the lower rung of the economy, the more you need working class rights. " - - Except we are a pluralistic society, there's no meta uniformity among individuals according to income bracket alone. Which is why I mentioned the many facets of "identity" and how institutions fail communities in different ways according to demographic make up.

It is perfectly fine to speak to economic issues AND Identity issues, leftists have ALWAYS done this..The left abandoning the connection between identity and opening avenues for economic prosperity among all demographics would be the left abandoning its core values.

Read more here:"This, of course, isn’t true. Advancing economic populism while understanding that particular groups have specific concerns—such as freedom from discrimination—has always been a mainstay of left politics. Those insisting it has to be either/or likely care about neither, and are content maintaining the status quo."

http://fair.org/home/lashing-out-at-identity-politics-pundits-blame-trump-on-those-most-vulnerable-to-trump/