Okay. Let me move us back to the centre ground where the debate needs to be and let me articulate my objective position. If the Right have largely succeeded in their vision it is because of a failure of the Left to counter the narrative. The right generally control the media in most countries, including here in the UK. Our media harps on about immigration, first from Europe and now from the Middle East - that is what fuels the population and moves them towards the right.
The answer to the 'it's them that take from you' isn't to play into that framing. That's the framing they want - and that's my beef with the left.
You seem to make the case I'm delighted with the rise of the right - I'm not. I'm a progressive. What I'm seeing, across the board is the wholesale acceptance of the framing given by the right. The right says... 'You Marnita are a Black Woman and that's how we should view you' and instead of saying 'I'm an American citizen, I'm a committed mother, I'm an advocate for fairness and my skin colour isn't relevant', you lean into it. You didn't re-frame it back to the socio-economic argument. Instead of drawing attention to the 'bankers' who crashed the economy, the left made 'white people' the enemy. The GOP must've been laughing their way to the ballot boxes.
When I say 'disenfranchised' - I don't mean disenfranchised from politics. I mean disenfranchised from the LEFT, the left hasn't been able to combat the arguments put forward by the Right, because it has wholeheartedly bought into the framing. Bernie Sanders, for all his faults, could've beaten Trump in 2016 and sent the bastard back to reality TV land - but I was told at the time that 'it was obvious I would support white men and white men had ruled the world long enough' - step forward Clinton, the rest is history.
Of course the right engages in identity politics - of course it does. That's the point. They're better at it. It's why it's important to entirely reject the framing of everything as identity - that's why I'm a Penguin. It's why everyone should be putting forward ideas not identities. I'm not chiding people for existing, I am telling you that leaning into the framing doesn't work. This isn't an attack on individual groups, it's been a four year warning (that's how long I've been anti the left moving this way) that you were going to get your ass handed to you by the electorate come election time. Had Harris had longer, she might've been able to bring together a rainbow coalition in the style of Obama, but she was hampered by a lack of time.
And no, the right won't support living wages, worker rights, access to healthcare. They're going to reduce the Nation state. But then the Left has spent so long talking about identities and fragmenting their base down that they forgot to talk about these things too. Like you said, what's the point in banging on about Trans-rights to people who a) don't care and b) have other things going on.
I am not blaming those from identity groups for being abused - I am saying 'hey, maybe don't run into the fists at full speed'. I don't think the political right are scapegoated, I think they're smart. They were smart enough to gobble up the centre ground using whatever messaging worked - meanwhile the political left continues to frame its defeat around the racism/sexism/transphobia paradigm, which whilst it might be (broadly) true for some sections of the far right, isn't true for everyone.
You are in the 'us vs them' paradigm established by the right. Any attempt to circumvent this thinking means the person (or Penguin) must be a 'them'.
