[dariusj18]

I find it strange the phrase "political weapon". As if the idea that there might be an issue in the country and politicians wanting to do something about it makes it a weapon. "Oh no Mr. Smith, your not allowed to mention the things that are wrong, otherwise people might think your using it to point out the flaws in your opposition."

[colpabar]

I think "political tool" is a better term, and I believe it's an incredibly effective tool for dividing people who might otherwise be united on certain issues.

I think that after the 2008 financial crisis and the following bailouts for the people who caused it, a lot of people got fed up, and occupy wall street was born. Occupy was a class based movement: the ultra-rich vs everyone else. And then something happened, and suddenly everyone had to be divided by every other attribute imaginable - race, sex, gender, disability - class just wasn't as important. Instead of the 1% vs the 99%, the 99% was divided by all those attributes and fought each other over whose issues were more important. Then it quietly fizzled out and nothing was accomplished.

The 1% must be so happy watching the 99% squabble amongst themselves over who's the most oppressed. I think that most, if not all, of the major political/social issues today should be viewed through a class-based lens _first_; everything else should come second. But the users of this tool cannot have that, and here we are: everything is about race/sex/gender and nothing is about class.

[dariusj18]

My guess is that the Occupy movement was one of the first things that got you into politics, otherwise I don't know how else to explain your opinion. Identity politics was around way before the Occupy movement and has been one of the greatest driving forces in progressive social change.

[AnimalMuppet]

Yeah, but colbapar has a bit of a point: Identity was there, but it wasn't quite so all-consuming of an issue. But I think the timing is a bit off. I think Occupy had pretty much fizzled before identity exploded. I could be wrong - I'm not all that political, so I'm only a fringe observer of these things - but it seems to me that Occupy was pretty much over by 2013, and identity didn't really explode until 2016 or so.