> You were dumping on "identity politics" as if it were some weird new thing invented by the left.

I wasn't. I only said that the left's identity politics probably helped to alienate an important part of their former voting base.

> My point is that by any reasonable definition, identity politics has been sustained and enforced by the right in the US. For centuries. It is the left that has been trying to tear it down.

I don't see how we can meaningfully refer to "the right" or "the left" across such a large time span, but I'm not interested in debating it, so I'll concede that point if it's important to you. I certainly agree that from the civil rights era until roughly ten or twenty years ago, the right was generally in favor of identity politics and the left was against it. Since then, the right have largely accepted the "no more identity politics" position (with notable exceptions here and there), and the left has largely regressed to a pro-identity politics (likewise, with notable exceptions).

> The move you're making is known technically as "erasure". Instead of admitting that the status quo is the result of energetic pro-white, pro-male, pro-rich stacking of the deck and honestly proceeding from there, you erase the history and treat pro-white-male identity politics as normal. That makes any deviation from or challenge to it supposedly problematic "identity politics". Even though the very identities at stake, like "black", were constructed by white men, you blame the victims.

No, no. You're simply wrong about this. I never said or implied any such thing. I've said repeatedly that white oppression existed throughout history. I'm sure I've been less than clear on other points, but I've been perfectly clear about this one.

> You also conflate "real" oppression with "historical" oppression. Your effective definition of oppression isn't some objective measure of misuse of power. It's "the bad shit in the past that is definitely now over". Which is an incredibly convenient definition for your line of argument.

Again, I never said any such thing. The only statements I made about oppression is much of what is called oppression today (things like women choosing their own careers) are not actually oppression by any reasonable definition, and this abuse of terminology by the left has made it really hard to identify and talk about legitimate oppression. I never said anything that could be interpreted as "legitimate oppression is that which occurs in the past"; there are certainly forms of legitimate oppression that exist against minorities today--intimidation of minority religions and communities, for example. It does no good to conflate actual oppression with different outcomes from freely-made choices.

> These are only plausible rhetorical moves if you don't really understand the history. You are making bold pronouncements on a topic you obviously don't understand. Why? From here it looks like motivated reasoning with a goal of protecting the status quo. Thus my suggestion that you go take a class. Which I still recommend.

I don't appreciate you saying I don't understand this. You've erected blatant strawman after blatant strawman (willfully or accidentally), and you tell me to take a class? Come on, you're not being a good faith participant here. I know there are good, legitimate arguments to be made against my points (and I'm sure you're capable of presenting them). Don't insult me by refuting arguments I never made and then telling me to take a class...