It's been about 9 years since the Western left took its idpol turn

Define your terms.

• What happened 9 years ago?
• What exactly is “idpol”?
• What exactly is the “Western left”?

If I had to guess, I’d say that you watched a few YouTube videos selected for you by the YouTube algorithm, and then assumed everyone else in the Lemmyverse is in the exact same headspace as you.

My Marxist-Leninist conceptualization of what “Western left” and “idpol” mean might be very different from yours.

• Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn
• Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism
• https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Western_Marxism
• https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Left-wing_anticommunism
• https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Identity_politics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combahee_River_Collective

.
Previously: https://lemmy.ml/post/15667745/11073512

I had to look up "idpol" ... which is a simplification of the division.

The left wants to include all the diversity of underrepresented minorities. The right wants to ignore or erase instead.

The process has both helped and hurt. I have known countless people who feel like they could come out and be themselves, in the hope that society had finally reached a level of acceptance. And now, the right has shown how much judgement and hate still thrives.

What event is this referring to?

It's hilarious to read your question because, in the US at least, the right is so much more dogmatic about identity politics than the left.

I don't think picking an arbitrary time of, like, 9 years ago is accurate for when the western left's "idpol turn" started. Labour rights and anti racism have always been closely intertwined causes and the trade unions have been closely aligned with queer groups since the 80's at least.

But whatever.

What has that accomplished?

Created a more organised front against the current reactionary pushes and helped getting marginalised people politically active despite the neoliberal attempt to crush grassroots political activism.

Who has it helped?

Plenty of people, myself for example: leftist agitation caused both a reform within the Welsh NHS' gender service to move away from antiquated gatekeeping and towards self-id and informed consent, while at the same time these same groups successfully pushed the Senedd to bring out free prescriptions. My poor, post-grad self wouldn't have had the time to fight to get a gender identity certificate nor the money to afford HRT treatment if it wasn't for the intersectional tactics of the "western left".

You could argue the right is more focused on identity politics and for a longer time than the left.

The original meaning of idpol being doing politics as a matter of identity rather than ideas. It’s why you can get MAGAts to agree with you on a lot of stuff and disagree with the GOP, but they’ll still vote red, because their identity is republican.

It helped liberals pinkwash their crimes. Reminds me of that meme of the B-54 on a bombing raid with the pride flag on its side.

I hate everything to do with identity politics. All it has done is divide us even more and caused more conflict between ordinary people.