Boomers aren’t exactly wrong when they go on about “divide and conquer;” it is a top-down ideology meant to demoralize and confuse people. Getting people obsessed with sex and sexuality keeps people sedated: You’re hardly going to think about how your actions could affect those around you if you’re too busy indulging in your own selfish desires. And the subject of race is another kettle of fish all-together; they’re more than happy to allow Africans to celebrate Black nationalism or Black culture, but Europeans celebrating white culture or even appreciate the history and culture of other races? Watch out, or they might give rise to the Fourth Reich and commit another genocide!
I mean, if you were at the very top of society, wouldn’t you rather have all the plebs fighting among each other than have their anger directed at you?
But to answer the OP’s question on how exactly does your cringe online activist resolve these apparent contradictions within leftist ideology? Well, simply put, they don’t. Your average 14 year old girl obviously lacks the life experience to recognize the actual incoherence and simply repeats the opinions she thinks she should have, because it’s frankly everywhere and she’s being exposed to it daily. And sadly, the same can be said for a lot of adults, too: Your average normie doesn’t have the time to watch a “Steven Crowder DEBUNKS transgender ideology compilation” and it’s much easier to simply go along with it if this what a majority of people believe now. Group mentality is a powerful thing; to disagree is to risk being “cast out” out of the tribe.
Not to mention our culture is extremely predicated on being accepting of others and not wanting to invalidate another’s lived experience. It’s altruism on steroids. When you push back on sexual identity, it’s almost as if you’re attacking the people who attach themselves to it and telling them they’re worth less as a human being. That’s why they get so upset whenever you criticize their nonsense; you’re depriving them of what gives them meaning.
The reason why identity politics has taken off so rapidly is because it is a crying out for identity. The only kind of identity that should matter is your national identity, but ideas of nationhood, heritage and religion have been hollowed out in Western nations since WWII. One of the biggest problems I had with the liberal atheist movement in the early 2010’s was how they assumed everyone in the world was just like them: Rational, thoughtful people who didn’t really need God in their lives. We’ve seen more than enough evidence these past few years alone that this isn’t the case: A majority of human beings can be utterly irrational, emotional creatures who don’t need much reason to spill one another’s blood and will pledge themselves to any kind of higher cause if it gives their lives meaning. I think the men who wrote the Bible understood that and figured that it would be better that people hold themselves accountable to a figurative higher power in the form of God, rather than an insane political ideologue who is just as flawed as everyone else.
I mean, look, at Islam. Perhaps not the best example, given that the worst among them just torture and murder dissidents. But everyone in Islamic countries identifies with their nation first, and their religion second. Sure, there is infighting (Sunni vs Shia) but when faced with a outside enemy they might temporarily forget the animosity and unite. Identity politics, as we know it, is least likely to take off in the Middle-East because nearly everyone there already identifies as being Muslim.
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