Patrick Iber in Dissent:
The 1776 Report, the pseudo-historical document Donald Trump commissioned as a rebuttal to the 1619 Project and the historical justification for his far-right agenda, contains a bizarre attack on “identity politics.” According to the document, “the modern revival of identity politics stems from mid-20th century European thinkers who sought the revolutionary overthrow of their political and social systems but were disillusioned by the working class’s lack of interest in inciting revolution.” It is Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, the report says, who argued that the “focus should not be on economic revolution as much as taking control of the institutions that shape culture.” Gramsci’s heirs in the Frankfurt School, such as Herbert Marcuse, developed identity politics, and then his disciples created critical race theory. “Following Gramsci’s strategy of taking control of the culture,” the report argues, “Marcuse’s followers use the approach of Critical Race Theory to impart an oppressor-victim narrative upon generations of Americans.”
In this telling, the movements for civil rights, women’s rights, and gay liberation are not responding to real forms of discrimination. Instead, the cultural shifts that have taken place since the 1960s can be dismissed as the influence of radical foreign Marxists who have undermined the foundational unities of American life through their control of cultural institutions. It is poor intellectual history, but powerful pseudo-history. It frees the believer from considering the demands of people facing oppression as legitimate and justifies the destruction of knowledge-producing institutions. For the right, it replaces hard questions with obfuscation, using obscurity to create a false sense of clarity.
How did we get here?
More here.
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