And why Identity has replaced Ideology:
It seems that there is not much left of the Left and what remains has nothing to do with ‘Left.’
Contemporary ‘Left’ politics is detached from its natural constituency, working people. The so called ‘Left’ is basically a symbolic identifier for ‘Guardian readers’ a critical expression attributed to middle class people who, for some reason, claim to know what is good for the working class. How did this happen to the Left? Why was it derailed and by whom?
The British Labour party is a prime example of this. It is deaf to the cry of the lower classes. It claims to care ‘for the many’ but in practice is only attentive to a few voices within the intrusive Israeli Lobby. As Britain is struggling with the crucial debate over Brexit, British Labour has been focused instead on spurious allegations of ‘antisemitsm.’ It is hard to see how any Left political body in the West even plans to bring more work to the people. The Left offers nothing in the way of a vision of a better society for all. It is impossible to find the Left within the contemporary ‘Left.’
Why has this happened to the Left, why has it become irrelevant? Because by now the Left is a non-hierarchical system. It is an amalgam of uniquely ungifted people who made politics into their ‘career.’ Most Left politicians have never worked at a proper job where money is exchanged for merit, achievements or results. The vast majority of Left politicians have never faced the economic challenges associated with the experience of being adults. Tragically such people can’t lead a country, a city, a borough or even a village.
The Left had a mostly positive run for about 150 years. But its role has come to an end as the condition of being in the world has been radically transformed. The Left failed to adapt. It removed itself from the universal ethos.
In the same way the Left no longer represents the native working class, the “conservatives” of the West no longer conserve. We now live in a post-ideological multinational societies where competing interest groups struggle for the reins of imperial power in order to best benefit their self-perceived interests.
This is nothing new. This is the way that Man has lived for most of his history. The sooner the Right accepts the new/old reality and adapts to it, the more successful it will be. Because there are a lot of people practicing identity politics who are working very hard at trying to steer the Right away from defending national interests.
The Republican Party and I think conservatism in general is also going through a lot of internal debates about what — what it should be, right, what it should be—the sort of position of the party. And I think that’s one that we should be involved in because we, I think, probably want to steer conservatives and Republicans more towards a message of liberty and freedom and away from the more nationalistic incendiary nativist comments and things like that.
—Adam Kovacevic, Head of U.S. public policy, Google