Why? It works spectacularly well. It's funny to watch all these people who use it suddenly get up and bashful about it now and then; the democrats won house, se

Why? It works spectacularly well. It's funny to watch all these people who use it suddenly get up and bashful about it now and then; the democrats won house, senate, and presidency very much focusing on identity politics. I think if anything, the scary thing is that it works better than caring about the poor at all. It wasn't democratic ideas about poverty that made them such a force...just accuse people of homophobia and you've already put them on the defensive if not won. "Alt-right" is such a wonderful tool-just hint someone is it, and a person's mind does all the rest even though they may have no idea what it even means. Just say it long enough and loud enough in the right tone of disapproval and you have magic. I'm not sure how much of this is /s. When I was against gay marriage, I sat down and tried to think a lot about how marriage related to procreation or was a special institution. How religion related to it, and whether or not it needed protection. I did feel eventually civil unions were the strongest compromise, because there were legal aspects to recognizing couples that were important but the special nature of heterosexual marriage and its relation to tradition and religion mattered to. You can disagree about gay marriage but realize that there are definitely things gay couples should have in a legal sense too; hospital visitation rights as one. A lot really was uncertainty about metaphysical and philosophical ideas I think. But all you had to do to shut all that down was to accuse me of homophobia and bigotry. It's insanely effective because a person has to now defend that whatever he is proposing isn't because of deep-seated irrational phobia or anger. It really worked. Now i pretty much just shrug and say "What are you going to do, you're conquered." Pay the Dane the Danegeld when he asks. Gay marriage as an actual act is not really a success. In my state last year all of 700 people got married in same sex couples out of a population of 4 million, and even with the low straight marriage rate here thats 700 out of 20,000 a year I believe, not even .05 percent. Ever since mid 2015 we have never seen even 1000 people a year use it. That's the huge irony of all those identity politics...they were a club to beat people with more than a vital need it seemed. It's easier and more effective to use identity politics. They aren't going away. I mean lord, "live and let live"-be honest, you think you're going to allow us to do that with climate change an issue? When you want us to learn to love the veggie burger and electric bike everywhere instead of using cars? I mean it doesn't work well on the receiving end but hey, like the simpsons treehouse of horror episode, sometimes the dolphins just want it more. Luckily it seems people get embarassed of conquering after a bit so it fades.