I don’t think I can point you to a quick and easy read that illustrates my point. You get the feeling by following what’s happening, what people are saying. However, there has been a trend in (economic) Marxist circles towards legitimizing identity politics, and denigrating orthodox Marxists as ‘class reductionists’ or even ‘reactionaries’. I think a lot of the recent material on BreadTube (i.e. far-left YouTube) and websites like Jacobin are pointing in that direction.
There has also been a concurrent rapid drop in the buzz surrounding ‘woke Capitalism’, with ‘SJWs’ being increasingly labeled as ‘liberals’ (in the sense of them being capitalists and hence not ‘real leftists’) and ‘centrists’ (in the Hillary Clinton sense). This seems to have had an effect of making woke Capitalism increasingly uncool (like everything associated with Hillary since 2017), which perhaps explains the declining popularity of ‘woke’ feminist icons like Lena Dunham and Emma Watson, as well as liberal political leaders like Obama and Trudeau, among many young people. Even cultural leftists who have also had anti-capitalist critiques (e.g. the YouTuber ContraPoints) have come under pressure to be more explicitly anti-capitalist.
The overall effect seems to be that, they are building an intersectional neo-Marxism that is based on a mixture of Marxist economic theory and critical theory type analysis (which e.g. sees ‘racial oppression’ as similar to ‘class oppression’), with all these theories combined in a whole ‘intersectional’ package, producing analyses that have both class and identity politics components, often intertwined with each other. Those who are opposed or skeptical towards this development (e.g. orthodox Marxists or woke Capitalists) are increasingly being excluded from the Left.
The following recent article seems to discuss a bit about the recent split in the socialist Left, between those like Bernie who want to appeal to workers, and those who want to ramp up the identity politics instead. Here’s a quote from the article:
“McElwee couldn’t disagree more. “I don’t ascribe in any way to these ideas that identity politics is bad for us. I think I can take someone who is deeply concerned about patriarchy and I can make them understand how patriarchy intersects with capitalism much more than I can take someone who’s mad because GM took their job away and make them understand socialism,” he said. (DSA’s Cunningham, who is black, sees class versus race as a false choice. “Racism,” she says, “is a tool of capitalism” to divide workers.)
One reason McElwee isn’t bothered about alienating blue-collar whites is that he’s not interested in their votes.”
