Words matter, but other things matter more. Economic justice and structural change I would argue matter more, and only actions that lead to those will transform the world. Endless battles on Twitter and Tumblr about who said what bad word when, and who culturally appropriated what (usually inaccurate) and how hard are actually harmful, even to the people who it is supposed these arguments help.

It’s precisely because mainstream liberalism has so thoroughly surrendered on issues of economic justice and class war that so many young people think of politics as a game of word policing and loud noises on Twitter.

The Left is soulless – in the sense that it has no animus, just tribal markers that change weekly to enable policing and to promote exclusivity, to thin the ranks so that there can be an in group and the out group du jour.

I don’t think the Right and the RNC types are actually intelligent or conniving enough to do this, but if I wanted to destroy the Left, my attempt would look much like the focus on identity politics, word policing and outcast-creating that the modern Left has become.

That shit is damn effective for neutralizing a movement.