Identity-based division functions universally as a deflector for class revolt

Evidence

In truth, any number of identity-based divisions can be marshaled to perform this function: Jews versus Blacks, Blacks versus Asians, Muslims versus Christians, “gender critical” feminists versus transgender people, migrants versus citizens. This is the playbook used by Trump and the other pseudo-populist strongmen the world over: throw some minor economic concessions to the base (or at least claim to do so), unleash the dogs of race and gender-based hatreds, and preside over a rapid upward transfer of wealth, alongside an authoritarian concentration of power. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 944

Categorization

• XREF: Directly links the 1905 mechanism to Trump-era pseudo-populism — an instance of crossing-the-red-line that recurs across Klein’s chapters. Useful for the diagonalism thesis. — connects to: Formal equality in exchange masks how the class relation is constituted — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1363