It’s the Culture, Stupid

... For the past few decades, the people in power in our country who also have the loudest voices in our culture (corporations, entertainment, institutions, media, government) have decided they can accumulate more power by dividing people using race, gender, vocation, educational achievement and geography as their means of division. 

Sometimes they use every tool in the toolbox at once, sometimes just one at a time, but boy, do they use them.

When a party in power has aligned itself with those entities, for your average person like Romano, it feels overwhelming. That is part of why he is no longer a Democrat, a party he so identified with in Philly that he once worked to get Democrats elected...

"When I was growing up in Philly, I was a Democrat. I worked for the party, very, very diligently worked for the party, helping people get elected down there all over the place. But then, at some point, you start to look at what’s going on with the politics in the areas. And to me, I just had an epiphany. I was, like, 'I'm on the wrong team,'" he said....

Because... Joe Biden won in 2020, many people missed how center-right the country moved in that election in every other race down-ballot....

People grew weary of having everything they thought, did, bought, and wore being called racist. That goes for black people, white people, and Hispanics who are deeply frustrated that our politics and culture are constantly trying to pit them against each other—people are simply just done....

The Democrat party's lurid lurch to the socialist left, by Fred Elbel, 17 February 2019.

Identity Politics: squabbling factions

Intersectionality - stacking levels of perceived discrimination