Identity politics and the Left

I subscribe to "New Criterion," and it must have had a great ad, because I doubt I've read more than 2-3 articles in my first 6 issues. But Roger Kimball has a good editorial in January 2023 issue, that I'll just give a tease:

"If chattel slavery hadn’t existed in the United States, the Left would have had to invent it. What we mean is that the idea of slavery has become so dear to the disciples of identity politics that without its moral sanction they would be lost. Absent the original sin of slavery, the entire racialist racket that holds our society hostage would sputter to an inglorious halt. The race hustlers promoting 'affirmative action' (i.e., race- or sex-based discrimination) would be out of business, as would the real-estate magnates and firebugs of Black Lives Matter. Ditto the angry historical fantasists behind The 1619 Project.. . .  https://newcriterion.com/issues/2023/1/the-mob-comes-for-madison

Anti-racism, microaggression, knocking down statues of saints, white supremacy--you know the deal. Yet slavery has existed since the beginning of history, and particularly flourished in Africa, and still does. Even Biden's administration looks away while women and children enter servitude to pay their passage across the border in sex slavery. People anxious to make a new life come from all over the world to flood our borders.

And I've said something similar about poverty. We have so many programs to fight poverty from the government and non-profits (including churches) that if poverty disappeared tomorrow, we'd have to reinvent it or have millions of unemployed staffers and CEOs who would be out of work. Race hustlers and poverty pimps. It's far more than a cottage industry--it's big business.