It seems to me that a lot of what is being called “identity politics,” might actually be something else, that I think of as “linkage politics,” or even more specifically, “FALSE linkage politics.”
I believe I see this as an explanation for the many (what we used to call) "strange bedfellows" alliances we see.
Back in my youth, there were weird attempts to get the anti-war people to join forces with the communists, for example. The only things that the two groups had in common, was opposition to the Vietnam war, and it certainly was bad for the peace movement to include the pro-dictatorship communists, since they were all about personal freedom for everyone.
Nowadays, we see false linkage political alliances that are just as bad or worse. Among the older and more obvious false linkages, are the religious conservatives, and the so-called Free Market business people. The business people are inherently amoral, while the religious people are very moral, but they find a common “enemy,” and literally form an “unholy alliance.”
Even more sinister to me, are the people who KNOW that their goals and views are commonly seen as “bad,” (such as racists), so they imply unspoken “linkages” with other peoples concerns, in order to form an alliance which they can scoot along just behind, quietly advancing their “bad” agenda while all the focus is on the “official” concern. Part of the modern anti-abortion movement involves exactly that.
Finally, we have what I like to call “anti” movements of various kinds, which focus entirely on establishing blind support to prevent whoever they are “anti” about, from being happy in any way. They also play on often unspoken “linkages,” in order to gather allies, but are worse, because they are so focused on being “anti,” that they will quite literally destroy their own country, if that helps to make the people they oppose, have a bad time. A most recent example of this, is the movement to praise Putin and Russia, for invading other countries, manipulating the news here, in order to undermine the effectiveness of the American government overall, and so on. It is genuinely traitorous to actively support a foreign power that is determined to thwart the best interests of your own country, but we see some Republicans and their allies doing exactly that, simply because they reeeeely hate Obama and or the Democrats.
I’m posting this, to commend others to watch out for people trying to “play you” for their own purposes, by implying that there are “linkages” between what they want, and what you want, which, if you look closely, are complete balderdash.