I despise identity politics too. It allows people who are just as callous, greedy, and selfish as the Repubs to identify themselves as liberal Dems and hide behind that, when in actuality, they are just as greedy, callous, and selfish as the Repubs they profess to hate, only because of culture war issues.

That is what MLK realized near the end of his life, that the movement needed to go beyond racism and identity politics, and embrace socialism wholely, if it was ever going to defeat racism, because all of the above issues Hedges mentions are inseparably connected to matters of inequality in power and wealth.