Time traveled back to this from a link in a recent post. Great job. Articulates very well how I see the situation also. "The road to hell etc." applies here, as everyone I've encountered in the identity politics domain claims "good intentions" - how could they not, if they were still in that domain non-ironically? As BLM among others have pointed out, intentions /= impacts. As one of my mentors put it long ago - "sincerity is irrelevant to outcomes."

Also - from my born and raised in the USA perspective - it's obvious why certain people (here at least) think you're a reactionary of some kind. You don't toe either of the allowed party lines, and with nuance and middle ground all but banished from this country, the only option is that you're one of "them" not "us." Regardless of who the "us" is...