Charles Murray speaks for me in this early passage from Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America (2021) about how identity politics broke out from the faculty clubs into every corner of American life today:

I didn’t take identity politics seriously for a long time. I thought that the academy was once again indulging in its fondness for recreational radicalism. Surely no one outside academia except the extreme left would pay much attention. I was wrong. I had underestimated the extent to which today’s academia and today’s elite media share the same worldview. I had underestimated the intolerance of dissent that went with the movement, and how effectively that intolerance could stifle opposition from moderate liberals.

In 2019 the campaign season for the Democratic presidential nomination began. By the end of the year it was clear that identity politics had become the consensus ideology of the left wing of the Democratic Party, not just the most extreme elements. Some of the Democratic candidates openly embraced identity politics. Others were more moderate and probably harbored reservations, but no major candidate for the nomination challenged identity politics aggressively.