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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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I think the reason few to no people do this is because it would be ineffective. Political violence in modern society benefits the other side. Israel was popular on 10/8, it gets less popular with every day it continues its counter terrorism campaign. Jan 6 is the primary thing keeping the Democratic party viable. Kent State is still trumpeted by the hippies. If anything, this plan would work best if you executed a bunch of false flag attacks and somehow werent caught out. One could argue that is what the FBI did with the Whitmer "Kidnapping attack", and that was used as a successful talking point until it collapsed. If you wanted Joe Biden re-elected probably the best thing to happen would be a failed assassination attack on him by someone wearing a MAGA hat and Alex Jones brand cowboy boots.* The problem with the false flag plan, is it only works if you dont get caught. And you probably would. Because the only kind of dumbass who takes $50k to assassinate Joe Biden wearing a MAGA hat is too dumb to not get caught, and not nearly loyal enough to not tell the investigators that he was told to wear the MAGA hat by the guy on the internet. And at that point your whole strategy is about the authorities intentionally covering up your scheme until after election day. Which they might, because they do probably lean Biden. But as the Hillary emails situation demonstrated, it only takes a few principled leakers to blow up LE's plan to cover something up until after election day.

So no, these scemes require the participation of true believers. Like Hamas, where the soldiers know they are going to die (and so do the women and children) and they understand that their deaths are a propaganda victory. Similar to how machine politics works in cities to manufacture grey and illegal votes. Its all loyal insiders who sometimes, yes, are financially rewarded, but the other motivations are stronger.

*Disclaimer, I do not know if this product exists.

Political violence in modern society benefits the other side.

I’d say rather that political violence only ever benefits the Left. Feminists bombed the Capitol building, Puerto Rican nationalists shot up Congress, the Weathermen and black nationalists conducted terror campaigns, Black Lives Matter protestors burned down and looted major cities, but none of these seem to do or have done anything to tamper enthusiasm for their respective causes.

Historically, leftist violence translates into rightist takeovers. Either an authoritarian faction within the left (Stalin within the Bolsheviks) or a rightist ally backstabs (mullahs and Muslim Brotherhood against Arab socialists) or a conservative swoops in to reign over the ashes of the Left (Franco? Fujimori? probably other examples).

Political violence benefits the left only if we view the effect of violence as 'no consequences'. In terms of achieving practical results, it needs a rightist element to coopt the cause of, or exploit the damage caused by, the leftist violence. At no point do the organizers of leftist violence seem to have achieved their stated objectives.

Leftist violence currently is temporary chaos, violence that flares which can be cleaned up. Chavez and Stalin draped themselves in leftist skinsuits but were able to wield the power of a state to effect real change (damage).

The left is insidious, but the right is where true power will be exercised. And the left is blind to wolves amongst its flock.

[Population-level observation ahead]

Leftist violence is female-coded, and rightist violence is male-coded, almost like they're the same thing and always have been. You see the same shit in abusive marriages; the woman throws shit and has tantrums, might slap or hit the man, but none of her goals are accomplished unless the man gives in (this is ignoring "split up" as an option).

This is why men, as a general rule, don't hit women- because their superpower is that they're the only ones with actual power. So they'll bear the occasional slap and punch and thrown vase from their wives when she doesn't get her way, but at the end of the day he's the one who decides which checks get written. As such, this violence is the 'no consequences, or results in token concessions' type.

But if a man discovers that he can use [individually impotent but] violent women to abuse other men on his behalf (which is how the Inner and Outer Parties of 1984 function), then things get a lot more interesting. Which is why authoritarian movements tend to use female-coded language- "equity" and "safety" are the two popular ones- so that the men who would normally and trivially resist simply fail to show up, making the opposition easier to rout.

The left is insidious, but the right is where true power will be exercised. And the left is blind to wolves amongst its flock.

This is Genesis 1 stuff. The serpent must corrupt the woman in order for the man to eat the fruit.

Which is why authoritarian movements tend to use female-coded language- "equity" and "safety" are the two popular ones-

It's hard for me to see why these words are "female-coded". For example, they were explicitly two of the main reasons for the founding fathers of the US to launch their revolution, and I don't know anyone who sees the founding fathers as female-coded figures.

You could also point to Trump's ascendancy first over DeSantis and then Biden as a backlash to the lawfare. But I think this theory is inherently a bit contradictory and will fail when taken too far, since it essentially presumes all victories to be pyrrhic. There are plenty of examples where wins are in fact wins: CCP did not fall after crushing student protesters in 1989, Iran did not liberalize after women revolted, and Russia does not appear to be heading to strategic defeat in Ukraine. In the movie premise I hypothesized, I think "victory" is plausible for the shadowy prophet if he defines end goals as eliminating campus encampments and corporate wokeposting--changing visible behavior given the newly introduced cost of violence seems a lot more achievable than actually changing minds, which may be "good enough."

Well the caveat to the theory appears to be whether the post WWII American public's opinion is relevant to your particular political question. And I suppose precluding a total victory ala CCP 1989.

I will not discount the reality that if January 6th was the JANUARY 6TH! that Democrats pretend it to be, and thousands of armed MAGA men showed up to the Capitol, sacked it, beheaded a bunch of Democrats, proclaimed Trump God-Emperor, and the local national guard rolled in having their back, that would be actually effective street violence.

I just dont think that is something a shadowy right wing billionaire could fund and achieve. Heck, I don't think a cabal of 25 billionaires could.