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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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I am not a fan of overusing "Orwellian" but this is as close a case as I've seen to all those comments about everyone receiving a simultaneous "download" of their new talking points.

"Border czar" is not and never was an official title - so when everyone says "Harris was never appointed border czar" - yes, technically that is true. (Technically, the Vice President has precisely one official duty, which is breaking ties in the Senate. Other than that, the VP has only whatever duties and authority the President assigns, and there have been VPs who basically faffed around for four years with nothing to do.) But clearly Harris was referred to as "border czar" and everyone understood what that meant, even if it was a strictly informal title.

Frustratingly, mentioning this to my Harris-supporting friends just gets sighs and eye-rolls, like "Why does this even matter?" And how good a job she did as "border czar" probably doesn't matter all that much - what matters (to me) is watching the entire media apparatus turn on a dime to reinforce DNC talking points and everyone thinks that's fine and that people trying to point out the discrepancy are just bad-faith Harris-haters.

Go to Google.com and type "attempted assassination of Donald" or "of Trum" and look at the predictions.

The entire Dem system is orwellian, there is no other word for it. It's not possible to overuse it.
You've just gotten used to it, because that's what you have to do to feel like a Sensible Moderate rather than one of those witches you sneer at.

Go to Google.com and type "attempted assassination of Donald" or "of Trum" and look at the predictions.

Also, I did this just to indulge you (I assume "Trum" was a typo, or is that supposed to be some new meme I am not familiar with?), and the top results were the latest AP, CNN, ABC, and Fox News stories, followed by links from the FBI and Wikipedia. What new Dem Orwellian nefariousness am I supposed to be seeing, exactly?

Jesus fucking Christ, it was not a typo. Look at the auto-complete suggestions like I told you to do. The last suggestion it will make is "TRUMan", and when you add the P it goes blank.

This is exactly what I meant by how you pretend not to see what's right in front of you so you can sneer at people

I’m on your side and it wasn’t immediately obvious without actually attempting the search as written. You should not assume bad faith here.

I'm so God damn tired of watching people like that smugly pretend "I don't know what you mean, that's so weird, why would you notice that?"

It's never honest, it's always tactical sneering. You can tell because he's still doing it even after people showed him in the gentlest way possible.
With sneers like "the latest thing circulating on telegram", he's literally just doing the same thing as Kalema voters he was criticizing above, and doesn't even realize it.
Even when he's got the nerve to grudgingly notice things, he still has to get an elbow in at the people who noticed before it was fashionable.

I'm so God damn tired of watching people like that smugly pretend "I know know what you mean, that's so weird, why would you notice that?"

I do not pretend.

It's never honest, it's always tactical sneering. You can tell because he's still doing it even after people showed him in the gentlest way possible.

I am always honest. I answered each of the people who pointed out what they saw, with what I saw with my own search results.

Even when he's got the nerve to grudgingly notice things, he still has to get an elbow in at the people who noticed before it was fashionable.

I notice things whether or not they are fashionable. I also notice when people have partisan blind spots.

I think it was the "bad faith trolls accusing me of lying" part that he's complaining about in the last bit. SteveKirk was the only one AFAIK who accused you of lying (a lot of people asked for evidence, but that's legitimate to check why you got different results than they did), and while he definitely didn't AGF and that's his error I'm reasonably confident he's acting in good faith himself (the only plausible way he could be a troll IMO would be if he were a full-blown agent provocateur trying to get us to attempt terrorism and get arrested).

There were a couple of other people demanding "post screenshots," with the obvious implication that I was making up what I saw. Though my opinion is somewhat informed by checking user histories (so I know when someone has a history of being antagonistic and trollish), which non-mods don't have available.