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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Did anyone make much of it when 'white girls for Kamala' showed up on the scene a few days ago? I certainly didn't.

And I certainly didn't see the logical next step: 'white dudes for Kamala'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/white-dudes-for-harris-hold-call-after-160000-white-women-join-karens-for-kamala-zoom

This is the first time in my lifetime (not that old, but...) that any group of white guys publicly organized themselves politically around their shared identity.

Could be nothing - could be a watershed moment. I have been wrong about many things but was at least right about the bud light thing.

Anyway, more interested in hearing your thoughts

The implication of having to identify a group for X is that said group typically doesn't support X but this particular groups does and that hey, maybe you fellow member of that group should also support X. There's literally dozens thousands of us!

Will this actually gain support for Kamala Harris among white dudes? Well, the likely answer is that it probably will get a few, but not enough to shift the needle for this demographic in any particular manner.

If you're a white guy, what policies/cultural stances does Kamala have that would want to make you vote for her? I know it hasn't been long since the Democratic Party decided she should be their candidate, but I have heard very little about her actual stances and policies that wasn't something I had to look up my self.

So far, I haven't seen anything that would shift someone that wasn't already planning to vote for her (likely due to her being the democratic candidate, than anything else) to vote for her.

but I have heard very little about her actual stances and policies that wasn't something I had to look up my self.

And you won't. The path to Democratic victory is selling Kamala as a generic Democrat, not her actual policy stances which weren't popular with Democrats last time and will be even less palatable to Republicans and squishy centrists. Just because GovTrack deleted their page naming her the most liberal senator of 2019 doesn't mean it wasn't true.

She is both a far left extremist who supported BLM and in height of violence saw the protests as necessary to continue to get more change, favored police decriminalization, open borders, DEI, Green New Deal and a mainstream Democrat. This republican anti Kamala video includes most of them except her BLM 2020 protests comments https://youtube.com/watch?v=bHlb0z1vZm8

How much backlash did Kamala face then or now for any of this? And how alone has she been?

This is what the Democrats are now. Maybe she is somewhat even more left wing than any random Democrat, but they are a far left party and the difference between Harris and other Democrats will not be significant as the default of liberal democrat politics has shifted to a more radical direction. It represents the 21st century type of far left which is of course different than early 20th century far left of orthodox marxism. Nor is this a constantly anti-establishment far left but a pro being the establishment far left.

As for the voters, I do think that there will be an attempt to fool the electorate by promoting her as a more moderate politician than she is. But the issue isn't X or Y random politician but a broader trend of a shift of the mainstream, and of the Democrats in general towards the far left.

There is an obvious bias by many against describing the Democrats as far leftists, under the fear of being perceived too partisan, or right wing. Suppose someone writes an article analyzing the election and the candidates, it would actually be their duty to properly inform people about where the parties and candidates stand and to talk about how far left the Democrats actually are.

Yeah, I don't think American Democrats generally realise that their party is substantially further to the left than e.g. the UK or Australian Labo(u)r parties.

It... depends what you mean by "left". Economically the US Democrats don't seem to be more socialist. Socially, yes, they're more progressive.