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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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Trump's interview with Joe Rogan is out. I think it should be mandatory viewing, as someone who has read a lot about both of them but never heard either speak at length I had some interesting surprises.

I spotted a few major pieces of culture war fodder.

  1. Joe apparently didn't want to do this because he was worried it would end up being fluff or making Trump look good.

  2. I do think it makes Trump look good. It's the beer test, implemented, and for all to see. Many people have the instant opposite visceral opinion. As with everything about this, that's interesting.

  3. Most here have concerns about legacy media, I think this adroitly makes the case against legacy media - as does Joe himself explicitly multiple times during the interview.

  4. I've polled some Kamala supporters and they all think she'd have done just as well, but I highly doubt that.

  5. Trump gets asked about election stealing...and some of his answer kinda matches some of the "best" answers we see here (complaining about procedural changes and so on).

At time of this posting it's at 18 million views in the same number of hours.

Meanwhile Kamala Harris apparently declined to go on Rogan even though she was in Houston.

What was she doing in Houston? Rallying with Beyonce, of course. According to the Harris team, over 1.5 million people registered to attend although there was only space for 30,000. Passionate Harris fans? Hardly. They thought there would be a Beyonce concert.

When Beyonce did not in fact perform, but just mumbled into a bad mic, the fans were not happy. They came to see Queen Bey, not Queen K. There's a viral TikTok clip of people booing and Kamala cackling awkwardly for like 45 seconds.

https://pagesix.com/2024/10/26/entertainment/beyonce-fans-furious-singer-did-not-perform-at-kamala-harris-rally-in-houston/

Seriously people, how hard is it to get Beyonce to perform? No one gives a damn about the endorsements of celebrities, but they might just vote the way you want if you give them a free concert. Tickets to Beyonce are hundreds of dollars. It's a nice vote-buying technique unless you blow it massively.

It's a nice vote-buying technique unless you blow it massively.

Maybe they didn't want to be accused of doing such?

I doubt it considering all the other naked vote buying.

I predict that in 2028 the Democratic nominee will leverage concerts a lot more effectively. It's the $20 bill just sitting on the sidewalk for the taking. It's a massive advantage for Democrats since most of the top stars are aligned with Dems.

It's kinda like Elon's lottery except that instead of just one winner there will be tens of thousands.

How? I’m not sure paying people to be at a rally by booking a band translates to votes. She might be able to buy large rally crowds, but she’s not going to be able to convince them to vote for her. They often don’t actually stay for the rally part (actually quite surprised they haven’t noticed and moved the concert until after the rally).