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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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Will the demographic shifts not mean that in the long term this may not matter?

Probably. But a Trump win buys the country another 4 years. But at some point, the Democrats will win a clean sweep, amnesty the existing illegals, let in millions more, and win every election going forward.

win every election going forward

They thought that would happen before, it didn't.

African Americans, Latinos and Asians are all shifting right, and increasingly voting Republican. The younger they are and the more they identify as American (as opposed to their ethnic identities) the more likely they are to support the GOP.

The old patterns are breaking down and being replaced by new ones. Men vs women, college-educated vs non-college-educated, married vs unmarried are going to be the relevant demographic criteria of the next few decades, I would predict.

African Americans, Latinos and Asians are all shifting right, and increasingly voting Republican.

Republicans are now running a 1990s-Bill-Clinton analogue for president. To remain even nominally competitive, the Republican party has had to abandon numerous priorities as simply untenable, to the point that the party itself has completely fractured from its base of supporters. It's certainly true that "old patterns break up and are replaced by new ones", and that there will be a viable "Republican Party" for the foreseeable future. They'll be running on democratic policies when they aren't outright endorsing democrats.

It seems to me that this is not, in fact, acceptable, and that it does, in fact, provide a pretty good argument for why the existing social structure should be done away with.

a 1990s-Bill-Clinton analogue

That's possibly the only take on Trump I've seen that argues he's too moderate.

Left-wingers might say he's a fascist or whatever, right-wingers might say he's boorish or distractable or egotistic. I don't think I've heard any of them say he's not extreme enough.

Could you elaborate?

Could you elaborate?

Are you familiar with the idea that "conservatives are liberals driving the speed limit"? This is just an instance of that. Trump's general policies are fairly similar to 1990s-Clinton policies. He makes no pretension of fiscal responsibility, which used to be a core Conservative concern and now has been completely abandoned. He has no interest in legislating morality. He is not a good example of moral character, he does not stand for public morality, and he has no interest on enforcing public morality through law or the bully pulpit. He's "tough on crime", though Clinton did a better job on actually following through. They've both been publicly accused of rape/sexual assault/sexual harassment, though it seems to me that the accusations against Clinton were far more substantial. He passes ineffectual gun control measures, though Clinton's were more lasting. They even both survived an impeachment.

If you want to see the tribes come together, Trump is as good as it's ever going to be, and it's never going to be this good again. This is the closest point of approach. When he fails, Red Tribe will inevitably turn to less conciliatory options.

When he fails, Red Tribe will inevitably turn to less conciliatory options.

"Inevitably"? I question this in two ways. First, in the abstract, are we not beings with agency? With free will? If we turn to "less conciliatory options," is that not a choice? Thus, we can choose otherwise. We can choose to turn the other cheek. Choose not to sink to our enemy's level, but let it go, be the "bigger men"; maintain our higher moral standards, our more virtuous conduct — the "more conciliatory options," if you will — so as to persuade with the example we set, to overcome evil with good; to not retaliate in kind, but leave such consequences of our enemies' wickedness for a Higher Power to mete out? Is this not in character with what so many of Red Tribe believe? With how we think of ourselves in contrast with Blue Tribe?

Secondly, I've heard people talk in this manner before, about how if our current means fail to hold the line in this or that matter or incident, we'll surely escalate to harder means. And every time, it failed to happen. Why should this time be any different. We've never "turned to less conciliatory options" before. "This time is different." It's never different. What we've always done is most likely what we always will do.

We've never "turned to less conciliatory options" before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

And which side of that conflict was the Red Tribe on?

I mean, contra the degree to which Confederate flags have become something of a "Red Tribe" symbol — even here in Alaska — to speak in Albion's Seed terms, wasn't it mainly the Cavaliers who drove secession, while modern Red Tribe seems to descend more from the Borderers, concentrated in Appalachia, and AIUI, many of their counties in the South voted against secession — see most notably West Virginia, along with eastern Tennessee and Kentucky (see also a bit more here.

But also consider which side lost, and the lessons learned therefrom. One might say that "the South will rise again," but it's been how long? And on just what metric have they "risen" in that time?

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