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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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Last week there was a discussion on the motte about Trump’s cabinet picks, in particular about Rubio who is something of a hawk. This goes against what many of Trump’s isolationist supporters want. It’s almost certain that Trump is making these picks extremely haphazardly, deciding on names after a bare modicum of thought and prioritizing vibes, “loyalty”, and Fox news appearances over any other concerns. The NYT has documented this extensively, and it’s entirely in keeping with the chaotic nature of his first term.

One of the goofier explanations given by those on the right was that nominating Rubio was actually a 5D chess move to get Rubio out of the Senate, which is apparently extremely necessary for some unexplained reason…? As opposed to Trumpian loyalists like Murkowski. It was just a silly idea altogether.

Why do I bring it up again? Well, because it might have actually worked! Just… on the wrong person. Trump nominated Gaetz for Attorney General, and Gaetz almost immediately resigned from the House when the news broke. This is a bit unusual, as most people stay in their seats until their confirmation is done. There was the looming release of an ethics report on Gaetz which will likely damage his reputation somewhat, so there’s a chance that Gaetz was always planning to resign, although I somewhat doubt it. In any case, Trump yanked the nomination when it was clear that there was bad press coming from it, and now Gaetz has said he won’t come back to Congress even though he probably technically could.

One might ask why Trump would want to get rid of Gaetz from the House. Well, Gaetz was instrumental in paralyzing Congress over the last term, so perhaps Trump wanted to avoid that. The issue with that explanation is that Gaetz is a fiercely pro-Trump, so it seems weird that Trump would promise something to an ally, and then leave them high and dry. The word “backfired” might be a more accurate description in such a case.

My guess is that Gaetz will probably come back to the Trump White House in some form that doesn’t require a Senate confirmation, after the news dies down.

I looked up the scandal on Wikipedia. He allegedly had sex with a 17 year old (who he claims he thought was 19)? That's what's made him radioactive? Is there anything else I'm missing? The wiki section for this says "UNDERAGE SEX TRAFFICKING" so I was expecting he was ordering 9-year Ukrainian war orphans to his house or something, but this really underwhelming. Technically a crime, yes, blah blah blah, but reminds me of the pearl clutching over Lewinsky.

I get that mores change and republicans have abandoned even the pretense of moral majority, but like 17 year old prostitution is not suprisingly scandalous. It’s not some made up woke shit. It’s what the whole Epstein island implication was… yesterday.

If one personally doesn’t find this scandalous, ok. But the performative surprise that others might is disingenuous

But the performative surprise that others might is disingenuous.

Uncharitable and frankly surprising since your posts are usually pretty high quality. I'm not performing anything. "Performative " describes people who act outraged when a 42 year old bangs a 17 year old but don't care when a 43 year old bangs an 18 year old.

It’s not some made up woke shit.

Conservatives were performatively butthurt about this stuff way before the Woke. "Won't someone think of the children!" is an ancient meme. I never said it was "made up woke shit." Conservatives have a way longer history of disingenuous pearl clutching, that's why I brought up Lewinsky. I'm saying that I think both wokies and self-righteous moral majority types who express offense at this are inconsistent and ridiculous.

No see this is the issue. If conservatives have been ‘pearl clutching’ about sexual morality for this long maybe it’s not performative… and further why are you surprised?

Your entire reaction (if not performative) thus rests on the conclusion that conservatives don’t earnestly find anything wrong with soliciting teenage prostitutes.

If you don’t find anything wrong with it, again- ok. But to assume anyone who does is pearl clutching is an extremely warped worldview

If conservatives have been ‘pearl clutching’ about sexual morality for this long maybe it’s not performative

Because the majority of pearl clutchers get divorces, use contraception, get abortions, let their sons and daughters fornicate in high school and college, consume internet porn, watch gratuitously violent and sexual movies/tv series, etc etc.

I don't doubt that principled conservative exist when it comes to sexual mores -- I think I (and you?) would probably count, but we're now a very small minority. My conservative religious family members are all okay with gays now, 20 years ago they absolutely were not.

So my point (perhaps poorly expressed) was that the media is engaging in a sort of cargo-cult appeal to Christian morality ("Can you BELIEVE he cheated on his wife/had sex with a student/posted raunchy comments on a forum/etc.??") to the ever-dwindling number of people who can muster anything more than lukewarm outrage to that stuff. There's a "smoke and mirrors" effect of the same type as a woke Twitter outrage mob. Some outlets repeat the story, Twitter addicts tweet incessantly and spam memes and shit up the victim's Twitter threads, and risk averse corporate/political consultants label the victim "high risk" and endorsements get withdrawn. The Kamala campaign astroturfed the heck out of the internet for weeks, we just saw a very pure example of this phenomenon.

More to the original point, they tried the same stuff with Trump. He's a philanderer, he has sex with expensive prostitutes, grab em by the pussy, pee tapes, etc. I'm pretty sure that (most) conservatives in the 90s would have been genuinely affronted by Trump's behavior, but (most) conservatives in the 2010s, while unhappy with his antics, apparently didn't find them disqualifying.