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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29265 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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Musk is just trying to cover for his extremely pro-H1B views by coming out as performatively against low-skill subcontinental immigration.

There's more to that going on, Bari Weiss posted this yesterday for example:

What’s happening in Canadian politics is not happening in a vacuum. It is a symptom of a much broader phenomenon. Call it the great crack-up of the old consensus.

The old consensus held that immigration was an absolute good, with multiculturalism the end goal. Arguments contrary to progressive social attitudes was “disinformation” that must be combated by robust online censorship. People would quickly adjust to massive changes in social attitudes around sex and gender because objections would be seen as bigoted. And anyone who said anything that questioned the consensus would become a pariah.

This consensus is being rejected across the West...

Wow, that sounds familiar! It sounds word-for-word what the Alt-Right said a decade ago. What are we to make of Weiss now assimilating these talking points? Obviously I think her angle is different from the Alt-Right, and more self-serving than pro-white. But it's not Musk trying to stay in good graces, although that's part of it. There seems to be an actual realignment towards the DR in some capacity.

Weiss also signalboosting the Paki grooming gang story, again another decade-old talking point recycled word-for-word from the Alt Right:

Britain now stands shamed before the world. The public’s suppressed wrath is bubbling to the surface in petitions, calls for a public inquiry, and demands for accountability.

The scandal is already reshaping British politics. It’s not just about the heinous nature of the crimes. It’s that every level of the British system is implicated in the cover-up.

Social workers were intimidated into silence. Local police ignored, excused, and even abetted pedophile rapists across dozens of cities. Senior police and Home Office officials deliberately avoided action in the name of maintaining what they called “community relations.” Local councilors and Members of Parliament rejected pleas for help from the parents of raped children. Charities, NGOs, and Labour MPs accused those who discussed the scandal of racism and Islamophobia. The media mostly ignored or downplayed the biggest story of their lifetimes. Zealous in their incuriosity, much of Britain’s media elite remained barnacled to the bubble of Westminster politics and its self-serving priorities.

They did this to defend a failed model of multiculturalism, and to avoid asking hard questions about failures of immigration policy and assimilation. They did this because they were afraid of being called racist or Islamophobic. They did this because Britain’s traditional class snobbery had fused with the new snobbery of political correctness.

All of which is why no one knows precisely how many thousands of young girls were raped in how many towns across Britain since the 1970s

And I don't think Bari Weiss can be said to using this as a distraction from H1B issue.

It's perhaps uncharitable, but one of Bari Weiss's motives is likely out of her pro-zionism stances. She has throughout her career framed Israel's flagging US approval as a PR issue and become increasingly defense over even the most anodyne or factual criticism of Israeli actions in MENA. There is a large surge of Islamophobic writing on the right currently due to the NOLA attack and this is a convenient way to try to continue splitting Muslims from the liberal coalitions in the US and UK.

The timing of this surge in interest, when we've known many of the facts about the rape gangs for a decade, suggests to me that both Bari and Elon are using this opportunity to deflect. That doesn't mean they're deflecting for the same reasons though.

I certainly believe that's the case, I said it was self-serving rather than pro-white. It still represents a realignment on the issue towards the old Alt Right talking points about the failures of multiculturalism, etc. Ditto for Eric Weinstein coming out with a passioned defense of the European tribe (!).

I do think the adoption by these figures of 10-year old Alt Right talking points is self-serving and a reaction to anti-Zionism from MENA in the West. But I also think it's an actual realignment that will have real-world political consequences.

Sure, but I think it remains to be seen how much will change off the internet. Migrant numbers will fall under Poilievre, but they’ll remain high in historic terms, and there are unlikely to be any major deportations. Labour is in power in the UK until 2029. Miller will do some good things for immigration under Trump, but nowhere near what some people will suggest, and I think H1Bs will continue to be issued and renewed at rates similar to today and that major illegal immigration across the southern border will continue, albeit at a moderately lower pace.

In the first Trump admin, H1B rates fell. It’s reasonable to think that might happen again.

Sure, that remains to be seen. But I think we should move past the "oh it's just an internet thing" at this point, I remember everyone saying that about proto-Woke stuff on Tumblr. And it became real very fast. My guess is that Musk and Weiss and many others actually do represent a realignment on these issues. Not giving the DR 100% of everything, but a big movement in that direction.

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