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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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My prior is that Congressional Democrats, State Department Bureaucrats, White House staffers, DNC operatives, and Democrat-controlled media all move more-or-less in lockstep.

The best counterexample I can give is how Biden handled Israel-Palestine. Much of the leftist base along with some true-believer DNC operatives and parts of the media are very much pro-Palestine, and wanted Biden to basically say "fuck Israel". He didn't do this, and it was an ongoing point of tension within the Dem coalition for most of Biden's presidency.

Another counterexample would be to read up on Matthew Yglesias' take on "The Groups", and how during the Biden admin it seemed like on many policies (with the exception of things like the aforementioned Israel issue) the base got to functionally overwrite what the President wanted. Furthermore, it seemed like Harris would have liked to pivot harder to the center if she could have, but the base was fractious enough that there were concerns about wide defections, so Harris ended up being a mealy-mouthed "something for everybody" candidate.