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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   28400 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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I see it more as a rejection of Cuomo than any great socialist uprising.

My takeaway is that it's just over for white boomer Democrats. They can keep their current jobs but won't be able to win nominations for any new office.

Ezra Klein had some good articles talking about the progressive theory of power and how it causes problems for city administration.

These are more for background than supporting my argument.

https://archive.ph/E6p6W

https://archive.ph/jNDlC

Basically the problem is that progressives are completely dedicated to the idea that billionaires and greedy corporations are the ones causing all of the problems.

However at the city level the problems tend to stem from:

  • Disorderly elements. eg low level criminals like shoplifters, people with sever substance abuse problems, or severe mental illness.

  • Left wing organizations trying to tack on fees to everything to get paid.

Progressives are completely unable to acknowledge that either of those groups cause problems. The idea that left wing groups are just being greedy rent seekers goes against their whole world view.

So you get ideas like government owned grocery stores. During a past attempt to tackle "food deserts", in I think Detroit, a grocery store complained that shoplifting was putting them out of business. A city councillor told them that lossage was just part of the price of doing business in Detroit. So the grocery store shut down the location.

I don't think the solution is really any fundamental social change. The issue is that people on the center left like to play defence for the farther left and hide the crazier elements of their philosophy from the general public. The progressives think that the media hides their beliefs out of some conspiracy against them instead of an attempt to protect them.

There needs to be a documentary series on a major streaming service that, as fairly and calmly as possible, shows what progressive populists believe and what the problems with it are. Right now it's being taught in colleges as the absolute truth with no analysis.

There needs to be a documentary series on a major streaming service that, as fairly and calmly as possible, shows what progressive populists believe and what the problems with it are.

First time? Best case scenario is that this documentary series would be dismissed on sight as right-wing propaganda, worst case scenario is that people making it will have their lives ruined.

Politics is war by peaceful means, you don't win by "calmly explaining", and much more straightforward issues, that would cost a lot less to concede than this, have been a decade long slog of an uphill battle, you have no chance moving people on their fundamental beliefs.

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