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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29323 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Sometimes simple comments say broad things for trends. In a group chat for a mixed group someone posted the Biden energy guy who likes stealing bags. I said if the Dems ran on their current platform in 2008 they would get 10% of the vote. I got a reply “truth”.

I can go back in time and pull up Joe Biden being very anti-gay marriage. Would it be fair to say if Joe Biden went in a coma in 2008 and woke up in 2022 he would be one of the most ardent Maga extremists? And a bunch of Republicans just voted for gay marriage.

The question I’m asking is it fair to say the left made a giant leap in roughly 15 years and the extremists today are just normal people not that long ago. I know this is meme. But is this factual?

I think he'd take a couple of months to get up to date with the current party line, and then we'd get the same Biden. He'd be still occasionally say things like "poor kids are just as smart as white kids", or "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent", or call his black party comrades "clean and articulate" when he wanted to compliment them.

If Joe Biden had been in a coma for fourteen years, nothing would be different. He didn't evolve to his current position after reading philosophy for the past fourteen years, his position changed in perfect lockstep with everyone else on the left - one's beliefs are not arrived at through careful thought, but picked up by osmosis from one's peers.

I agree with you generally, except for this:

If Joe Biden had been in a coma for fourteen years, nothing would be different.

I think that evolving in lockstep means that if someone were in a coma, they would not end up at the same views as everyone else. The culture of our country and the world changed so radically over the past 15 years, that I think that if someone time traveled from then to now, they would be baffled, and would retain they're original viewpoints. We got to where we are by a staggeringly quick series of tiny steps, all spurred on by a massive change in the current.

Putting aside what other people have mentioned, cultural change happens really fast a lot of the time, once it reaches an inflection point.

Look at race relations in 1960 and then in 1975, in the culture and the media.

The meme is not true. The people eg protesting outside drag shows would not have been moderate democrats or swing voters 15 years ago, although some of them were probably socially conservative blue doggers(a different thing than moderate democrats). I know many of them personally and the ones who were politically active in 2010 were mostly tea party republicans.

Now there’s plenty of people that journalists now banned from twitter call right wing extremists who were swing voters or moderate democrats in 2010 and got left behind by progressives. But that’s just journalists now banned from twitter using words wrong, which is not a new problem.

It is easy enough to look at Biden's campaign site from 2008 and find out. The answer clearly seems to be "no."

It is also easy to look at the 2008 Democratic Platform, which calls for ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell; refers to climate change as a "national security crisis", calls for the "end the tyranny of oil", and says "our response will determine the very future of life on this earth; condemns "inequalities in our criminal justice system"; promises to "restore vigorous federal enforcement of civil rights laws"; calls for "banning racial, ethnic, and religious profiling"; and opposes voter ID laws.

Edit: Biden could not have been "very anti-gay marriage" in 2008, given that he rather famously came out in support of it only 4 years later, much to the annoyance of the Obama Administration.

The actual reality is almost every Democrat from a purple or blue state was personally in favor of gay marriage by 2008, but they just needed to let the populace get a little more behind it before announcing it officially. Just like basically every Catholic Democratic politician was privately pro-choice, but may have pretended to be pro-life for a while until the last JFK-voting Catholic Democrat's went off into the great beyond or became Republican's.

Yes, but the "very" that I was objecting to. Moreover, the position you cite re states defining marriage is not really "against" same sex marriage at all. Compare it to the 2016/2020 Republican platforms -- they were identical -- which say:

Foremost among those institutions is the American family. It is the foundation of civil society, and the cornerstone of the family is natural marriage, the union of one man and one woman.

As for whether Biden truly evolved or was blowing in the wind, the video of the interview in 2012 certainly makes it seem as if he is sincere. I doubt that he is that good an actor. Whether he was sincere earlier, when he seemed more skeptical of SSM, I don't know.

States rights is the governmental equivalent of the libertarian impulse to secure free speech when out of power and mumble something about consequences when you're in power.

This goes all the way back to Slavery, when Southern states tried to impose pro-slavery policies at a federal level with eg the fugitive slave acts until the majority was firmly against them and they flipped and declared that states rights were the most important issue. New England free soil parties were the ones talking about states rights and even secession in response to Dredd Scott, they flipped to talking about the sacred Union when it was convenient for their cause.

In 2008 let the states decide meant oppose DOMA and allow blue states to legalize gay marriage. In 2020 let the states decide meant end Obergefell and allow red states to outlaw gay marriage. Once the court does, hopefully, overturn that abortion of a decision we'll see the positions flip.

The who, whom remains the same, the states rights issue flips sides. Happens every time like clockwork.

States rights is the governmental equivalent of the libertarian impulse to secure free speech when out of power and mumble something about consequences when you're in power.

No, it is the end-result of the impulse to allow decisions to be made at the lowest practicable level, in order to try and combat mob factionalism.

Much like free speech is the antecedent to all other freedoms... But those positions are held honestly by all two dozen of us principled libertarians, and semi honestly and inconstantly by a huge number of people who just use the argument as a soldier to benefit their tribe.

How else do you explain the gay marriage flip, which was largely made by literally the same Congressional leadership (Pelosi, Biden, Schumer, McConnell)? Republicans were happy to push a national ban on gay marriage until that became impractical, Democrats fought a national resolution on the issue until one in favor of their position became possible. That doesn't look like either actually existing political coalition having a real position on states rights.

That doesn't look like either actually existing political coalition having a real position on states rights.

Why would you expect anyone to? The whole point of the Madisonian checks-and-balances system is channeling inconstant, selfish, and transient political interests in ways that minimize the harm they can cause to the public good. "If men were angels, no government would be necessary," and all that. In fact, the system breaks down most prominently when one or another entity within its design stops playing hardball and trying to grab as much power for itself as it can (i.e., the administrative state and imperial presidency only exist because Congress has been steadily neutering itself for the past 100 years, and we neutered the states through the Reconstruction Amendments and the direct election of senators).

It's a change in view, but it really is not nearly as big a change as portrayed in the OP. It would be easy to imagine awakened-from-coma Biden in 2022 adopting the current Dem view on gay marriage out of bat after hearing a few simple statements on how this is how the issue has progressed.

To be fair, it's also easy to imagine Biden dropping some bigoted comment or joke before being pulled aside and informed that those are no longer politically wise.

It's easy to imagine Biden doing that without having been in coma.

Would it be fair to say if Joe Biden went in a coma in 2008 and woke up in 2022 he would be one of the most ardent Maga extremists?

Okay, taking this query at face value and ignoring the bait - Joe Biden is a career politician. I'm not going to say he doesn't have principles, but he is flexible to adjust to the mood of the times. So if the mood in January 2008 is "marriage only man and woman", that's what he will assure the good voters of his constituency he will fight to protect. If the mood in June 2008 is "love is love", why then after mature reflection, he is all about the love and happiness, good people, and will not be found on the side of the killjoys and wet blankets. It worked for Hillary, it worked for Obama, I have no reason to doubt that Joe would not fall into line.

So if 2008 coma Joe wakes up in 2022, then he is going to be a good party footsoldier and be said and led by what is the mood of the nation and more importantly, where are the leaders of the party positioned. It may be that Cthulhu always swims left, and in that case, Joe (and any other career politician of whatever stripe you please) will pull on their swimming togs and paddle in that wake. If Cthulhu makes a U-turn, ditto.

2008 Joe might be mildly surprised that Dog Cruelty Romney had been transmogrified by the Democrats into "Hero of the People, Principled Father of the State, one of the very few Only Good Republicans Mitt", but that's politics, baby!

This has been ironically why Biden's been a good coalition leader - is that he's always been in the center of the party. Party's now up for a big crime bill - sure, he cares more about the Violence Against Women Act and a gun control bill, but if sending money to local cops passes those as an omnibus, so be it. If people want a lot of spending, he can be for that too.

That means he can work well enough w/ an AOC or a Joe Manchin, and get along with everybody within the coalition, frankly, a lot better than an Obama or a Hillary would've. Because he has reasonable principles, but he's not a super ideologue on the specifics.

That's in part why his response of, "at least three," and then basically making fun of the person asking the gender question from some random troll on the campaign trail was actually the best one, because it comes the closest to the average American's view. "I don't care, it's probably at least three from what my kids tell me, and you're weird for thinking about it so much, buddy."

I take this view too that Joe just reads his parties room and spouts what he’s told too. If it’s praising pronouns or locking up as many people as possible he’s game for it.

Would it be fair to say if Joe Biden went in a coma in 2008 and woke up in 2022 he would be one of the most ardent Maga extremists?

2008 Joe Biden would be a touch conservative for a 2022 Democrat, but he wouldn't even be a liberal Republican, never mind a hardcore one.

Because of economics? There are literal communists out there being smeared as far-right reactionaries because they're not on board with the progressive agenda.

If you know anything about internecine conflict among Communists, you know that was true in 2008 as well. And in 1998, 1988, 1978, 1968, 1958, 1948 ... stop me when we get to the day after the Communist Manifesto was published.

You are probably talking about infighting between the far left. I am talking about liberals attacking communists for being reactionary, because they don't think Marx' class analysis is applicable to race.

That sounds to me like "infighting on the far left", since I don't think it's the center-left doing the attacking, and "actual communist" is further left than it's possible to go without someone saying that Actually They Are Not True Leftists, We Are True Leftists And They Are Heathens.

since I don't think it's the center-left doing the attacking

From my experience the center-left is not any more reasonable than the far left. There are no mainstream center-left spaces that would have let you criticize BLM, the narrative on trans issues, Critical Race Theory, etc. They're just as quick to call you a far-right/nazi/reactionary as the far left is.

literal communists out there being smeared as far-right reactionaries

These are either:

  1. Smeared by other communists, who probably aren't exactly what one thinks about when considering arbiters of what is left and what is right

  2. Are like Jackson Hinkle, ie. genuinely aren't really different from any other MAGA online personage expect for retaining some affectation of portraying themselves as a communist.

Didn't you raise an eyebrow at me for a comment implying Meghan Murphy was right wing?

I don't know if you deleted your comment and this is why my links don't work, or it's some website gremlins (definitely most likely gremlins, I swear I saw the comment a moment ago.), but this is my comment where I said:

Give me a break. They banned James Lindsay for saying "ok, groomer" too much, Meghan Murphy for "misgendering" the "wax my feminine balls" guy before there even was a rule against misgendering, gimmick accounts like Journo's Posting L's. They absolutely go out of their way to censor anyone who is making an impact, or looks like they might. The people they let stay are there for plausible deniabiity.

And this was my response to a reponse to the above comment:

She had an event in a library in Austin a few months ago, and from the people protesting it, you'd get the impression she's basically Hitler.

But my actual point is that the Twitter censorship regime is so strict you don't even have be right wing to get booted, any mild transgression against wokeness can get you banned, especially if they see you having an impact.

And I'm pretty sure directly between the two there was you saying something to the effect of "Meghan Murphy is right wing now?". And now you're saying all commies who are against double mastectomies for 13 year olds are actually MAGA?

Huh? No, I'm not saying that, but there are people identifying as communist - like the aforementioned Hinkle - who, judging by their current feed, really don't much differ from MAGA apart from their support for some official American enemy states like PRC and North Korea (the latter which, of course, Trump made overtures towards during his reign).

Ok, but people like Hinkle also existing doesn't address the point I was raising.

Sounds like several things are being conflated here:

  • Populist vs elitist

  • Activist vs status quo

  • Down-to-earth vs refined and cultured

  • Freedom vs regulation

  • Traditions of folk vs commerce-legible lifestyles

  • Living from history’s example vs putting history in the rear view mirror

  • Individualism vs collectivism

  • Genders according to a reproduction instinct vs a sexual pleasure instinct

These have each been red-coded/blue-coded at some times and politically coded at others.

Of these, the Democrats’ switch to elitism (for example) was as sudden as the Black vote switching after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.

I think they were referring to people like Freddie DeBoer, who is calls himself and is quite clearly a socialist/Marxist, but ruffles a lot of progressive (woke) feathers by criticizing by criticising identity politics. Pretty much anyone that's liked by the subreddit stupidpol.

DeBoer ruffles feathers, but I don't remember him being called a far-right reactionary.

Pretty much anyone who ruffles their feathers gets called a reactionary, or some similar term. Including DeBoer.

Pretty much anyone who wades into politics and culture-war issues, and has some level of name recognition, gets called various names online. But by whom? Randos on Twitter? D-list freelancers on Ghost? Daily Beast-level progressive pundits? The NYT?

no one campaigns on gay marriage. Gays are small % of population and tend to be clustered in reliably blue areas. The issue gets shoehorned in later. Dems tend to always campaign on economics, jobs, and healthcare.

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