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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29300 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Elon Musk has suspended a slew of liberal journalists and pundits from Twitter. It is, as Benjamin Braddoc puts it, a red wedding for the liberal establishment. I initially believed that he was just the "controlled" opposition of the deep state, obviously he's stepped on way too many toes for that. This imo underscores an important truth to the ultra principled who believe in free speech absolutism and neutral institutions, the overton window won't shift the other way just to punish the "heretics" who've assailed this sacred virtue. Social media, our Frankenstein, has made it insanely easier for mob rule to influence culture (not that it wasn't already).

I still don't believe we're witnessing complete course reversal, but this could just be the first legitimate W for the right.

EDIT: It looks like he's lifting the suspension.

Definitely the biggest W for the right since Trump. If Elon can succeed in bringing "the press are regime shills, institutions are all controlled by progressives, progressives only care about who/whom" to the mainstream, then a lot of the hard work is done. All these institutions have going for them is credibility. Once it's gone, it doesn't come back.

All these institutions have going for them is credibility.

I'm not sure all they have going for them is credibility. Many of them are monopolies. Many of them have the ties via informal business relationships or regulatory capture to strangle all competitors in the crib. Many of them are government agencies, so "monopoly on violence", etc, etc.

And even with the media, the degree to which they are loss leaders/propaganda outfits funded by nonsense advertising budgets cannot be understated. CNN doesn't get $628m in ad revenue because of their ratings. Nor is it the default channel at airports or government lobbies because of it's clear quality. It's the neo-liberal regime scratching the back of it's propaganda outlets. Literally 2 people in the world could be watching CNN of their own free will, and the ad dollars would still flow, because it's about maintaining the legitimacy that the ad spend relationship gives CNN and the company advertising.

All of that is correct, but credibility is what keeps the government institutions (e.g. CDC) alive. If your average GOP voter believed that 3/4 of government agencies need to be dissolved, things would look quite a bit different.

CNN isn't doing great, but their reputation still has a long way to fall.

credibility is what keeps the government institutions (e.g. CDC) alive

It's credibility huh? I thought it was our tax dollars that are extracted from us under threat of being thrown into a rape cage.

Short term yes, long term not as much

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