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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.

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

It's not, though, and the people crowing about it don't understand how the game is played. And I'm not saying that because I'm butthurt that some journo I've never heard of that's supposedly 'on my side' is the unlucky ox du jour.

When the left deplatforms someone, they genuinely believe (rightly or wrongly) that they're righteously fighting racism/inequality/injustice. They're saving lives from COVID. They're supporting the downtrodden in society and giving them a chance to improve their lives. Contrary to the conflict theorists, it's neither arbitrary nor intended to make 'disfavored groups' suffer.

When Elon (or some figure on the right) deplatforms someone, 1) best case, he's having to grapple with the realities that many people said he would (thus the smugness) or 2) worst case, he's being driven by petty personal or 'own the libs' revanchism. The small fraction of principled libertarians are slinking off, having lost again, while the conservatives pretending to be principled libertarians are cheering the fact that the libs are getting owned.

They miss the fact that really winning, and not just eking out a transitory term in the white house, requires articulating a vision for the future that wins the hearts and minds of the people. And it needs to be more inspiring than 'we're going to keep things the way they are/turn back the clock to the 1970s/1950s/1776!' People need to believe that tomorrow can be better than today. It needs to be more than 'I'm really angry after the last 5 years and after forfeiting all my morals I just want to hurt my outgroup,' which, I don't mean to pick on that commenter personally, but that's the vibe I get from most of the conservatives here.

And you know what? There's plenty of room to articulate a vision for the future that is better than what democrats have to offer. I wish someone would try, and we could see two visions of utopia competing for popular support rather than the depressing political morass we've been languishing in for the last decade. Something has to change; I'd welcome any thoughts people might have on what that might be.

You know, I think you're usually more even-handed than most (or at least seem to make an effort)

Thanks.

but that is an utterly preposterous claim completely unsupported by evidence.

It's a claim about the story they tell themselves, not an actual evaluation of their character.

You're correct that there are people on the fringe who are irredeemably toxic people who just want Republicans to suffer. I think there's a much larger cohort in the middle who can be toxic at times, but justify it to themselves with the rationale I laid out above. And some smaller cohort of idealists who actually try and live up to their principles. I think this dynamic is probably also reflected on the right.

But what I also see is the near hegemony of 'woke thought' or left-leaning answers to social problems. The right would say this is due to censorship, biased media, the deep state, etc and there's certainly some grain of truth to that. But I think it goes deeper than that - I don't think the right currently has a cohesive ideological framework (at least that I can articulate or grasp) for dealing with society's ills in the same way that Reagan did (cut taxes/regulation, business does great and the lower strata of society will prosper along with everyone else) or that woke people do (patriarchal white supremacist ableist society needs to be checked for the lower strata to prosper).

Do you think that's fairer, or still off the mark?

I don't think the right currently has a cohesive ideological framework (at least that I can articulate or grasp) for dealing with society's ills

There absolutely is one: "Stop the left from transing your kids, burning down city centers in the name of low-life criminals, pretending it's still 1965 for blacks and using it as an excuse to discriminate against whites, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and generally screwing everything up for everyone."

Whether or not that's TRUE is a separate question. But that is absolutely a cohesive (if minimalist) ideological framework.

Is it cohesive? It strikes me as an ad hoc, reactive stance against perceived Democratic policies. To illustrate, let me invert it:

Stop the right from torturing trans kinds, covering for police brutality, ignoring and perpetuating racism against black people, ignoring the looming climate crisis, and generally trashing the country out of reactionary spite.

Whether or not it's a fair assessment is beside the point - it is very much not a cohesive framework. It might descend from one, but as articulated it's just "we're against things our opponents are for". The only unifying theme is that whatever the right does is bad.

I see your point, but I disagree. The idea that "things would be fine if only [outgroup] would stop messing everything up" is cohesive; it provides an explanation for why things are not good. It's not maximally cohesive, because it does not go on to define what "good" is. However, leaving "good" undefined actually leaves room for anyone who is not with or akin to [outgroup] to have their own view of the good, which is both politically advantageous (allows for a big tent with a lot of policy variation), and moral (it maximizes liberty and freedom for [ingroup]). So it's not surprising that it's a schelling point for political organization.