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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31784 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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I think the concept of people changing their politics as they age is probably less useful than people staying the same and the politics changing around them. People don't really change their politics that much as they age (usually), but the issues that are important and what side a given position is on changes rapidly.

In this case, whatever event or realignment that will move the millennials "to the right" hasn't happened yet, or maybe isn't complete.

My personal argument is that Trump was the beginning of a basic generational political re-alignment that has yet to shake out. Once it does, we'll probably see the Millennials "on the right" more or less as the issues of the day work themselves to a competitive stalemate along new lines.

I think the concept of people changing their politics as they age is probably less useful than people staying the same and the politics changing around them.

I agree, and it points to one possible explanation that hasn't been floated, which is that despite dominating the culture wars, left politics has not been particularly effective at changing policy. Thus the positions that they adopted while they were young are roughly the same ones that Democrats are pushing today. In this case, the explanation is that it's not the people that have failed to change, but the politics.

I'd say they've been very effective at changing policies, but the policies they want don't produce the results they thought, which discredits the policy, which provides impetus to shuffle the deck of left-wing-complaints for a new issue.

So: #MeToo!~ Smash the patriarchy! Believe all wammen! Wait.......not over Democratic officials!

Better try: #BLM!! Mah structural racisms! White people step back! ACAB! Wait......why is the murder rate rising?

Shit, how about: #Translivesmatter! There's an epidemic of violence against trans disabled BIPOC two-spirited sex workers! Wait.....why are they sterilizing kids?

This process will continue until the game theoretical competitive maximum is reached, and half the population winds up on the "You want to do WHAT now?" side. Also known as "conservatives". It is the nature of human beings, especially the sort that become "activists" to push the boundaries until they cannot. This is why roughly half the population is always "conservative". Activists raise and push issues until they hit too much pushback, then those collection of positions becomes the "left-right" divide for a while. And that is why Cthulu swims left. No matter how successful conservatives are in stalling an agenda, there's always another right behind it. The left controls the initiative, the gates to the elites, the media and "The Science". They choose the battleground, conservatives just fight on it.

The left has won at least as often as they’ve lost. I think a better way to put it might be that the left has not been effective at changing the Overton window.

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