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Notes -
Has cancel culture blown up in the woke's face yet?
Blown up no,not so dramatic, but it did hollow out the political consultant class in the Democratic Party machine of a lot of talent, which was basically one of the main contributors to Harris’ loss. This is pretty widely conceded as a primary cause even among hardcore mainstream Democrats. Because the woke purges happened to apply disproportionately to non-college educated younger staffers, they were left with disproportionately college educated young staffers, which ironically creates a blind spot that theoretically DEI was supposed to fix (it just replaced one with another, so to speak)
Do you have more info on this?
Although not about the election and focusing on the nonprofit administerial/management classes, there was a lot of discussion around woke movements destroying nonprofits capabilities back in 2022. E.g. https://ryangrim.substack.com/p/elephant-in-the-zoom. People here at least probably wouldn't object to them being considered quasi-political/Democratic.
As for the Democratic Party apparatus itself, I don't think it's ever had a full reckoning, but I also don't think it ever was dominated by true believers in the same way media/academia/nonprofits were/are. Instead, its failings were more conventional: domination by a gerontocracy and a risk-averse leadership whose main qualification was never rocking the boat. That's how you end up with a comic scenario of Kamala Harris whining that it's Biden's fault because he stayed on well past the sell by date and because no one in his administration was willing to do anything about it.
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Upon reflection I probably overstated my case honestly. (I do think it’s a major issue but not one they are paying lots of attention to).
They do say it indirectly though. Maybe a good barometer would be these statements back in February for DNC chair, on what they’d do differently. The eventual winner said they did too well among the wealthy and college voters, systemically, and that they needed more local election focus too.
Another said less democracy talk and more economic talk, and door knocking was overrated. The last said more social media work and rely less on people who watch the news.
So few people are saying it directly I guess but it’s latent underneath a lot of these ideas: that the machine is out of touch.
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This is that - but note it was necessary for the right to respond in kind to create the consequences that would deter it in the first place.
As Arjin noted, when someone bombs you, and you don't like that - and you maybe even think nobody should bomb anyone - that doesn't mean it's hypocrisy to bomb them back.
Si vis pacem para bellum. To create a world without war you must be able to wage war.
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Yes. They drove freethinking independent media personalities like Joe Rogan away from the left, and the lack of substantive intra-coalition criticism from the center led to Kamala being chosen as an affirmative action VP, which set the Democratic Party up for collapse when Biden's health failed.
That wasn't just because of the left's cancel culture, it was also because of, but not limited to, it's dogmaticism, aversion to debate with the outgroup, radicalism, and the application of it's rules in a one-sided manner, according to an oppressor-oppressed framework.
I doubt we would have been where we are, if the left satisfied itself with cancelling racists, and otherwise acted normal.
This is a bit like saying “I doubt the milk would be all over the floor, if the glass had just stopped in midair instead of hitting the ground and shattering to pieces”
Yes, that is technically true, almost by definition—but in practice, “the left only cancels racists and is otherwise milquetoast colorblind meritocratic Third Way Clinton Democrat/Blairite New Labour straight outta the 90s” is, like a glass of milk after being knocked off the table but before hitting the floor, a highly unstable state that can only exist for a moment on the inexorable path to a decidedly higher-entropy equilibrium.
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