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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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Cancel culture doesn't even really work. All it ended up doing for the left in the 2010s was make martyrs and help invigorate the right. If the right goes down the same path it'll end just as badly. People don't change their opinions in your favor if you repress them. All that happens is they find somewhere else to organize out of your sight.

It's a bad idea, even if you can get away with it.

The left enjoyed almost 15 or 20 years of dominance, and they lost it because of 2 errors. They couldn't police their fringe on immigration and trans, and they pissed off one of the few people on the planet with real fuck you money when they censored babylon bee.

I think propping up Joe Biden's body for way too long was another error -- they might have retained control of the Presidency and squashed the X resurgence if they'd managed to get Newsom or some other credible candidate running against Trump.

Eh, I doubt it, inflation was too high, and people's belts were feeling too tight. The incumbent loses that pretty much regardless of who they pick. If I were a Newsom advisor I would have been advising him under no circumstances to run whether against Trump or any other Republican in that climate.

The writing was on the wall, which might be one reason there wasn't much of a concerted effort to unseat Biden prior to the debate. Who wants to burn political capital when you're not in a great position to begin with?

The weekend at biden's did cost them.

“When you kill your enemies, they win” vibes

When you merely piss off your enemies, and on top of that in doing so make them look sympathetic to previously neutral parties, you don't actually win.

I don’t see any of the cancellation looking even remotely sympathetic. Which do you see that way?

When the left was at it, it got to the point where tradesmen were having their lives ruined for making the OK symbol.

This is not that, yet, but it does carry the seed of it.

It's very good as a tool to clean up or conquer institutions. Without it lots of tech wouldn't be held by lefties right now.

It ultimately is self defeating, but that doesn't mean it's useless.