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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27958 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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I think there is a crisis of earnestness, people are absolutely allergic to being serious which creates this sort of “Haha just joking….unless?” aspect which rightly scares people. In part I blame Trump for the degradation of seriousness as a virtue in American politics, but perhaps he was more a effect than a cause.

Surely the crisis of earnestness is downstream of the fact that the overton window was tiny for a very long time in regards to subjects people really cared about? Trump and the current irony-drenched commentators succeeded because they were able to parley common opinions such as

'maybe driving blue-workers' wages down with illegal immigration is hurting them'

and

'maybe white people aren't responsible for everything bad that happens to people of colour and everything bad done by people of colour'

past the censors. The earnest people were stomped on repeatedly until everyone except the most quokka of quokkas got the message.

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