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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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Both tribes think the enemy is united while their own team is involved in constant internecine conflict. I think there is something to this, that both observations are half right, but that the apparent symmetry is merely a lack of distinction between where enforcement occurs, where the lines are drawn.

Trump demands absolute loyalty from his servants. His will is absolute. You may disagree, but nonetheless must carry out his commands. Even a whiff of disloyalty is punished swiftly with a removal from power. But people on the right are permitted to believe almost anything at all. There is no ideological coherence in the movement. Trump himself believes in almost nothing. Whore mongering pimps, psychopathic industrialists, and cultural Muslims will break bread with techno feudalists, orthodox Christians, and entho nationalists.

Democrats get absolutely no loyalty from their servants. Bernie Sanders can have his rally commandeered by random loud black women. Obama and Biden can be decried as war criminals for carrying out ordinary presidential duties. Biden can have his entire presidency undermined by professional staff who think they know better than him. He can have the entire blue team apparatus flagellate him for exercising the presidential pardon for his own son. But a New York Times journalist needs to put a five paragraph prostration that they totally don't hate trans people before an article suggesting that maybe the particular style of affirmative care currently used to treat dysphoria is causing patients some harm. A member in good standing on the left must believe all the right things and endorse them full-throatedly or they shall be forever removed from polite society.

The right demands submission of the will. The left demands submission of the self.

Whatever distinction you're drawing isn't supported by any of your examples.

Trump demands absolute loyalty from his servants.

Yeah, that's what it means to be a servant. Your lord is greater by you, what you have to offer is your loyalty and faith. That's literally how that works. This isn't unique to Trump -- the Clintons demanded loyalty, the Bushes demanded loyalty, the Bidens demanded loyalty, Truman demanded loyalty. How else is it supposed to work? The world runs on mob logic.

But people on the right are permitted to believe almost anything at all.

No one "permits" the right to believe anything. This is a political coalition, made up of adults, adults have separate bodies and separate wills. This is a silly framing.

Trump himself believes in almost nothing.

This sounds nice if you never listen to any of Trump's speeches where he propounds the same ideas now he was propounding thirty years ago, as if Trump is just this kind of cipher where we never know what he's thinking. Huh?

Democrats get absolutely no loyalty from their servants. Bernie Sanders can have his rally commandeered by random loud black women.

Voters and random protesters are not Democrats' servants. Bernie Sanders absolutely has loyal servants, he's been in politics for fifty years, he has staffers and allies. You are not keeping a job working for Bernie Sanders on the Hill if you are demonstrably disloyal.

Obama and Biden can be decried as war criminals for carrying out ordinary presidential duties.

I know right-wingers who call Trump a race-traitor and cuck for the same.

Biden can have his entire presidency undermined by professional staff who think they know better than him. He can have the entire blue team apparatus flagellate him for exercising the presidential pardon for his own son.

Is your argument that this never happened to Trump? That the red team apparatus has never flagellated Trump?

No one "permits" the right to believe anything. This is a political coalition, made up of adults, adults have separate bodies and separate wills. This is a silly framing.

People on the right can believe anything and still be accepted in the coalition. People on the left must toe the line on all aspects of enemy ideology or they will be ejected, is what the post means. "permits" as in can do it without facing consequences.