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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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To me, it's suspicious that all this stuff about Chavez is coming out now. I suspect that his actual sin was being heavily against illegal immigration (since they depressed wages), and the cancelers are only being opportunistic in exposing him for rape.

I'd heard this (and also, #MeToo reasons), but the timing still seems off. Why now? I can't remember the last time I've heard anyone mention "well, Chavez was against illegal immigration!" in an attempt to "pwn the libs," and even when that was a thing, it wasn't really a thing; it was even more impotent than "Hey kids, did you know it's the Dems that are the Real Racists!?" Neither does it appear that anyone calling the shots on the Left/Democrat side really seem to care about losing the support of labor unions. It just seems unnecessary, yet I know that the New York Times does not publish a story like this just because it's interesting news, or good reporting; someone benefits from taking down Chavez now, but I can't for the life of me think of who.

I'm surprised they're not canceling him for the United Farm Workers flag being too fascist.

I agree. I always thought it was weird that they pushed so hard to get stuff named after Chavez, but never really made much effort to explain who he was or why he was important. Of course they needed a leftest Latino American to go along with MLK and Harvey Milk in the sainted trilogy of street names, but it seemed like they just rushed out the first semi-famous name they could find, and only later had an "oh crap" moment when they realized how bad he was.

I don't know if "rushed" is the right word. The guy was dead for 30 years before anyone knew of these allegations, which involve events from over 50 years ago.