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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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Let's discuss democracy, and the decay and potential recovery of two anglo-origin democracies.

South Africa is clearly having a rough time at the moment. Anemic growth, mass joblessness, the spread of slums, ultraviolence on the streets.

The party largely responsible for this the ANC has a declining vote share but still commands the loyalty of a plurality of the electorate. In addition, most of the parties opposing the ANC are not exactly free marketer reformers of the type that might rapidly turn some of these issues around. Since Apartheid ended more than 20 years ago and these trends are deepening, it seems that the decay has not swayed most voters away from the policies that caused the issues.

A friend of mine said that he has full faith in the UK (Great Britain) to recover fully from its current woes, because one day voters will wake up and see that governance is terrible and getting worse, and they will vote for the opposition who will fix things.

Certainly, some of the parties in the Yookay are trying to fix things through structural economic and social reforms (Reform, Restore), but the plurality of voters including young voters favor parties that would either deepen or continue the issues (Greens, Labour, Muslim Indie Bloc)

Note: from the perspective of this poaster the main issues facing the UK are: Low Skill Immigration, Economic Stagnation, Integration of Non-European Migrants, Crime

So I ask the Motte: Do you believe that in anglo origin democracies that enough decay will have voters seek out parties with effective fixes for the issues, or merely cause voters to slowly rebel against the incumbents?

The UK is careening toward authoritarianism, but it's hard to predict what flavor it will take, or whether it will quickly disintegrate into a failed state. Looking at the political, demographic, economic, and fiscal cliffs the UK is teetering upon, it's hard to imagine that this wasn't by design. The left won either way; they will have torn down the old order and replaced it with chaos. It's ironically not unlike the Wiemar Republic, though perhaps even worse. Imagine if the Jews were actually as bad as Hitler said they were, except the degenerate elites sided with the Jews and won. Accelerationism might be the least bad path forward, because it's too late for anything else. Whatever remains of the British peoples after this, I'm pretty sure they're going to find their religion again.

The UK is careening toward authoritarianism, but it's hard to predict what flavor it will take

Is it? Looks like authoritarian multiculturalism with none of the redeeming qualities Singapore has.

Looking at the political, demographic, economic, and fiscal cliffs the UK is teetering upon, it's hard to imagine that this wasn't by design.

Really? I suppose you can say this about Blair's changes but they legitimately seem to have sleepwalked into fiscal issues like the triple lock. Which sounds insane but if it was just expected that you could do nothing about the elderly's benefits Labour wouldn't have been forced into humiliating retreats on something much less essential like the winter fuel allowance. They would have just let the train run.

Like many people they just promised more than they could deliver.

Is it? Looks like authoritarian multiculturalism with none of the redeeming qualities Singapore has.

I think it's even worse than that, because authoritarian multiculturalism suggests to me some uniformity of enforcement. I think what we're seeing emerge in the UK is a unique form of caste system, where the favoured groups (Muslims and third-world migrants) aren't subject to the usual laws yet still perform overwhelmingly negatively in most outcomes due to their extreme dysfunction.