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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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Following up on an earlier post of mine, the Democratic National Convention has released their long-awaited "autopsy" report. Critics of the party will get some immediate schadenfreude upon opening the document: the default font, the hastily-added red addenda by a higher power, the missing sections and absent formatting. The sick pleasure continues upon the realization that neither Biden's senility nor the Israel-Gaza conflict (nor the associated hysteria) ever appear in the 100+ pages.

Digging deeper, CNN reports that the autopsy was compiled by "Democratic consultant Paul Rivera," a veteran of the Clinton administration and friend of DNC chair Ken Martin. Rivera's minuscule effort and misguided conclusions result in a paper with few citations, ignorant assessments, and a half-assed attempt at shielding the DNC from the worst of it.

Well, that's certainly backfired now. The DNC hasn't looked this incompetent at its highest levels of power since the scandals of 2016 (say, was anyone ever held accountable there?) and the oft-panicked-about "competence crisis" appears to have reached a high point.

The median voter does not know about this. You would have to ELI 5 it to them, but it's pointless- the median voter already thinks the DNC is out of touch, them apparently not thinking Biden's senility is relevant doesn't actually change that. People who know what this is aren't going to have their opinions changed.

Median Voter doesn’t read it, but the GOP complaint I believe is a legitimate issue with the modern Democratic Party. Doing it thru some white paper is kind of dumb but there are issues leadership needs to figure out. They can not find candidates to run at the national level. Top candidates tend to come from white men who do not feel welcomed within the Dem Party. ADOS has too few 99% wordcells to go thru a national campaign. Barack obviously was not ADOS and half white. DEI basically excludes the few white men in the party from climbing now. Biden made it because he was Obamas VP. A 25 year old Biden would never even enter that side of the aisle now.

Jewish men still exists in the Party. Shapiro could do it. Ossof being in Georgia would have a chance. But since the Israel-Palestine thing I am not sure that a Jew could make it thru a primary. The best Dem politicians do tend to come from red states. That leaves them looking for a Thatcher with the current party gender imbalance. Kamala Harris type pipelines are probably going to have issues on the national stage due to IQ. AOC I think is perfectly fine in congress, but my gut says she is IQ limited for the top office.

I don’t want to do a full debate on HBD but it does seem like the extreme right tail on most traits are dominated by white men. At the national level of politics when you are on tv a lot more the competence ability is much more noticeable. So hitting DEI quoatas makes national level politics very hard. Besides the electoral college and gerrymandering favoring team red I also think they have a structural talent issue for the top spot.

What could change? Indians have a lot of far right tail talent so that’s a possibility. The top law schools are extremely left so perhaps in a generation that produces candidates.

I guess it’s my opinion but at the very top of the parties I think team right has structurally better talent. Vance may be a little weird and may limit him later but I do think he’s quite smart. Same thing with Rubio or Cruz. I think if you list the top 5 most likely candidates on each side that the GOP guy is likely 1 standard deviation higher in intelligence.

I think Newsome said he had like a 960 IQ. I don’t believe that so perhaps he’s actually much smarter and just pretends to be stupid like Bush.

I think Newsome said he had like a 960 IQ.

960 SAT. FWIW, he says that while excusing it as the result of dyslexia, but I've never seen anything that made me think he was better than actual average, which is much lower than what the average sequestered shape rotator monks here think is average.

The circles he runs in would indicate he’s well above average. Smart rich people just don’t talk to average people. Looks like his wife graduated from Stanford. Those types never marry average intelligence guy.

The circles he runs in would indicate he’s well above average.

Eh, he got into those circles via his father (and is now writing memoirs about how he had a hardscrabble childhood with his divorced mom working three jobs and he had to deliver newspapers as a kid and his dyslexia meant he had trouble at school) and basically, from what I can gather, sucking up as hard as he could to the Gettys and hanging on to that association with an iron grip:

Newsom and a group of investors created the company PlumpJack Associates L.P. on May 14, 1991. The group started the PlumpJack Winery in 1992 with the financial help of his family friend Gordon Getty. PlumpJack was the name of an opera written by Getty, who invested in 10 of Newsom's 11 businesses. Getty told the San Francisco Chronicle that he treated Newsom like a son and invested in his first business venture because of that relationship. According to Getty, later business investments were because of "the success of the first".

I'm not saying he's dumb, but he didn't work his way up from nowhere to mingle with the rich nor was he exactly born into those circles.

I just disagree he could be truly average. Even with connections from birth you can flunk out. He’s got to be at a minimum a midtwit so something like 1200-1300 real SAT score intelligence. Top 10%.