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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   22212 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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I liked Jeff Maurer's take on Platner. The Dems are heavily pushing him because, unlike so many of their candidates, he comes off as an ordinary man of the people. He's a tough guy (a veteran), an oyster farmer, and he curses a lot. His working-class credibility make it easy to overlook certain flaws which would sink a more milquetoast candidate. All bolded text is in the passage below is my emphasis:

On the one hand, this doesn’t surprise me: Brawny dudes with the politics of a Portlandia character don’t come along every day. On the other hand, I’m surprised because the left just went through this with John Fetterman. Fetterman, of course, is now persona non-grata on the progressive left due to his strong backing of Israel and occasional support for Trump (he was the only Democrat who voted to confirm Pam Bondi). He sits alongside J.K. Rowling and Bari Weiss in the Pantheon of People Hated By the Progressive Left. Is nobody on the progressive left thinking that there might be a chance that if elected, Platner might go the Fetterman route?

Platner’s Reddit posts — some of which are as recent as 2021 — do not reflect uniformly left-wing views. Yes, he called himself a “communist” and an “ANTIFA supersoldier”, but he also mocked gay people and took a casual attitude towards sexual assault... Combined with the whole Nazi unpleasantness, these posts might cause one to wonder how deep Platner’s progressive convictions run...

And Fetterman, of course, is far from the only person to start out on the populist left and end up right-of-center... Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald are journalists who made the switch. Tulsi Gabbard went from endorsing Bernie to being part of the Trump administration in just four short years, which makes you wonder if she was a centrist for 20 minutes as she rocketed from one end of the political spectrum to the other.

...the populist tough-guy schtick is a shallow narrative that appeals to people with shallow political beliefs, so we shouldn’t be surprised when those beliefs change.

Platner has showed a decades-long interest in being an anti-establishment edgelord but only a recent interest in progressive politics. Which isn’t too surprising — a lot of people who like the “high-testosterone progressive badass” persona really only like the “high-testosterone badass” part. As of four years ago, Platner’s politics were a mix of left and right, and now they’re hard left, but who can say where they’ll be in another four years? Nobody. But some people like Platner’s vibes and have decided that’s good enough.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if, in the next ten years, Platner jumps ship and joins the GOP.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if, in the next ten years, Platner jumps ship and joins the GOP.

I would be surprised.

The left/right split in the US is increasingly about identitarianism and collectivism vs individualism. Some like David Friedman would argue that it always has been about this. Plattner seems to be solidly in the identitarian/collectivist camp, contrast this with folks like Fetterman and Gabbard who consistently backed the Democrats' economic policies but always seemed a bit uncomfortable with the id-pol stuff.

As I said above, the right is not about individualism. Just a different collectivism.

The right is genuinely much more willing to evaluate people as individuals or members of small groups while the left is much more willing to generalize. Treating people as individuals doesn’t necessarily correspond to granting unlimited freedom.

The right's collectivism treats people as individuals when assigning blame, but that's as far as it goes. They tell you what to do and them blame you if you don't do it right.

They tell you what to do and them blame you if you don't do it right.

That is quite literally what a belief in individual responsibility and agency entails. If you fuck up you don't get to blame it on "society" or some "structural -ism", your fuck ups are on you.

That's only half of individualism, though. Assigning everyone a role and holding them responsible for fulfilling is still collectivist.

Assigning everyone a role

This feels like hyperbole. Communist China assigns everyone a role, not the right in the US of A. But if it's just a premise, ok.

and holding them responsible for fulfilling

This is completely unobjectionable.

is still collectivist.

Only in the broadest sense of the term. Hierarchies exist and are natural; everyone has a boss.

This feels like hyperbole. Communist China assigns everyone a role, not the right in the US of A. But if it's just a premise, ok.

The right lacks in the USA lacks the power to do so. But they'd like to. Heck, even the European 2rafa seems to want that; her variant has roles assigned according to heredity, which is certainly traditional.

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