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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   22635 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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Who is allegedly committing this fraud? And for what? Karen Bass is the obvious answer, but I'm not sure what the motivation is. It's a top two election (nobody's getting 50%), and unless something disastrous happens, the chances of her finishing third are slim to none. She's going to have to run against somebody in the fall, and Pratt is probably an easier win than Raman.

t's a top two election (nobody's getting 50%), and unless something disastrous happens, the chances of her finishing third are slim to none. She's going to have to run against somebody in the fall, and Pratt is probably an easier win than Raman.

Trivially, Raman booting Pratt out makes sure there's not a Republican in the actual election, because California's Top Two is a joke, and there's a wide variety of political positions that Raman and Bass overlap precisely on and Pratt does not.

I don't think the evidence for the fraud theory has been demonstrated, and it might not exist even presuming it was correct, but paeans to motivation fail when there's tons of motivation available.

Oddly enough, I don't think it's Bass herself up to any mischief (if mischief is being done). I get the vague impression it's more the party in California at large that dislikes certain candidates both internally and externally and want to put their thumbs on the scales, e.g. maybe Bass isn't that popular or even good at her job (though I did get the impression that she wasn't particularly awful by Californian standards) but damn it, no disgusting MAGAhead is going to run against a Democrat, and thus gain some legitimacy for their horrible and repulsive views, even if we have to intervene to ensure the right result!

Politics is organized around the reality that groups want their friends to win and their enemies to lose. LA and California both are controlled by political machines run out of the Democratic Party. In that sense it’s exceedingly simple. Spencer Pratt is an enemy of the political machine, so they want to make him lose.

Raman likely doesn't rock the boat on NGO grifting, etc. Same machine, different figurehead.

Who is allegedly committing this fraud?

Presumably the same people and organizations who've been benefiting from the redirected funds.

And they work at Google? We're still missing a key step in the conspiracy.

Cui bono? I think it's more likely Pratt would be responsible if anything, to drum up attention to the wastelands he formerly called home.

the wastelands he formerly called home.

Which, according to one comment, is a rich people problem:

But he has an uphill battle, according to Efrén Pérez, a professor who teaches political psychology at the University of California Los Angeles. The city has not had a Republican mayor since 2001 - a quarter of a century ago.

And Pratt's base and his platform are still rather narrow, Pérez says.

"I'm not saying that there isn't any validity to being a spokesperson for - and potential improver of - the sort of tragedy that befell one very wealthy slice of LA," Pérez says - referring to the fact that one of the fires struck the affluent enclave of the Pacific Palisades, where Pratt lived.

"But that wealthy slice of LA is not representative of the entire city."

Fair enough, few people are going to weep over millionaires losing their luxury homes (citation needed) but I would have thought "can we do something about the entire state burning down every year or so?" would be of interest to everyone, not just the rich?

Bass campaign manager: "The fix is in! We have rigged the vote counting so that Bass has no chance of losing!"

Staffer: "But what if that doesn't work? What if we get caught?"

Campaign manager: "Good point! Call up Akshay at Google, he's our man on the inside, and make sure he updates the satellite views of the Palisades to outdated images to ensure that even if our vote fraud scheme is uncovered, we have a failsafe."

Machine members have friends who owe their positions within Google to machine actions? That doesn't seem unreasonable.

I have no reason to think the Google maps team is in LA or that the LA Democratic machine has a hold over them. I think this sounds extremely unlikely.

Two students who network in school and end up on different paths after school but have shared views on politics and social justice. One becomes a DEI hire at Google and the other goes directly into politics seems unlikely?

How does the LA political machine place someone into Google, which has comparatively few positions in LA?

Not the LA political machine, the DEI political machine.

What redirected funds? The story you linked to involved alleged misappropriation of funds by a nonprofit that Karen Bass has no relation to.

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