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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   5598 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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Zohran Mamdani won three US House of Representatives seats last week. Claire Valdez in NY-7, Brad Lander in NY-10, and Darializa Avila Chevalier in NY-13 each won the Democratic primary after being endorsed by Mamdani, knocking-off two incumbants in the process. These are all 80-20 Democratic districts, so there is no realistic chance of any of them losing in the November.

Darializa Avila Chevalier is the one still making headlines a week later. She is, as far as anyone can tell, an actual communist. Rumors are that she personally founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest when she was a student there in 2016. Her stance on policing? She's against it.

Center-left politicos are currently melting down that someone like this won and is being accepted by the party apparatus. Credit to them for denouncing socialism I guess, but did they not know who their base is? Did they completely forget all of those "defund the police" chants from 2020? Did they not know that those people vote Democrat?

Some people want to kick Chevalier out of the party, bless their hearts. This wouldn't work even if it were feasable. Democrats need votes from leftists to be competative nationally. A party at war with its own base cannot stand.

Also in the news, Scott Wiener gets harassed out of a trans pride parade.

I can't find the full version of the video, but there's a bit where someone says something like "You've done a lot for the gay community, but...", where the lot is stuff like protecting 24 year olds who have sex with 14 year olds.

THAT GUY isn't far left enough anymore.

The vocalisation doesn't sound sincere at all to me. It sounds like a right-wing activist LARPing as a leftist.

The amazing thing is how the extremists really do sound like the conservative caricature of the lefties. "Surely they can't be like that in reality/Whoops..." The lead-in to the "but we hate you!" screaming by the maker of the video was 'in your wildest dreams' stuff:

"Scott, I think your legislation on trans issues and your legislation specifically protecting queers on sex offender registry is fantastic. Like, I really applaud you for that and I think you deserve to be here for that".

You did not just say that. Tell me you didn't. Imagine a GOP politician getting praised for protecting people on sex offender registries 🤣

(There was also criticism of his housing policy and aligning with YIMPYs (sic) before launching into the stuck record you've been terrible you've been terrible you've been terrible stuff).

The amazing thing is how the extremists really do sound like the conservative caricature of the lefties.

Uh, yeah, because a lot of that isn't conservative caricature. Sometimes conservatives come up with a strawman position that it turns out the left actually holds, but much of the time conservatives are actually merely NOTICING.

The amazing thing is how the extremists really do sound like the conservative caricature of the lefties. "Surely they can't be like that in reality/Whoops..." The lead-in to the "but we hate you!" screaming by the maker of the video was 'in your wildest dreams' stuff:

AIUI, there is talk of a problem among the Republican campaign staffers that it's hard to do attack ads because people think literal descriptions of Democrat rhetoric and policies are insane exaggerations. E.g. the "Yes, fuck you, we literally mean no more police at all" candidate for the House.

Clearly a crack squadron of secret false-flag right wingers are attending protests solely to push random internal schism stuff

It's not about pushing internal schism stuff. It's about trying to tar and feather the Jews and any pro-Israeli sentiment as pedophile-coded. And yes, that reeks of rightoid mentality. Leftists do not think or talk that way.

The leftists don't passionately oppose pedophilia because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded, so just like they don't oppose Israel or the Jews because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded. The way the left phrases these things is they're against sexual abuse of the vulnerable and against the colonialism of marginalised groups like Palestinians.

It was the leftists screaming anti-Semitism, my friend. You can't No True Scotsman your way out of this.

Leftists do passionately oppose pedophilia- often defined in nonstandard ways, but still.

As usual, it's who, whom. Leftists are totally fine with George Takei getting introduced to the wonderful world of gay sex at 14 by a camp counselor, but God forbid a man in his thirties should date a college girl!

Gay sex is different from straight sex, so it’s not a double standard at all- just bad values.

Yeah. So much of the Epstein stuff and I'd argue the whole '17.9999999999 years sick fuck' manifestation is more Left-wing than Right

The leftists don't passionately oppose pedophilia because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded

Which leftists do you know? The ones I'm in circles with love talking about "the Epstein class".

In the same way they love body- and homo-shaming when it can target the outgroup. "The Epstein Class" feels like a good soldier to send to war - same reason it gets spammed by twitter posters from third world countries with mass, normalized child rape.

Most of those same leftists will turn around and say it's a human right for 15 year olds to have access to books that tell them how to get on Grindr, even though that sort of thing is almost exactly what Epstein actually did.

I think that's as strong evidence that leftists care about opposing pedophilia as Republicans' calling out voter fraud in recent elections they lost is evidence that they care about opposing voter fraud. These are just easy weapons lying around to pick up and throw at enemies, nothing more, nothing less. That's even before getting into the fact that, almost certainly, Epstein and his ilk account for less than 0.1% of all pedophilic crime that happened during the time period when they were (are?) active and are almost certainly dwarfed by activities done by much lower class people that those same people conspicuously try to ignore or downplay.

"The Epstein Class" is a right-wing shibboleth. An actual leftist would say "the capitalist class" or "the bourgeoisie."

While they're often talking about largely the same group, the worldviews are quite different: one world model runs on sexual blackmail, and the other on asymmetric bargaining power enabled by control of capital.

In my hard left coastal city, blues LOVE talking about the Epstein class in exactly those words

Have you been on social media in the last year? Redditors love their Epstein references

Leftists (meaning, here, Democrats and affiliated groups) are very eager to call out the Epstein class and variations of it that do center specifically on sexual immorality; this can be seen in everything from Reddit comments to statements by national Democratic politicians. Though it's less a belief in a conspiracy of sexual blackmail driving history and more a belief in the inherent corrupt perversions of the rich.

"Actual leftists" using your more materialist framing exist but have essentially no power.

Some Dem politicians that have used the phrase "Epstein class" include Jamaal Bowman, Graham Platner, Jon Ossoff and Ro Khanna who, according to this, coined the term. New York City DSA, at least, also uses the term.

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