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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   19794 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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It never ceases to amaze me how the left is so consistently able to mobilize itself in the defense of the worst people in the world.

I think it goes like this: the left's ability to project power relies on a co-ordinated, hair-trigger response, a sort of Blitzkrieg doctrine. The problem is that a) they aren't fully in control of that response because the coordination relies on nutty Redditors/Tweeters and b) each individual taking a minute to decide whether a specific case deserves this response wrecks the coordination that makes it powerful. So in practice they end up subordinating their decision-making to criminals and slowly weakening the system's power over time as people learn left-wing outrage has really nothing to do with the strength of the case.

I believe the Unions were somewhat like this in the UK, and suffered the same gradual hemorrhaging of support and the majority of normies realised Union outrage had nothing to do with the sympathy of the case.

I wonder if just once the response was brutal if that would stop the blitz. That is, it’s one thing to cosplay when it costs you nothing. It’s another when you could be maimed.

Anti ICE people are a lot quieter after the Pretty Good affair... so I guess your answer is yes.

ICE has mostly moved to places that aren't Karen central, though, right?

So is ICE, though.

I think this is kind of key. Pre-Minneapolis, ICE was going for the aesthetic of "This is a kinetic military operation against Blue jurisdictions who shelter illegals" and they have mostly shifted towards an aesthetic of "This is a paramilitary force but one taking a fundamentally law enforcement approach to arresting and deporting illegals". This generates fewer banger memes for right-wing social media, but probably more deportations, and definitely a better chance of co-operation from Democratic state and local administrations in purple states.

Yeah, but... every single time, though. Like I can't think of a single one of these left-wing martyrs who didn't make me go "wait a second, this is the guy you want to spend political capital on?"

Trayvon Martin wasn't someone you would want marrying your daughter, but he was well within the range where the non-idiotarian left would consider him salvagable and want to spend political capital on him - particularly because of the unusual fact pattern with no hard evidence that Martin was criming at the time he was shot. Nobody knows who started the fight that ended up with Martin smashing Zimmerman's head against the curve and Zimmerman shooting Martin, both participants were dumb and hot-headed enough that them could plausibly have done so, and if Zimmerman had died Martin would have had a self-defence claim sufficiently plausible that he should have been acquitted under Florida law for the same reasons Zimmerman was.

Breonna Taylor was an obviously innocent victim (she was shot by mistake while police were executing a no-knock warrant at her address but targetted at her ex who no longer lived there) and got the full BLM left-wing martyrdom operation.

The whole left-wing martyrdom apparatus was hauled out and ready to go in the Ahmad Arbury case - they only reason why it wasn't deployed (as per @07mk's Toxoplasma point below) is that the McMichaels' behaviour was sufficiently outrageous that the mainstream right wasn't willing to defend it.

So I think it is more "genuinely innocent victims of police violence are rare so BLM don't normally have the chance to take up those cases" than "BLM preferentially defends the worst of the worst".

This is just classic Toxoplasma of Rage thing, though. The most effective way to project your power to get your preferred way over that preferred by your enemies is to have your way even when having your way is clearly unjust, because that shows that your side is so powerful that even having justice on their side doesn't give your enemies enough to defeat you.

Philando Castile?

I don't remember anybody doing a civil unrest over Philando Castile.

The wiki page has a section on protests and civil unrest, so your memory may be faulty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Philando_Castile

My memory is indeed faulty

Kind of an old one, but would Eric Garner qualify?

That's what I'm saying. Structurally I think it's a compulsion not a choice - literally, given the dynamics of how activists exert pressure on each other.

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