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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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I support these things but what mechanism causes the administration not to do them immediately?

For instance, with the English language requirements for the trucking licenses, they were in power from 2017-2021 and could have done it then, and they could have done it last year too. Are they too busy? Do they not know about the regulations until someone brings it to their attention? Is it very difficult to change regulations like these and therefore they wait for an opportune time to do it?

Trump could have pardoned everyone in J6 on his way out of office, and not done it after banking on winning 2024 (of which there was no guarantee) and doing it after taking office again, after those defendants suffered much monetary and jail time punishments. There are so many things Trump could be doing to fulfill his promise of financial access (under the misnomer of fighting against "debanking"). Etc. I agree with the other commenter when I say it's just incompetence.

It genuinely feels like incompetence. Not just on behalf of the administration but the entire right wing.

The conception on the right has been that the government does stuff that's bad, the private sector does stuff that's good, and the civilians are just honest spectators whose souls move at the mercy of the government and the whims of the free market, preferably also under the guidance of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.

The left wing, to use these general terms, has in the meantime tried to integrate all of these things in a single ideological package. The markets, the government, the public perception of reality. It's all constantly being synchronized. You get a single ideological block with its own moral narratives, ingroup/outgroup distinctions and everything else. Which turns into a complete worldview. Call it 'Cultural Marxism', call it 'woke', call it 'the post war consensus' or the liberal moral order. Whatever it is, whatever permutation you come across, it's unapologetic, ruthless and consistently self serving. It knows exactly who is friend and who is enemy. What is right, what is wrong.

There is no such force on the right. The closest we've gotten to synchronization is Musk buying twitter, and Musk and Trump being friends. But that alliance was fragile at best since there is no shared worldview between them. 'Free market good' isn't a worldview. 'Government spending bad' isn't one either. In fact it's at best quaint and at worst stupid when your actual ideological enemies are using the 'free market' to push their worldview. Or using the government to fund and protect their foot soldiers.

The right doesn't know friend from foe. It doesn't know what's right and wrong, good or bad. Right wing media figures sometimes brag that the only active and engaging political and philosophical discourse happening in modernity happens on the right. Claiming that the left has become too insular and self absorbed to afford meaningful discourse. And that might be true, but that's also why the left can win and the right seemingly only lose. And no, calling your activist groups 'feds' isn't a worldview either.

There's no racist dragnet trying to identity non-white scammers, because over half the right thinks racism is evil. So instead of getting a clear and concise picture on the ground from coherent right wing activists or media about all the ways the world is wrong according to a dogmatic right wing worldview, we have to rely on the perfect storm of aspergers and autism to incidentally uncover the racist reality of the Somalian scam economy. Meanwhile, the entire left mobilizes without effort to proclaim that incidental racism is racism nonetheless. And that everyone involved is an evil racist. Except the scammers, of course. Peace be upon them.

The right has no ethos. And despite the smugness from the right, it's a land of those the left kicked out.

Yeah this is why the right can only, cut taxes for the rich, or bomb the middle east. That's literally all they ever do. They are absolutely horrible at using state power and usually deeply unserious or unsystematic.