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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   24461 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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It's hard to overstate how little this matters for the midterms. Saudi Arabia? The Houthis? To the extent that Americans know about these things at all, they accurately identify them as distant foreigners whose strange and violent customs are entirely alien to our own experience.

The Iran War? Also a nothingburger. Unless American GI's start getting sent home in bodybags, and they very much aren't, it just doesn't matter. We can keep this up forever and it doesn't even move the needle. Gas isn't expensive, except for diesel, and that is more related to what's happening in Russia. Not that voters even know or care.

And of course an October surprise would be very much good for Trump just as every other attack from Pearl Harbor to 9/11 has been good for the incumbent.

The midterm election will be decided based on vibes and turnout. Mundane things like rules for mail in ballots and early in person voting matter a lot. The Iran War does not. Who is even being swayed? What are you going to do, vote for the party of gender transitions and open borders because of a foreign conflict that has killed, checks notes, 21 service members? There are much bigger issues at stake, and everyone has already made up there mind. Both parties have a hard floor and a hard ceiling and rely mostly on elderly voters and ethnic voting blocs.

The internet is not the real world.

Gas isn't expensive,

Where I am, gas is about $1 more expensive than before. That adds up to a massive, devastating cost of $50 per month in gas expenses. Whatever will we do???

But in all seriousness it's all about vibes and people don't like to see number go up. The egg shortage is over. But the beef shortage is not. People will forget the one that ended and only remember the current crisis.

In all practicality for people who eat beef often, the beef shortage likely affects cost of living more than fuel prices right now.

For some reason people are weirdly sensitive to gas prices, much more than they rationally should. I think because it's a big, specific number that you're constantly seeing whenever you drive near a gas station. You'll hear people talk about buying a brand new hybrid or electric car to "save on gas," even though there's no way the gas savings could ever add up to the cost of the new car.

That adds up to a massive, devastating cost of $50 per month in gas expenses. Whatever will we do???

I've said this before, but this rhymes very closely with Democrats' Biden era refrain "inflation is fake, and even if it's real the goddamn voters should shut up and recognize it's for a good cause."

I feel like gas is a bit different from inflation in the general understanding. Gas prices are a thing that fluctuates. It gets higher in the summer, or for geopolitics bullshit, but it can also come back down. Gas prices are a thing that is capable of getting better. OTOH, everyone understands that "inflation" means "everything is now more expensive forever".

An understandable argument but inflation levels are far below (like half) the Biden era peak. It's true inflation is elevated in 2026 compared to 2025 but by a small amount.

By vibes this seems about correct, as I have not personally seen consumer prices rise significantly besides the consistently high beef prices.

Everything you get at the store also uses gasoline for transportation, so higher prices puts a direct inflationary pressure on basically every physical product. These effects will not be seen immediately as prices tend to increase more smoothly, but they will happen overtime just like with the tariffs.

Freight is like 5% of cogs at retail, and in the US the majority of cost for freight is in labor not capital or fuel. So even if fuel costs doubled the price at the store will barely budge.

This is different in countries with a lower cost of labor, where fuel is most of the cost of transpirtarion, but this is not the case in the United States.

Honestly the flood of millions of illegal Indians into the trucking industry did much more to move freight costs than fuel did.

Technically, it most likely uses diesel-fuel, which has gone up even more.

And whose high price is more about Russian refineries being hit by Ukraine than what's happening in Iran.

If this were true, it would have been reflected in prices for Heating Oil. It's not. They were priced at about $2.50/gallon before the war (generously), spiked up significantly after attacks, never recovered, and it is currently priced at about $4.60.

Voters are, shall we say, not particularly sophisticated in their evaluation of the causes of things that hurt their quality of life. It's probably even optimistic to think they'd confuse Ukraine-induced issues with Iran-induced issues; mostly, it's price go up, therefore I throw the bums out.

Yes, it's all very dumb. Nevertheless inflation is 3% and they didn't throw the bums out in 2022 when CPI was 9%.

The modal voter, a boomer, is doing just fine.

Trump looks even more impotent if the reason he's about to lose Congress is because he can't restrain the country entirely dependent on American support from blowing up the one asset that hurts him politically

Yeah it’s not great. That’s why Trump signed the deal to import Russian diesel after Zelenskyy repeatedly refused to stop bombing Russian refineries when asked. Worst client state ever.

Ukraine isn't a client state- they get weapons from all sorts of countries(Turkey, the USA, Poland, etc) to continue a war that they fully intend to keep fighting until their entire male population is dead or Russia gives up.

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