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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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The "political activism" part was referring specifically to:

The trolls also tested out ideas like photoshopping MAGA hats on celebrities like Ariana Grande, and posting fake Clinton ads with the logo “Draft our Daughters” to trick people into believing that Clinton wanted to send young women to war.

Which apparently, according to the article, went to prove that they "weren't really joking".

Yes, this was a conspiracy charge. IMO, the large distance between what was actually done and any vaguely plausible claim of actually influencing an election makes this a blatantly partisan hit job. And IMO, the fact that they must have known it would look like this and made no attempt to make themselves and their campaign look more neutral says that they did it on purpose, that the goal was a chilling effect on Conservative activism.

If I start a chat with my 3 best friends where we talk about how funny it would be to trick Democrats into voting wrong, but never actually do anything, is that a crime in your opinion? What if we were all Democrats and we thought it would be funny to trick Republicans into voting wrong?

What happens when the next Republican President is as enthusiastic and skilled at lawfare as the Biden administration seems to be and start making these kinds of charges against Democrats?

What happens when the next Republican President is as enthusiastic and skilled at lawfare as the Biden administration seems to be and start making these kinds of charges against Democrats?

I'll believe it when I see it. Modern political life in the U.S. is characterized by the institutional right largely being unwilling to play serious hardball, or even tit-for-tat with leftist political innovation.

What happens when the next Republican President is as enthusiastic and skilled at lawfare as the Biden administration seems to be and start making these kinds of charges against Democrats?

The courts, law firms and legal schools prevent it. Or the national security apparatus steps in.

What happens when the next Republican President is as enthusiastic and skilled at lawfare as the Biden administration seems to be and start making these kinds of charges against Democrats?

If the Biden administration or the deep state are good enough at this sort of thing, there won't be a next Republican president, or at worst, the next Republican president won't have this sort of control, so it won't matter.

If that ever becomes the case, the Constitution would have been entirely subverted, the Government would be no longer legitimate, and I would support the armed overthrow of the government and all institutions participating in or complicit with the maintenance of that power.

But that happened after WW2, so good luck,.

But you'd be basically alone, because conservatives continue to accept the legitimacy of the institutions even though they're corrupt.