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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36422 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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Is everyone who does something bad far-right or far-left? Coming from a debate on Reddit where there was an attempt to label the 21 year old military document leaker far right. This seems to be the new national past time. Any time someone does something bad they need to be placed in one of the two camps. Trans school shooter = far left. Pelosi attacker = far right. Louisville bank shooter = far left.

WaPo has labeled the leaker as far-right because I believe there is a video of him shooting a gun and saying some racists words. I’ve always liked this Barkley quote:

https://newsone.com/2768946/charles-barkley-racism-in-locker-rooms/

Male culture especially younger boy culture likes to say things they’re not allowed to say and tease each other. I don’t think that makes someone far-right. I have multicultural group chats where we do the same thing Barkley describes.

But overall I’m noticing that the media when something bad happens wants to pin it on a side and make them responsible for whatever bad thing happened. My guess on this leaker is he’s just a dumb kid and probably hasn’t even ever voted. Nonetheless media now needs to make one side take responsibility for him which then forces the other side to defend him and increase polarization.

I think some times people do bad things or stupid things without having a political ideology.

You’re way less likely to throw your life away in such a manner if you don’t have any strong beliefs. Call it the Kulak effect. And the nature of big-tent political coalitions is that most strong beliefs are vaguely in one tent or the other. Easy ammunition for

highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric,

AKA the usual culture wars.

Honestly, I’d be willing to bet money that he is in fact far-right. As in “would agree with statements that Republican congressmen would have to disavow.” Alas—if he didn’t expect to get caught, I doubt we will see a manifesto.

As in “would agree with statements that Republican congressmen would have to disavow.”

I don't think this is even meaningfully right-wing, though. I get the sense that Republican congressmen are pretty far to the left of actual right wing voters?

On some issues, yes- GOP elected officials are consistently to the left of their voters about school choice, immigration, etc. There’s also issues like abortion, where GOP elected officials are usually to the right of their constituents.

On the other hand, GOP elected officials get away with calling for civil war and don’t disavow it on a semi- regular basis.

I don’t think this is really a consistent enough category to draw rules of thumb.

I don't have any direct experience of America, I'm mostly extrapolating from the UK, and assuming anglosphere "conservative" politicians are all cut from the same wet and cowardly neoliberal cloth.

The most obvious example is immigration: restricting illegal immigration consistently ranks among the most important issues for Republican voters, but Republican congressmen are not that much more likely to vote for serious anti-immigration measures than Democratic congressmen are.

I wondered about that too.

A better wording might have been along the lines of

“would agree with things that would lose a Republican congressman their seat”

But I wasn’t sure if that was at all consistent across districts. Or that my standards were realistic. See Roy Moore.

Point being, I think there is a line where a national politician will stress his support/incite his opponent enough to lose the seat. Or at least get primaried. That’s my best bet for finding the Overton window.

He probably shot a gun and said n****. I don’t think that makes him far right. I think that’s relatively common for lower class people to say non approved words

Also no evidence in this specific case was throwing life away. More like trying to boost status.

I’m guessing based on him fitting 4channer stereotypes rather than any specific evidence.

I agree that he probably wasn’t expecting to risk his future. That was more an observation about the kinds of people who end up as domestic terrorists. Fuck Timothy McVeigh.

I mean is 4chan even "far right" exactly? My impression is more like "deliberately offensive and chaotic", I'm not sure the political compass is a good fit for what's going on over there.

/pol/ is definitely right wing and embraces some beliefs associated with the far right(like white nationalism), but you’re right that 4channers would mostly not fit in at a gathering of the rightmost 10% or so of Americans(supermajorities of whom would probably be conservative Christians of one description or other).

I guarantee you that if the trans shooter was not trans, but was a Democrat, nobody would have used his political affiliation to call him far left. I don't think it's as symmetrical as you think; calling a bad person "far left" does happen, but thecstandards aren't the same as for "far right".

No

In fact, the FBI claiming that it was unable to determine a motive, and the media back-pedaling from "this is what happens when you give men like Trump a platform" to "there is no evidence at all that this attack was politically motivated" the moment Hodgkinson's name was released became memes in their own right. See also CNNs "firey but mostly peacful"

The left defending the military industrial complex is not something I expected to see, but here we are

I take it you're too young to remember the 90s.

Elaborate, please.

I think that means you have overvalued the Extremely Online. It’s easy to find Twitter users willing to rant about the military. Harder to find hardliners in Congress. Defense spending does have some tug-of-war, but massive cuts are outside the Overton window.

the daily beast is calling the guy a public servant.

Personally, I don’t care what his motives were or whether his ideological convictions bear any resemblance to my own. If he’s “guilty” of leaking these documents, Airman Teixeira was performing a public service.

if he really just leaked the documents to impress his discord buddies then no one's going to defend him that hard though.

It makes perfect sense when you bear in mind that the left is the establishment now. Of course the establishment is gonna defend the establishment.

It was the establishment in the 90s, but afik it was generally Republicans who aligned themselves with the military industrial complex. It is not surprising but I still never thought I would see it happen.

Yes in the '90s the education industrial complex and the media, news but especially entertainment, was left and Dem aligned. But the "daddy" side of government remained more Republican. But now that has overturned.

Local law enforcement is still largely on the Republican side however in keeping with the 90s. Local cops remain a target of national media.

Male culture especially younger boy culture likes to say things they’re not allowed to say and tease each other. I don’t think that makes someone far-right. I have multicultural group chats where we do the same thing Barkley describes.

It doesn't make you far-right per 20th century definition but per 21st it does.

The people in charge are busy bodies, school hall monitors.

In the US could lose your job or have CNN come to your door (this happened for somebody managing a FB group) if somebody linked you to specific screenshots/video from these chats.

Or you could have Capitol police at your door if you joke about AOC.

In Europe you may get the police at your door depending on the joke.

Far right by definition should be 1-2% of the population. Even today this behavior is far above that level. But yes I agree they get labeled that.

It depends what you consider far-right. Were the Nazis far-right? They were a lot more than 2% in Germany.

The Nazis arose in part due to resentment on cultural issues vis a vis Weimar Germany, when progressives of the time started coming up with ways to do surgery for sexually-confused people.

Is everyone who does something bad far-right or far-left?

No, but every time someone does something bad it's a valuable opportunity for me to associate them with my enemies and lower their social standing.

Take it a step further, it's an opportunity to make your enemies seem dangerous and thus justifying repressing their people and ideals.

I’ll just lock post now. Because yes that’s the truth.

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