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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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Newsom basically calling for a boycot of Target.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/did-governor-newsom-spark-target-boycott-among-liberals

So he’s not too happy that red tribe has learned how to cancel something. I think we are approaching a day where you have to declare your allegiance. Red or blue.

I usually don’t like Balaji and think he’s a smarter hack who knows how to grift, but I think he’s right in this thread

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1659094966671425536?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ

And Scott had a thread about how pride is just like every other cities holiday posted recently. I can’t find it.

America seems to be in a religious war between two cultures now. A couple years ago red tribe didn’t know how to wield power. Desantis has done that highlighted by his war on Disney and grassroots red tribe found their first success with Budweiser. Twitter going Musks was an obvious red tribe move. Jan 6 and Trump overall was a movement that hadn’t found their real leaders who could use power.

I don’t think religion is that strong anymore on the right. I say this because there is a lot of tolerance for Trump being not a Christian. He bangs hookers. So red tribe has an internal sub-war between their traditional alpha male and their good Christian Desantis.

I do like Scott’s metaphor of this being a time like when Christianity took over the Roman Empire. No one believed in the old pagan gods anymore. And I think blue tribe would have won this but they made two crucial mistakes:

  1. The movement doesn’t have a great place for males. Who have always dominated every society.

  2. The trans movement has a lot of vibes of backward religions. Getting kids to cut themselves up and change their bodies has a lot of vibes of practices we long since banished.

Well, regarding Trump, Christianity is not a religion of “living up to an ideal”, but finding yourself continually dying to one. Trump banged his favorite porn star, but 90% to 99% of Americans have spent more hours than that watching porn, and this is the selfsame sin of lust according to the Lord. The secular charges of religious hypocrisy were always, well, hypocritical. They have no understanding of the religion, which is all about man’s inability to live up to ideals. Hypocrisy for a Christian is only when you harshly judge someone [by way of exclusion / social punishment / consequent] for committing an infraction the same significance of which you commit. Hypocrisy is when someone criticizes Trump for having money when they themselves would never give theirs away, or when they tweet about his privilege from a cush cubicle at their parent’s company. Hypocrisy is not saying “this ideal is good”, but saying “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,” while nurturing equal sins in your heart.

but 90% to 99% of Americans have spent more hours than that watching porn

I seriously doubt enough women watch porn on the regular for this to be true. Not that I care much about the larger topic (squaring Trumpism with the religious right is not a fight I have a dog in since I'm just like "A pox on both their houses!"), but that jumped out at me.