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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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That logical endpoint of that sort of escalation is a violent right-wing insurgency like the Troubles in Ireland, but with every major institution aligned against them the conservatives will almost certainly lose.

but with every major institution aligned against them the conservatives will almost certainly lose.

The US' track record with insurgencies hasn't been that great. It will be an even bigger shitstorm when the insurgency is coming from inside the house instead of being on some one else's hell blasted sand box.

Conservatives won't engage in any insurgency. They'll just keep ceding territory until they're left with the afterlife and nothing more.

It remains to be seen what Conservatives will do. But haven't you already stated that even if we did, you wouldn't want us to?

But haven't you already stated that even if we did, you wouldn't want us to?

Not sure. If I did I don't remember. I think I've said that if you did, it wouldn't help me (because I am not a conservative and not Red Tribe and would not be accepted there), but that's not the same thing.

A fair distinction.

I mean, the IRA did get significant concessions.

The IRA wasn't universally loathed by every institution within Ireland though.

I think if we look into the specifics you'd have a hard time making the case that conservatives have less power in American institutions than nationalists had in Northern Ireland at the outbreak of the Troubles.

Even in the Republic it's not as simple as it seems, the Irish government was sympathetic to nationalists but not to the IRA. Ireland still has a secret juryless court which was set up specifically to jail paramilitaries.

The fact that the IRA had sympathetic supporters in Ireland was big. The Irish government might have officially disagreed with their violent methods, but not with the idea of Irish unification.

Compare that to a hypothetical scenario today where Conservatives are trying to go up against a left-leaning FBI that's clearly willing to bend laws, and a left-leaning media that'd love to manufacture consent to legitimize doing so.

The main thing Ireland contributed was a sympathetic alternative for international support which the UK was seriously constrained by. I'll grant that this is an advantage American conservatives don't have, America isn't nearly as reliant on international support and even if it were Europeans don't like conservatives anyway.

I still think the advantages American conservatives do have are substantial. For all the bias that the FBI has against conservatives they still hold a lot more sway than nationalists ever did in MI5 or the Royal Ulster Constabulary. They still make up a far larger portion of the population, control a far larger portion of the government, and are much wealthier and better armed than nationalists ever were.

This is just the “left will always win rhetoric”. But it wouldn’t need to devolve to Troubles. You can ruin the political culture to force reform hopefully.

This is just the “left will always win rhetoric”.

Hardly. I'm saying this particular strategy seems like it will fail. A better strat would be to fight for control of institutions, undercut woke methods of power, and vote for R candidates who actually give a damn about culture war stuff instead of Romneycrats who "compromise" on it to get tax cuts for the rich. Hanania writes a lot on this sort of stuff.

You can ruin the political culture to force reform hopefully.

What? How would that work? This sounds like

  1. Escalate the culture war
  2. "Ruin" the political culture
  3. ?????
  4. Profit.

Fair. Personally I loved the election lie. Just because I found it entertaining that it drove my enemies crazy who I basically believe lie to me all the time. Maybe it’s a bad strategy but I’m also unsure it’s a bad strategy. But I can 100% confirm I find it very entertaining.