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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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There are left wing university professors who used to be actual, no-shit, terrorists. Does that mean terrorism is genuinely popular (or at least not genuinely unpopular) among the large swaths of the center left?

Also, if Bari Weiss is now "center-right", I swear to god...

It's not so much that terrorists are popular (though I'd bet that some among the left don't mind having "dial a riot" in their deck of cards), as the fact that the center-left feels vastly more secure in its control over the direction of leftist politics than the center-right does. Realistically, any far left policy that gets memetically popular will be sanewashed into something the center-left either already supports (e.g. they might not want single-payer healthcare, but they would like a universal system) or can accept (race and gender grievance stuff). Bernie got swatted like a fly by the DNC whereas the GOP is praying that Trump gets imprisoned or killed because their other standard-bearers can't beat him (assuming the polling is remotely accurate, a fact about which I am presently agnostic). All those boomer bombings are easily forgotten about because all put together pale in comparison to one Oklahoma City Bombing. Joe Biden's anachronistic affection toward organized labor is a bigger threat to neoliberal economics than every commie professor in the country combined.

I don't think that the center right really thinks that some sort of far right is a serious threat (though it's entirely possible that they've been repeating it long enough that they believe it themselves), but a populist right very much is, and they're more than willing to conflate the two to stay in power. This isn't anything new. Not so long ago, Trump himself was calling Pat Buchanan a Nazi.

Funny thing in American politics today is the right rallies around Trump because he’s going to win the primary but they probably have better and more electable candidates behinds him. The left seems to rally around Biden despite no huge fan base because there is nothing behind him.

The left seems to rally around Biden despite no huge fan base because there is nothing behind him.

They don't need it. By now a majority of the nation simply won't vote Republican because it isn't respectable to do so. The Democrats can run a yellow dog and still win.

No. The left could be filled with 100% terrorists. That doesn't affect whether extreme HBD policies are or are not popular on the center right.

Bari Weiss is running a university to attract customers. those customers may include the center right, woke-skeptic, and also find extreme HBD policies distasteful.

No. The left could be filled with 100% terrorists. That doesn't affect whether extreme HBD policies are or are not popular on the center right.

That's not the question I asked though.

Bari Weiss is running a university to attract customers. those customers may include the center right, woke-skeptic, and also find extreme HBD policies distasteful.

You can find them distasteful without wanting to disinvite a dude for pseudonymously advocating for them on obscure internet forums, 10 years ago.