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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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So you’re proposing recreating the mid-century Chicago political machine, but on a national level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine

There…are a few issues with that concept.

But the issues we have with the deep state are huge as well. Essentially, they’re almost completely unaccountable to anyone, nothing they do can be effectively controlled by the regime (the official government) and this creates a situation where the regime has little control over anything that the deep state does.

Just for a quick example, Affirmative Action is officially illegal in California. The public university system simply fig-leafs compliance and does Affirmative Action anyway. They just do so by using other things that just so happen to be good markers for race. If you’re a minority, you’ll get a boost (unless you’re Asian) despite the fact that this is illegal. The same thing is going to happen on the federal level where AA is officially over, but since we’re using proxy methods of finding and boosting the scores of minorities. Even somewhat with COVID, it was clear that the health departments were not under the control of any elected official. The elected officials wanted it over, and the deep state said no.

This creates a situation where the government is officially supposed to serve the public, but those who determine what the state does aren’t accountable to that portion of the government that the public has a say in.

A lot of Federal agencies aren't supposed to be accountable to the regime. This is by design. Something like the Clean Air Act isn't supposed to change based on who's in office, and the fact that it requires an independent agency to hammer out details and enforce the law doesn't change that. The president may have certain powers relating to the agency, but these are purely administrative in nature. The constitution isn't set up so that the president gets to dictate domestic policy. And while it may seem like they're unaccountable, this isn't the case at all. They're creatures of legislation, and legislation can take whatever powers they have away, or change the law to undo rulemaking decisions it doesn't like. Not to mention the complicated rulemaking procedures they have to follow. People often argue that since the legislative branch is dysfunctional this isn't really a great check on power, and while I agree, I think the solution is to end the dysfunction, not to concentrate power further. After all, we could take this argument a step further and eliminate congress entirely and let the president make up laws at his leisure. But I don't think anyone wants that.

The irony is a big thing that could end the dysfunction is to end the filibuster, and actually pass legislation.

Now yes, this would lead to some things this forum would not like passed. Also, it wouldn't lead to say the Civil Rights Act getting overturned, because it turns out a Senator who can get elected in say, Georgia or Arizona probably doesn't want to actually do that, or fill in whatever other right-wing promise numerous swing state Senator's have made, but would never actually vote for, because they like their job.

Ironically, the filibuster currently gives the Right an overstated case of their actual political strength, because if you're a Republican Senator in a swing state, you can agree to all sorts of things in a primary, knowing voters don't really care until you actually vote for something/it gets put into law (ie. the Dobbs effect), and they know you need 60 votes to pass anything not directly related to spending.

I say this thing to my left-wing friends as well, as a dirty left-wing social democrat SJW - your issue isn't the system. Your issue is that nobody actually agrees with you because life in America is actually pretty damn good for the vast majority of people, and well yeah, they may complain about [random right-friendly or left-friendly issue], but they're not going to vote for somebody who wants to overturn the whole damn thing. Now, I know, "but a small minority of woke people control society."

Not really true, but also, most people may think going to a DEI training (even though, again, your company having a DEI training is kind of a tell on your educated background) may be a bit over the top, but they also don't think the world is ending as a result of a couple hour training they go too once or twice a year. So, when you act like it is, most normies go, "you're a weirdo, and if the choice is you or the nice lady in charge of DEI training, I'll go with her."

No, I'm proposing a spoils system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system

Machine politics are fine and dandy as well though. Ethnic voting blocs are sensible.