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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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The alt-right, with its emphasis on race and replacement, is fringe and represents a small fraction of Republicans.

The anti-Trump "moderate" Republicans poll poorly in primaries, and Trump's approval rating remains sky high among Republicans.

What do the above two assertions say?

They say two things.

  1. Trump is not alt-right, never was.

  2. There is a massive swath of Trump-loving voters who are off the radar of the media by being neither fashy-racist nor anti-Trump "moderates".

[Jerry Seinfeld voice] Who are these people?

I'll tell you who they are. They are the Rush Limbaugh crowd. Or wherever they are now. I grew up with them, they are my people. I listened to Rush in his final year, and listened to his callers, and the vibe of his following (which was massive) was the same as I remember it. On median: They are hardcore Trump supporters. Yet they find the emphasis on race of both the left and the fringe right distasteful. In fact they itch for national unity and an end to civil strife and they saw in Trump the best hope for unity. The whole idea of Trump being divisive they saw as media propaganda, e.g. to them Trump's stance against illegal immigration is in fact about illegal immigration and not secretly about "brown people". In their eyes Trump had the back of anybody with a Social Security card. They think Hitler was, in fact, evil af and love to relate their parents' or grandparents' stories about kicking his ass.

They have an essentially Reaganite attitude toward American politics. They see taxation as fundamentally a seizure of the productive elements of society and while they see it necessary they think it should always be done with great solemnity and respect for the taxed, whose sweat fuels all government projects. They saw Trump as the obvious candidate for anybody into Reaganite politics and are beyond infuriated that the left's propaganda painted them as Hitlerian for wanting the obvious best candidate for policy positions that had nothing to do with race.

Etc etc.

I don't know where this crowd is at now. But if anybody deserves to be called "silent majority" (if only among Republicans) it's them. Not that they were silent on Rush's show, "ignored" may be a better term for them, ignored by media and its focus on the battle between crazy fascist racists and the nice wholesome Cheney family.

I really think there's a massive, massive amount of these people and yet I don't hear these particular opinions being expressed basically anywhere.

Ideologically and in other respects, conservatism is broad/diverse and seems to be always evolving whereas liberalism is more like something being stretched, in which the original shape is still the same.

I'll tell you who they are. They are the Rush Limbaugh crowd. Or wherever they are now. I grew up with them, they are my people. I listened to Rush in his final year, and listened to his callers, and the vibe of his following (which was massive) was the same as I remember it.

Rush was a morbidly obese ideologue who had his heyday in the '90s and 2000s, especially during the Obama era, but since 2016 and especially since 2020 during Covid, his type of conservatism has been in decline online , imho, replaced by the likes of Rogan, Peterson, etc. who have more of an emphasis on self-improvement and salubrity (being healthy, working out, intellectual curiosity, etc.) while still opposing the far-left. Since 2021 I have also observed the rise of a sort of civic nationalism conservatism which combines 'Trumpism' with 'Roganism'. In keeping with the civic aspect of it, it's not necessarily opposed to diversity or immigration as long as said diversity holds anti-woke values. I think this is a tad overoptimistic given the tendency of second and third generation immigrants to vote left. I think this new brand of conservativism is very powerful and has considerable online support, and stands good shot at beating Biden.

It's hard to say what Trump is/was. He's not alt-right yet much more nationalistic than the typical conservative. His push for tax cuts early on is consistent with the mainstream GOP platform though.

In one of my blog posts I describe how the GOP has evolved and its likely direction:

'80s up until 2008-2013 Reaganomics, supply side

2008-2013 split or weakening cracks on the foundation of immigration and globalization

2014-2015: rise and fall gamergate, precursor to the IDW and trump-right

2016-2020 Trump and split between 'the base' vs 'the establishment', rise of civic nationalism

2016-2018 rise and fall of alt-right

2018-: rise of the IDW , which is related to the anti-idpol left

2020-: hybridization/amalgamation of civic nationalism ,self-improvement, and anti-woke populism

Trump isn’t more nationalistic than the typical conservative though, given primary election results (and the fact he, yknow, won a national

Election as well). Conservatives in america are fundamentally nationalist

his rhetoric at least seems more nationalistic than the typical conservative , and also some of his initiatives such as his plan to return manufacturing jobs to America, which at best had mixed results but this seems like a departure from the Bush administration .

George W or George H. W.? The former was pretty protectionist and tried fairly hard to appeal to the American working class:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_United_States_steel_tariff

You could plausibly argue that that Trump was more protectionist, but free trade vs. protectionism has rarely been a simple Republican vs. Democrat issues.

Also, the Bush administration also had a lot of anti-elitism in their rhetoric, like Trump. While Bush was obviously from an elite background, he tried (successfully) to be portrayed as "One of the guys", in a way that his father, Bob Dole, or Mitt Romney did not. Quite an achievement for a teetotal, Ivy League educated, son of a wealthy family.