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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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Trump can also not take office due to legitimately losing the election.

"Legitimately" according to who? I am sure that no matter how Trump is prevented from taking office, it will be entirely legitimate according to the New York Times and Blue Tribe generally. There will definately be wild accusations of election fraud. I'm going to wager that many of those accusations will be provably false, and none of them will be provably true. @ymeskhout will definately continue his series of impeccably accurate posts documenting these arguments and their lack of validity, as he should.

But it seems to me that the election is already illegitimate, and it will simply grow more illegitimate as this batch of escalations accumulate and ripen in the public consciousness. The gamesmanship has swamped any legitimacy the process might have had, and that trend will accelerate over time as the escalation spiral evolves.

What fraction of an electoral college vote is this novel legal theory worth, in practical terms? What fraction was it worth for the Press to systematically lie about the Hunter Biden Laptop story? What percentage was it worth for the FBI to assist in coordinating that lie? For the FBI to illegally spy on a presidential candidate? For Blue Tribe and the Democratic party to actively encourage and provide cover for large-scale, organized political violence? And so on, and on, ad nauseum.

Nor is there a remedy for these breaches, and the only available response is to find an escalation of your own. There is no agreement between the sides on what the rules actually are, no unified scale to measure escalations objectively. There will never be an agreement that what the other side did was justified by one's own side going too far; it's Russell Conjugations all the way down. Even if there were, the other side would simply agree and then add another escalation for good measure. When Red Tribe starts bombing things and murdering judges, no Blue is going to point to Ayers and Davis and say "well shucks, you got us there". It's going to be different, because it's always different when the outgroup does it. And likewise for Red Tribe, of course.

When Red Tribe starts bombing things and murdering judges, no Blue is going to point to Ayers and Davis and say "well shucks, you got us there". It's going to be different, because it's always different when the outgroup does it. And likewise for Red Tribe, of course.

They won't, though. Red Tribe is just going to quietly go extinct.

They won't, though. Red Tribe is just going to quietly go extinct.

Blue tribers keep saying this, but it's also the blue tribers who are the ones facing a "fertility crisis" not the red. As a general rule, if a couple has two or more kids the question is not "do they go to church?" it is "what church do they go to?"

Increasingly it’s what synagogue or mosque they go to, and that’s only amplified in Europe.

The blue tribe reproduces memetically, not genetically. As long as they control the schools and the media they can keep converting red children into blue adults.

How many red tribers do you know that don't own a television set, homeschool their children, forbid their kids from watching modern movies, and advise their daughters against going to college? Hardcore fringe Christian fundamentalists, maybe. Everyone else is perfectly happy to send their offspring to Caesar for their education, then make a Pikachu face when they come back as Romans.

The blue tribe reproduces memetically, not genetically.

Not in a rational bio-determinitsic world they don't. Funny how quickly the narrative changes once it becomes a threat to blue egos.

As for the rest aggressively vetting any movie or show before letting their kids see it and some level of home or private schooling describes the vast majority of parents I know.

Like I said, 2020 opened a lot of eyes and I suspect that the growing recognition of this fact is why we've seen so much batttle-space preparation around the topic of home-schooling and school choice.

Then some of those kids either go to college, or go to a larger city, and become blue tribe, or some sort of lib (and by lib, I mean not a Red Triber who thinks they're a super oppressed group of people who need to commit violence to survive. They still might vote for Republican's, but they just grill and don't care if their neighbors are gay.)

As long as Red Tribe kids have Youtube or any sort of access to the global Internet, we can win them over, even by such simple things as, "oh hey, the people I were told are terrible human beings who must be destroyed seem normal and have some of the same interests I do," aka, why random beauty bloggers on Youtube who are lesbians probably did more to advance gay marriage among say, rural Nebraskans under 25 than any politician, school, or normal form of entertainment.

Then some of those kids either go to college, or go to a larger city, and become blue tribe, or some sort of lib...

...and they wont make any grandkids.

Meanwhile the future will continue to belong to those who show up.

Also, projecting much?

Where do you think so many new Blue Tribers come from? Red Tribers hand their kids (especially daughters) over to them from K-16.

It's a bit early to tell, but I don't think they do. 2020 opened a lot of eyes and is a big part of why "school-choice" has become such a nakedly partisan topic.

And then they re-elected the Loudon County school board this year. Turns out that the media just has to play down the unpopular things Democrats are doing and eyes close right back up.

And then they re-elected the Loudon County school board this year.

Loudon County is blue as fuck though, which also explains how all the gay/trans nonsense was allowed to take root the first place. Meanwhile in both the state legislature and governor's mansion woke-aligned politics has been set back decades.

Two decades would be 2003. There are some difficulties in predictions and retrospectives, especially ones that didn't come to pass, but I think not.

I'm happy that's the case -- we'd be talking around or immediately after Lawrence v. Texas, for example -- but it makes a very awkward example.