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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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In the last 8 years in the US, the Democratic party in particular has done a much better job of denouncing its extremists.

This is an incredibly risible claim. In 2020, during a period of mass rioting and looting, the Vice Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party used her social media platform to raise money for bail for the protestors. Black Lives Matter, an explicitly Marxist police abolitionist organization, is inextricably enmeshed with the funding apparatus of the Democratic Party. The Biden administration is overseeing the largest influx of unfettered immigration to this country in over a century - something infinitely more “extreme” and widely unpopular than anything you can credibly accuse Republican “extremists” of supporting.

In 2020, during a period of mass rioting and looting.....

It's a matter of comparison---the most direct analogue is the literal president of the US encouraging an attempted violent overthrow of the legislative branch.

Black Lives Matter, an explicitly Marxist police abolitionist organization

The analogue here is explicitly hereditarian and anti-meritocratic authors like Moldbug/BAP/some parts of the Claremont Institute being inextricably enmeshed in the intellectual foundations of the modern right.

The Biden administration is overseeing the largest influx of unfettered immigration to this country in over a century

This is also not necessarily so objectionable to people who value meritocracy over hereditarianism like most of the "centrist" authors in the original post. Skilled immigration is definitely not---even the most ostensibly right-wing, Elon Musk, supports dramatically increasing skilled immigration. Increased illegal immigration is getting huge amounts of pushback from the mainstream left and the numbers for that are always more about economic conditions than actual policy.

This is an incredibly risible claim

From your postings here, you are quite hereditarian and anti-meritocratic. Of course the comparison I'm making would therefore feel risible. From the point of view of the listed authors, who have much more mainstream American values, it makes a lot more sense.

  • -15

Having skimmed the Colorado ballot decision, it looks like the strongest evidence on offer of Trump encouraging violence is using the word “fight.”

If that’s not an isolated demand for rigor, I don’t know what is. Is there a single federal politician who hasn’t promised to fight or encouraged supporters to fight?

The Colorado court basically replaced the Brandenburg test with a new "bad actor" test where if you've used violent language and/or encouraged violence before (e.g. wanting to shoot looters), your words can be interpreted as being directed towards inciting imminent violent action even if they're entirely milquetoast and some other similarly-situated person could say the same words and received the full protection of the First Amendment.

It's a matter of comparison---the most direct analogue is the literal president of the US encouraging an attempted violent overthrow of the >legislative branch.

Didn't the Speaker of the House say there should be "uprisings all over." That means when a police station in Fort Green Brooklyn was overrun by a mob, and their vehicles torched with molotovs, it was a violent overthrow of the normal functioning of the judicial branch.

I just think leftists only apply this histrionic analysis in service of their own political goals, you are a great example.