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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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I, like the rest of the country, feel like nothing good will come of the election. However, I feel this way for a slightly different reason than your average person, and probably closer to the average Mottezian.

I actually don't really care too much who is president. Either one of them would IMO do a good enough job. I mostly care whether the president impacts my everyday life or causes nuclear war. However, though it isn't his fault directly, having Trump in charge would impact my everyday life negatively, mostly because it would fuel another 4 years of incessant leftist whining all around me, from all my friends and family, along with people starting to (erroneously, IMO) see and declare that racism and sexism is everywhere again. It'll start causing fights between me and my wife again. My workplace and all local institutions will start making statements about how they're standing up to Trump and racism. Under Biden, I have truly enjoyed some nice peace and respite from politics.

However, I find this state of affairs to be very irritating. It feels like the left, or at least the leftists in my life, are taking an infantile tactic: we better win or we'll whine and complain for 4 years. I don't respect sore losers, and moreover, I don't like the fact that there is no path forward for the right.

Scott said this back in 2016:

If the next generation is radicalized by Trump being a bad president, they’re not just going to lean left. They’re going to lean regressive, totalitarian, super-social-justice left.

Scott was absolutely correct here in how it played out. But what option does this leave the non leftists with? If the Democrat wins, then the currents move left. We get leftism enshrined into law over the next 4 years, because to the victor go the spoils. If the Republican wins, then the undercurrents move left, and more and more people get radicalized towards the left.

Is there a way for the currents to move right without the undercurrents moving left? Or is Trump just uniquely bad at making that happen? I'm tempted to say that this is just the fact that Trump is a polarizing figure, but at the same time, all the leftists I know scream bloody murder whenever a Republican is in command. They were infantile under George W Bush. And though I wasn't around then, I know many people who are still salty over Reagan and act like he was the worst.

However, though it isn't his fault directly, having Trump in charge would impact my everyday life negatively, mostly because it would fuel another 4 years of incessant leftist whining all around me, from all my friends and family, along with people starting to (erroneously, IMO) see and declare that racism and sexism is everywhere again.

The left, initially blindsided by Trump, turned it their advantage in 2016-2020, starting with the explosion pronoun and gender issues in 2017 , impeachment and FBI investigations in 2019, and then ending with Covid restrictions and mass social media censorship in 2020. I don't think it will be as bad if Trump wins again. The difference now is the left no longer has as much control over the narrative, as seen on Twitter now with Elon's takeover. I think many of these issued are played out.

I really hope you are right! But... "fool me once". I've seen so much that strikes me as going past the point that I ever thought our society would go, that has shattered my notion that logic and reason can win out over mob mentality spurred on by the media's desire to push a juicy story. And it kept coming back again, and again, and again. It was not one year ago that I had coworkers sharing with me the joyful news that Trump was indicted for the whateverth time, as if I care or want to talk about it.
I really wish you are right, but I'm afraid that we're just in a lull right now.

I suspect @greyenlightenment's point isn't that logic and reason will win over, but that the lack of control means just that- a lack of control. Mob mentality won't be defeated by logic and reason, it will be more counter-balanced by opposing mob mentality and increasing lack of civil difference that the last decade's mainstream media-political consensus depended on.