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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.

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.

From my position as a moderately liberal griller this sounds like exactly what the right did after Trump lost: whining about stolen elections, utterly and embarrassingly paralyzing Congress, leading half the country into a fact-free conspiracy fantasy land, and so on.

Scott was absolutely correct here in how it played out.

?? Biden has been extremely moderate and a bunch of far left cultural elements seem to be coming to heel. What’s going on in the movie you’re watching?

?? Biden has been extremely moderate and a bunch of far left cultural elements seem to be coming to heel. What’s going on in the movie you’re watching?

You'd describe the border as moderate? Ketanji Jackson-Brown? Numerous attempts to imprison Republicans over slap on the wrist level infractions?

What Republicans are we talking about here and how much is the Biden administration responsible for the decision to prosecute?

The DOJ is part of the Biden administration. So all of them? All the J6 people including a Blaze journalist. https://www.glennbeck.com/radio/jan-6-journalist-fbi-arrest

Trump himself, of course, also Jeff Fortenberry who's conviction was recently overturned by a federal judge.

DoJ is traditionally quite independent of the presidential administration. Biden doesn’t make prosecutorial decisions.

Any federal prosecution of J6 peaceful protesters and Trump was going to happen under any Dem, because federal prosecutors have independence, and so it’s not evidence against Biden being moderate relative to his peers.

Also Biden is also a moderate relative to his peers on the border.

DoJ is traditionally quite independent of the presidential administration. Biden doesn’t make prosecutorial decisions.

That is the story, yes. Meanwhile, in reality there are multiple reports of Joe telling Garland what to do. What we've consistently seen since 2016 is that almost all of the executive branch only works in a fair and reasonable fashion when people are obeying a whole cadre of unwritten rules that vast swathes of them no longer want to obey WRT Trump and populists generally.