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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26892 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

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Damn if this is the first you're hearing of Christopher Rufo, this forum is really not doing its job. He's been easily one of the top 10 most active live players in the Culture War for the last several years.

Rufo is a talking head in the right leaning intellectual spheres, not exactly the ground most mid2010s-style refugees would find themselves inhabiting. Most forays into the 'other' side would lead to the usual shitposters on 4chan or Bodybuilding or the spiciest being Kiwifarms. No one actually goes to the Front or the spicier discords/telegrams/forums (not shared due to foulness). The reality also is that the intellectual CW right often has its successes claimed or attributed to boosters like Musk or Rogan simply for name visibility. Few people seem to know or care about Rufo or Loury or even Mcworther Sowell and Fryer. Which is a tragedy, but also totally expected since most of us have lives and aren't terminally online outrage bait biting retards.

To be honest I don't really understand what you are trying to say here.

Eh, my rambling was quite the soup of stupid, so I apologize for that.

To be extremely simple, Rufo simply does not have visibility. Any victories he gets are attributed to other actors (if any), and the reasons for that are varied.

Uh, Rufo is quite well known among at least the activist bases on both sides.

I don't know who Rufo is, and I'm deep, as it were, in the shit.

Something new you learn every day.

If John Oliver is doing segments on you, you're in the mainstream even if you're not quite a household name.

Tbh i just joined this forum recently. Ive been deliberately avoiding culture war stuff most of the past few years.

If it helps, Rufo is probably the singular winningest fighter against the progressive side of the culture war in quite a while. He's mostly working with DeSantis in Florida and the online front at the moment. I can only hope he gets a spot of power in a future GOP presidential admin where he can go after progressives nation-wide with some real teeth.

Rufo actually seems to possess brain cells still, unlike the weird degradation of Peterson and the embarrassing emotiveness of Alex Jones, Glenn Beck and other frothing conspiracists. I did harbour hope that DeSantis wouldn't pussy out and Rufo would be a czar with teeth, but DeSantis turned out to be the spineless Rubioesque shrinking violet I feared him to be, and Rufo does not seem to have kissed the o-ring of Trump so far to get a spot in any circus cabinet there.

Rufo actually seems to possess brain cells still, unlike the weird degradation of Peterson and the embarrassing emotiveness of Alex Jones, Glenn Beck and other frothing conspiracists.

The problem with a lot of the former type isn't intelligence. It's a weird sort of...effeteness? Peterson might actually be better than most here, since his messianic tendencies make him disagreeable

But you see it a lot with the "IDW" - everyone in it is likely smarter than average - where they basically seem to see the dirty work of politics to be beneath them. Instead, they just want to...talk. Uncharitably, because it'd require them to truly break with their original tribe (who they disagree with on a pivotal but small set of issues). Charitably, they've been burned and it isn't really their thing.

The IDW are largely asocial introverts like most academics who recuse themselves from transitioning to administration. Socially competent introverts still prefer to avoid dealing with people, and they thus have ceded the communicative tasks to their more socially extroverted fellow travellers... who for the IDW are largely insane blowhards.

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