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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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I do believe there is something of a who/whom division where which groups you favor the most, or not, or how even handed you try to be, does relate with left vs right. Centrism also has connotations and is associated with being moderate and even handed, which is why I have a big problem with what kind of positions and factions are labeled as centrists since they fail to be even handed.

Hlynka was usually attacking people more right wing than him on the issues he had the biggest problem with their views as being progressive in a manner that was rather inaccurate. The guy supported a Christianity that accepted gay marriage and wasn't that greatly conservative, but he probably had some conservative areas but the fight was mainly about issues he was fighting from the left towards those to his right. Well, he also conflicted with actual progressives sometimes, but I am talking about the rightists he characterized as progressive. Or non right wingers who he had a problem with their HBD views that fit more within the right. Beyond just Hlynka and his view, in general that way of defining people as progressive was an attempt to erase non progressive viewpoints by calling them progressive and promote as the only right wing option what was an establishment right that compromised with the left and carries the banner of figures like MLK as the default.

The establishment right does identity politics and has been complicit with leftist identity politics in particular. Especially those famed to be moderates who as in Bush administration promoted some version of affirmative action, and people like Romney supported BLM in 2020. So, this idea that conservatives are somehow people without identity politics is false on both sides. Both those who compromise with leftism, both through action and inaction, which makes their conservative credentials more questionable and others who don't and identify as conservative, and are motivated by their conservative ideology. In practice, even many right wing figures who push against the leftist identity politics in certain ways tend to pander to the main American ethnic groups, and tend to be fine with say black identity politics to a point. See Trump/Tucker Carlson.

Anyway, there is this understanding that being more far right relates to being more extreme in favor of groups like whites or Christians, although this breaks down when examining other societies. It is also used very expansively without consideration if the views labeled as far right are actually correct, measured, consistent, even handed. But there are definitely views like yours which are brazenly "favor mine, screw others" that can fit, provided you choose the correct demographics to favor. So, I would reject this framing that supporting a caste system that is different than the progressive stack is a progressive view.

Where would a white christian straight male, a bisexual black antitheist, bisexual white and non white women, etc be in your own version of the "progressive" stack? What about pro LGBTQ white liberals and then non white liberals?

You haven't given us enough here. It seems, you probably have some both progressive and non progressive ideas and don't fit in either space exactly. Jut putting white men as being a part of the group you favor being higher caste and kicking those bellow them, does cost you important progressive points. So, I wouldn't call you a progressive, right wing progressive, or right wing just yet with only what you have given us.

I do think that being direct about wanting a caste system rather than indirect and not admitting it, does give you some right wing points too. Leftists who want the progressive stack tend to be much more unwilling to state it openly and directly in that manner as a caste system, even if that is what they want and are pushing towards.

and tend to be fine with say black identity politics to a point.

Black Americans have been here longer than the ancestors of most white Americans(who are mostly Ellis Islanders) and are here to stay. For better or worse, a place for them has to exist in a USA unwilling to resort to genocide, and a reasonable amount of identity politics is a reasonable way to assure that.

I don't object of course to "reasonable" black identity politics, although American society tends to allow too much, since excessive black identity politics will be harmful towards non blacks. Black people are one of the most ethnocentric demographics who rate other races more negatively. So, I do think that zero identity politics allowed would be unfair for them, and is an oppressive demand, but they should be pressured to consider the rights of others more and to compromise more in that direction, at least when it comes to blaming for example white people for black overepresentation in various negative statistics. But I don't think it is wrong for them to have a sense of black people being their ethnic community and care for its well being. In a multiethnic country the historical demographics need to both have identity politics and some level of compromise.

If a reasonable amount of black identity politics are fine because the alternative is them not having a place and genocide, and there isn't a case of black people being protected by a system that doesn't allow a reasonable amount of identity politics for them, then this implies that a reasonable amount of white identity politics has to exist as well. And if that isn't the case, we end up with the same progressive stack and double standards.

In any case, the expectation that the right doesn't do identity politics is simply false. Much of the American establishment right promotes identity politics in its appeal for non white groups, including ones that came mainly in late 19th and 20th and 21st century, while not doing the same for white Americans. For some politician there is an implicit but not open advocacy, to an extend such as Trump who also tried to appeal to black Americans with legislation. Others, go further than that in the progressive direction. Obviously much of the American right promotes Jewish identity politics pretty strongly. Others including people of more moderate perspective and of more edgy ones, are willing to promote white identity politics.

Black Americans have been here longer than the ancestors of most white Americans(who are mostly Ellis Islanders)

Really? Aren't most white Americans made up of non Ellis Islanders still? Such as both Anglos, but also 19th century migrants including a decent share of Germans and others.

A lot of the Germans are Ellis islanders, and AADOS were here before the 48ers anyways, or the potato famine refugees. Slave imports fell off a cliff in 1809 and very few whites outside of pure southerners lack post 1809 immigrant ancestry.

It’s completely reasonable for non-black groups to engage in identity politics. Historically- including pretty recently- you saw this mostly on religious lines. It’s in se reasonable for white groups to do so on explicitly racial lines the same as blacks do, but I would caveat that white Americans are much less of a coherent ethnic group than African Americans. Instead I think white southerners should engage in ethnic identity politics that grow to encompass the broader red tribe, and let the damn Yankees get eaten alive.

Slave imports fell off a cliff in 1809

1808, surely? Or was there a year or two of significant smuggling in between the de jure and the de facto end of the slave imports?