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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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The democrats have done a ton of positive sum things and there are a lot more positive sum things I expect them to be much better at executing than republicans. For example dems all lined up for the TikTok divestiture, which Trump supported until some random billionaire with a financial interest in TikTok donated and got him to oppose it.

The situation with support for nasty racial/ethnic coalition politics by the Democrats is so bad that it actually isn't clear that forcing TikTok to divest from China will be a net benefit in the medium to long term. If the general direction continues, it will be so out of control by mid-century that Xi Jinping Thought will look reasonable by comparison.

In theory, e.g. environmentalism can be positive sum, but they can't stop screwing up construction projects. Unions, administrators, or environmentalists - at least one group of the democratic coalition must take the loss.

I don't trust Republicans do e.g. properly run groups that monitor for radium in road salt. But at the same time, if those organizations divert resources from checking for radioactivity to the left-identitarian omni-cause, then we are not looking at an even a maintenance of the status quo, but a loss.

We have tried asking nicely for Democrats to stop supporting "corrective" racism, and they always refuse. I don't see how anything other than imposing consequences on them will work. The personnel and programs responsible must be defunded, and de facto legal liability must be increased.

The situation with support for nasty racial/ethnic coalition politics by the Democrats is so bad that it actually isn't clear that forcing TikTok to divest from China will be a net benefit in the medium to long term. If the general direction continues, it will be so out of control by mid-century that Xi Jinping Thought will look reasonable by comparison.

So what? It clearly benefits the people pushing it, and there's nobody remotely powerful enough to make them stop pushing it, so why should they stop?

then we are not looking at an even a maintenance of the status quo, but a loss.

Again, so what? This is a bad thing, sure, but it's an inevitable badness — there's nothing that can be done to stop it.

We have tried asking nicely for Democrats to stop supporting "corrective" racism, and they always refuse.

Because they know there's no possible consequences for said refusal, since there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop them.

I don't see how anything other than imposing consequences on them will work.

Yes, nothing else will work… which means nothing will work because there is simply no way whatsoever to impose consequences on them. They're too powerful.

The personnel and programs responsible must be defunded, and de facto legal liability must be increased.

Except there is no means available, at all, to do any of those. It's never going to happen.