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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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From a far left perspective, Biden has mostly failed at being better than a Republican

Do they really think that? They must have short memories, because when Trump was in charge, they really thought the end was nigh. I cannot overstate how much these people really thought Trump was, well, just the worst in about every possible way. Like they really thought that any day he was gonna overturn democracy, start sending jews to concentration camps, all of that stuff. And Trump is who Biden is up against this time.

They still think the end is nigh.

I think there was a large cohort of sheltered well-meaning liberals who genuinely thought that all the chaos breaking out in America and the world was the result of Orange Man Bad. It seemed a reasonable assumption, because a) that’s what every major media outlet told them and b) the chaos really did happen to start right around the time Trump took office. They thought that as soon as Trump walked out of the White House, that reality would magically reset to brunch and reruns of Parks and Rec and everyone would live happily ever after. Now, they’re starting to realize that the world is just falling apart for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with Trump, and Biden isn’t doing anything to effectively handle it. That cohort is starting to get angry because they feel like they were fooled.

I have to wonder how much of this is confusion between the hard leftists who wanted Bernie and the center-left who much preferred to have Biden leading the fight.

That's an optimistic way of looking at it, in that these people might not just be moving further and further left really fast, or swinging with whatever is trendy right now. I hope you're right!