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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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The Democrats insist that the right to vote for one's representatives is sacrosanct, that voting is "Democracy," that the country is "Democracy," and that the Democrats are "Democracy."

Rhetorically, this might be true, but if you look at the actual comments on the issues, "democracy" seems to get quickly pushed aside in almost every instance I can think of where a democratic vote doesn't lead to the "correct" outcome. Look at the reaction to California's Proposition 8 in 2008 where the state voted to ban same-sex marriage: did Democrats adhere to the will of the people expressed at the ballot box? Or the reaction to Dobbs, which wasn't rallying the democratically-elected (blue!) majority in Congress to pass an abortion rights bill, but to largely rally around the idea that such rights are absolute and don't even deserve codification by the legislature. Or the entire Russia-gate thing, which seems to have been largely based on the idea that a bunch of questionably-funded internet ads might sway naive voters to the extent that we should question the validity of their counted ballots.

But I think it's really only true rhetorically: in practice it seems to be far more pragmatic questions of what power can let them get away with.