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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32893 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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The Democrats have realized that memory is short, at least in the sense that bringing up what your opponent did three years ago has less relevance than what he's saying now. Trump was unusually restrained while he was leading, and Biden's references to his past behavior didn't stick because they seemed at odds with the Trump of 2024. Now that Harris is the nominee the strategy is for her to run a straight shooter campaign that accentuates the positive and only criticizes Trump in terms of his most recent statements, to the extent that they even pile on rather than letting these statements speak for themselves.

One of Trump's primary weaknesses as a candidate is his tendency to pander to his base in situations where it costs him votes among constituencies he needs to win. If Trump calls Harris a DEI candidate then his audience cheers but ordinary suburban swing voters think "Is he really going there?" She doesn't even have to respond, since him belaboring the point is only digging himself in a deeper hole. Similar thing with Tampon Tim — trans issues get right wingers fired up but aren't going to swing an election. The more time spent attacking a vice presidential candidate on that just makes it look like the Republicans don't have their priorities straight.

The worst thing, though, is that Trump seems to be doing to himself what Biden never could. Trump was able to keep a more or less even keel through all of Biden's Threat to Democracy talk. Now that Biden's out of the race, Trump can't help but make election theft comments about a popular Republican swing state governor. Why should Harris say anything about it when Trump is all too willing to remind people himself? What does bringing this up accomplish for Trump? Are there really that many Biden voters out there who think the election was stolen? Do swing voters need Trump to remind them of all the things they find distasteful about him? As long as Trump keeps making these kind of bonehead moves, the Harris campaign is going to sit tight and talk about positive vibes. Why go after Trump in this situation? It's an attack ad without the downsides of running an actual attack ad. And Trump seems more than willing to oblige. The question isn't only one of how long the shine stays on Harris, but of how much Trump will add to his own stink.

I think a lot of that might not be true. The normies might be more sympathetic to positions on the right than we’ve been lead to believe simply because modern office politics and the fact that most social media is public tends to lead to normie self censorship. This was what made polling a mess in 2016. People knew better than to publicly support a lot of Trump positions. Being less than thrilled that your kids can check out nearly pornographic gay sex books is labeled right wing, but I don’t think the actual opinions have changed that much. And I’d say the same for things like transgender kids — most people are not in favor of young children starting down that path, and would absolutely be livid if their child’s interest in such things were actively hidden from them.

What’s actually happening is that the left has put shame-filled labels on them, included them in HR training and thus put people on notice that their livelihoods and even their ability to keep their children depends on them at least publicly being open and inclusive and mouthing the lefty talking points on those things. And because of the conforming culture of PMC and aspiring PMC whites, they mostly go along with the watchwords and even out those who refuse to conform to HR. Try saying something vaguely populist right at a normie dinner party. The over the top reactions are not those of genuine disagreement. They’re fear. These people act like Inquisition Spaniards hearing something heretical, not people who have thought through the issue and come to a reasonable conclusion about the issues.

Trump might be pandering to his base, but I don’t see it as a negative simply because I don’t see a lot of people who actually oppose the things he’s saying. They’re mostly afraid to be publicly on his side. And the thing is that voting is the one place where you can express a heresy without fear because the ballots are private.

If they are then it isn't affecting voting much. The issues you talk about were much more salient in 2020 than in 2024, along with other assorted "woke" issues, and Donald Trump lost that election. In 2022, Democrats won the governorships of Michigan and Pennsylvania by large margins. I agree than Trump will fare better than Mastriano, but if these things were going to have electoral consequences in states that matter then we would have seen it by now. If Trump wins PA, it won't be because of a trans panic.

What’s actually happening is that the left has put shame-filled labels on them, included them in HR training and thus put people on notice that their livelihoods and even their ability to keep their children depends on them at least publicly being open and inclusive and mouthing the lefty talking points on those things.

Unfortunately, this works. Most people can't maintain the kind of doublethink necessary to publicly believe but privately disbelieve. Force them to say the words and they'll come to believe them. It's a technique which works in brainwashing, it works in struggle sessions, and parents even use it to train their children through forced apologies.

I think the route is less "force A to say X -> A comes to believe X", and more "force A, B, C, and D to say X -> A notices that B, C and D he respects are all (also) saying X but doesn't notice that they're being forced -> A comes to believe X".

Do you think there's any money in teaching Americans some Eastern European cynicism? Sounds like you guys could use it.

I'm pretty sure it has to be learned the long, hard way. Perhaps after 500 years of woke rule, we'll be close.

Wow - it never occurred to me to frame political peer pressure as a matter of cognitive strain, rather than simply as a matter of personality traits or commitment to principles. I never really considered the fact that it could be physically difficult for people to maintain a set of public-facing lies, and that over time this could have a palpable effect on their actual beliefs. To me, it's water off my back to say that I'm voting for Kamala when I'm actually voting for Trump - I get a thrill out of constructing elaborate lies anyway, I view it as a sort of theatrical performance - but is this the case for everyone? Almost certainly not. It's something to keep in mind, anyway.

And if this does have measurable large-scale social effects, then that's a tough blackpill to swallow, because it implies that any "silent majority" that opposes wokeism will shrink over time, and the perception of wokeism's dominance will more and more become reality.

https://digitalagency.substack.com/p/compliance-and-the-erosion-of-agency

During the Korean War, captured American soldiers found themselves in POW camps run by Chinese Communists. The Red Chinese engaged in what they called “lenient policy,” which was a sophisticated psychological assault on their captives... The Chinese were very effective in getting Americans to inform on one another, in contrast to the behavior of American POWs in WWII.

The Chinese answer was to start small and build. Prisoners were asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential "The United States is not perfect." "In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem." Once they complied with these minor requests, the men were pushed to submit to more substantive ones. A man who had agreed that the United States is not perfect might be asked provide examples. He might then be asked to make a list of "problems with America" and sign his name. Later, he might be asked to read his list in a discussion group with other prisoners. “After all, it’s what you really believe, isn’t it?” Still later he might be asked to write an essay expanding on his list and discussing these problems in greater detail.

Suddenly he would find himself a "collaborator."

Leftists have understood and exploited the nature of human weakness and malleability to power structures for over a century. They are very good at it. Every lie they tell and every middle school bullying tactic is carefully tailored to warp their victims into a shape the torturer wants. They see themselves as sculpting the human mind the way dog trainers condition dogs. "Engineers of The Soul" as one essay put it.

How would you describe the way society worked for millenia before the leftists?

There was no Foucault and no panopticon, just brutal violence and local suppression.

More brute force, fewer mind games

Wow - it never occurred to me to frame political peer pressure as a matter of cognitive strain, rather than simply as a matter of personality traits or commitment to principles. I never really considered the fact that it could be physically difficult for people to maintain a set of public-facing lies, and that over time this could have a palpable effect on their actual beliefs.

This was one of the core themes of 1984, from what I recall, that if you force someone to say a lie enough times, then the cognitive dissonance, or "doublethink," between what they believe and what they say becomes too difficult to maintain, and it gets resolved by their beliefs matching their actions (speech). I think this is an important insight that explains human behavior in all sorts of contexts, not just ideological or political. In the end, Winston truly, honestly, in his heart of hearts, loves Big Brother, just like Picard in that one Star Trek episode about 4 lights that was referencing 1984 truly, honestly believed that he saw 5 lights despite there being 4. I think one aspect 1984 got pretty wrong is in how it vastly overestimated how much effort it would take to cause someone to truly, honestly, believe that metaphorically 2 lights plus 2 lights make 5 lights. The organizations in the novel and the protocols they followed seem like someone bringing an RPG to a situation where a Nerf gun would suffice.

And if this does have measurable large-scale social effects, then that's a tough blackpill to swallow, because it implies that any "silent majority" that opposes wokeism will shrink over time, and the perception of wokeism's dominance will more and more become reality.

I'm pretty sure that I've seen this exact sequence of events outlined by a "woke" person as the means by which they will actually come to become dominant. Honestly, I thought this assumption was sort of "baked in" to any sort of analysis of the "woke" (and more broadly any authoritarian ideological movement that coerces people into repeating certain lines).

IIRC doublethink was not what you describe, but the ability for Ingsoc subjects to believe two contradictory things at the same time and to reflexively shut down any realization of the contradiction ("crimestop"). Good modern examples are instances of what Michael Anton calls "The Celebration Parallax" ("That's not happening, and it's good that it is").

It's been a long time since I read the book, but IIRC "doublethink" had 2 different definitions, possibly contradictory by intentional design. I'd thought that what I wrote was one of the definitions, but it seems similar enough to what you wrote that your definition might be one of the correct ones, and mine isn't.

I could believe that there were two definitions. I don't remember well enough either.

I'm pretty sure that I've seen this exact sequence of events outlined by a "woke" person as the means by which they will actually come to become dominant.

"By informing people that the expression of racist or sexist attitudes in public is unacceptable, people may eventually learn that such views are undesirable in private, as well. Thus, Title VII may advance the goal of eliminating prejudices and biases in our society."

From a footnote to the opinion of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, 858 F. 2d 345 - Davis v. Monsanto Chemical Company

Yeah, I feel like Trump should just focus on: 1) crime / lawlessness in Democratic-controlled areas, 2) immigration, 3) inflation, 4) the Biden/Harris administration's real or imagined foreign policy failures, and 5) the fact that he has already been President and things were pretty good until COVID (which he can blame on China) and BLM (which he can blame on the left).

Those are Trump's strengths. Election fraud and niche culture war topics like trans bathrooms might have a lot of people who want to yell about them online, but I am not sure they will really drive independents to the voting booth to vote for Trump.

If Trump calls Harris a DEI candidate then his audience cheers but ordinary suburban swing voters think "Is he really going there?" S

Affirmative action is incredibly unpopular across America. yet it surprises me how urban liberal types are so out of touch that they think people are clunching pearls over using DEI in a negative way. There’s a ton of resentful people who will be galvanized by seeing Kamala’s election as undeserved privilege being handed over yet again to someone with the right genitals and skin tone instead of the right merit

DEI is still pretty popular as a basic idea - https://thehill.com/homenews/race-politics/4727744-americans-favor-dei-programs-poll/

Now you can argue people don't know what DEI really is or just not believe polling, but just throwing it out there isn't a boogeyman outside of right-wing circles.

people don't know what DEI really is or just not believe polling

California of all places voting against affirmative action comes to mind. People like things that sound nice, people do not like the reality behind the mask.

The Washington Post-Ipsos poll also asked about companies taking up “programs to hire more employees from groups that are underrepresented in their workforce, such as racial and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities and to promote equity in the workplace,” to which 69 percent said was “a good thing.”

Sounds like the wording of the poll was biased to get the answers WaPo wanted. Because, at least the last time I checked, this is essentially affirmative action which has always been unpopular even among African Americans

I'd argue that wording actually does matter. There might be some misrepresentation all over the spectrum, but people do think differently about e.g. a program that deliberately goes out and seeks underrepresented groups and helps them prepare better for applications, and e.g. a program that sets a soft or hard quota for hiring a certain amount of underrepresented people, or even sets aside individual positions for certain people explicitly. Sure, you can argue that they might be roughly morally equivalent. But the shades of meaning do matter to people. In my examples, both technically fit the goal of promoting equity, but one is much more palatable than the other.

So yeah, though it doesn't make for snappy debate, you do actually need to define DEI at some point, and people define it differently. But if we're talking about the "basic idea" then Outlaw is completely correct, the basic idea IS popular. People are almost hard-coded to value "fairness" and so if DEI shows up with that framing, people will go for it.

I think “DEI candidate” could have been an effective attack. Unfortunately Trump decided to go with “she’s not really black,” which sort of accepts the premise that being black is a notably positive attribute.

I see that moreas she’s a striver who tries to parlay identity for her own ambition and status but I see your poin t

There has been a trend recently of leftists here promoting the idea that their social views are anodyne to "normies", but those of conservatives are repelant. To me this is consensus building. That their views are normal, unremarkable, just water in which we all swim, but those of opposition should remain unvoiced, lest they expose just how unpopular they are.

I don’t think @Rov_Scam is saying that normies are cool with leftist values. I read it as normies mostly don’t want to get dragged into the mud on culture war topics. Trump calling Kamala a DEI hire is an insult in language that only really matters to people firmly in his camp already, which is true. The Grill party voters that decide the election see it as Kamala saying nothing and Trump making a vaguely racist attack in response, raising the Grillist’s “Oh, right. This guy again.” alarms.

I disagree on the trans attack in terms of political value. Trans issues are still very much an ick for Grillists, so tying Harris/Walz to the trans enthusiasts on the left, especially in the context of enforcing it in schools, i think works to Trump’s benefit. “Vote for these two and you get four more years of gender ideology in your daily life” is exactly the kind of thing Grillists are hoping to avoid.

Normies just don't think about trans stuff, and they don't want to think about trans stuff. Intentionally bringing up trans stuff is annoying, which is why it's bad for Trump. Normies would also be annoyed by someone making a big fuss to get tampons put in boys' bathroom, but so long as they don't have to encounter it, they are happy.

Analogously, suppose it were the case that right wingers were really into anime tentacle porn. This would disgust normies, and they wouldn't like it. However, if the Harris campaign continuously brought it up, those feelings of disgust would bounce back to the Harris campaign.

The median American view on transgender issues is, "I don't get it, they have the right to do what they want, and I might have some worries about what's going on in the schools, but that's something I'll deal with a school board race, and I don't get why Presidential candidates think it's more important than the economy/immigration/abortion/whatever."

Again, America is an inherently libertarian and 'mind your own business' country, which will frustrate both left-leaning and right-leaning people occasionally.

The median private American view on trans issues is deeply philosophically inconsistent, combining both a level of acceptance that would make Ron Desantis cry with a level of bigotry that would be totally unacceptable to HR guidelines.

In all honesty, 90% of it comes down to what you picture a hypothetical trans girl looking like.

Donald Trump is arguably closest to the median view on trans issues, with the combination of ‘sure, Caitlyn Jenner can use the women’s bathroom at Trump tower’ but also ‘let’s not allow 11 year olds to ruin their lives with dangerous hormonal medication’.

I've commented before that it's fascinating to watch this happening after decades - certainly enough decades to cover my entire lifetime so far - of the left explicitly saying that non-normie, non-anodyne social views that go against the status quo and make normies freak out should be not just tolerated and accepted, but celebrated merely due to the fact that they are oppressed by the majority. Which points to a couple of possibilities. One is that such statements were always just cynical, dishonest ploys to gain power by fooling the gullible or desperate. Another is that this is a case of "Jesus would agree with all of my social views, so you, as a follower of Jesus, should agree with all of my social views. Oh me, I'm not backwards enough to follow Jesus, I'm just hoping that by invoking Jesus, I can manipulate you into agreeing with me." That is, since the left lionizes the "weird" - often explicitly, using the exact same word - it doesn't carry much negative affect to them, but the right does denigrate "weirdness," so it affects them. Based on my perception "in the wild" of how the "weird" insult and, more generally, the claim that the leftist social views are just the normie default now, have landed, they seem about as effective as the typical case of an atheist trying to use the Bible to convince a Christian to agree with his social views. I'd guess there's definitely aspects of both going on there, which is pretty expected with any such wide scale phenomenon around such a large ideological/political bloc.

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