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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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Communism, if understood literally (and how else would you understand it), is a spectacularly unpopular ideology in all Western countries, particularly among the "normies". Generally this hasn't needed a specific effort as, due to history, for most people "communism" has been associated with the period when the communists (generally in Soviet Union) killed your grandfather or great-grandfather, or at least took their house, or threatened to drop the nuke on them during the Cold War and then, if they survived, kill them or take their house.

If we mean excessive government involvement in economy in general, that's been generally dealt with a serious man in a serious suit, or less commonly a serious woman in a serious pantsuit or with a serious skirt, going on a TV discussion on whatever measure is proposed and saying that it will harm the economy, which means less jobs and less money for the normies. Of course, how well that works depends on how much the normies trust the expert class, which is probably somewhat less so these days than before the pandemic.

Indeed, even in the US it has been my experience that it's not "the normies" that need convincing.

Of course, how well that works depends on how much the normies trust the expert class

And the expert class being united in a belief that such measures are bad. That can't be taken for granted either.