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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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The problem with this line of argument is that if you directly, anonymously ask normal people about their preferences, many of the answers are so far right that they couldn't be stated in polite society. Especially on the topic of enforcing borders or trans ideology.

This just isn't true, at least in the United States. Even in polling that shows support for harsh measures, there's also still strong support for amnesty for a number of current undocumented and stuff like the DREAM Act. On the transgender issue, the vast majority of people don't care, think it's at best an issue for their school boards or local government to deal with when it comes to kids, but there's the general American-speciifc libertarian view on it when it comes to adults.

If that was the message from the GOP, they could win on this, and indeed they did when that was the message combined with general worry over school closings. But, as we're seeing, even in places like Florida, the Mom's for Liberty types go off the rails and then lose elections, and when the GOP tries to run ads in abortion referendums about how this actually means something something transgenders will take your kids, they lose on that too.

Yes, the median American is to the right of the median Democrat politician on immigration and transgenderism. In both cases, they're to the left of the median Republican politician and they don't really care about the latter, so they find it, "weird", when GOP politicians and media obsess over it.