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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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Ever since I heard green parties referred to as "watermelons" (green on the outside, red on the inside) I've been unable to get the comparison out of my head. Whenever a "green" politician has an opportunity to back a policy which would have a positive impact on the environment (but which would not support a woke/Marxist-adjacent worldview), they can be relied upon not to do so.

It's not necessarily true that green parties are progressive/leftist; the one I'm most acquainted with, Canada's federal Green party, has always been sort of derisively referred to as "Tories on bikes" for its general conservative bent. It was going through an increasingly woke/progressive phase which resulted in longtime leader Elizabeth May retiring and being replaced by Annamie Paul (the first black woman to lead a Canadian federal party, everyone was constantly reminded) but that all fell apart when she tried to force all the Green MPs to make declarations of support for Israel. Now Elizabeth May is back in charge and things are somewhat back to normal. In Ontario the Green Party is emerging as a force among centrist liberals who don't want to vote for the corrupt PCs and Liberals.

I would say as a somewhat broad generalization Green Parties tend to fairly badly fail at their central purposes (a. getting elected and b. protecting the environment) which makes them vulnerable to hijack by outside causes.