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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Dead Republicans don't vote

I don't think the numbers work out. One dead republican is very unlikely to move the result of a state election, you would probably require a few thousands at least.

However, having a few thousand citizens die due to your negligence will have political ramifications (unless you are the FDA and its red tape) orders of magnitude more significant than the missing votes of the dead people.

The US is politically divided, but neither the median Trump nor Harris voter would say that it would be a good thing if all the voters for the other party dropped dead. There are plenty of centrist Americans who would not think "they let all the rednecks starve to secure the election, that is clever" but "they let uncle Billy die, how could they!"

Big disasters are great opportunities for state capability to be seen as an unambiguous force of good. People normally don't like their governments much, but a competent disaster response can turn this around for a while.

But isn’t there a case to be made that displacing tens of thousands will make it hard for them to vote in a month?