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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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I'm gonna second 'troll'. There's definitely righties willing to make argument this bad, but they're not going to make this argument. In particular:

  • There are way too many better examples of biased output from media than the New Republic -- an openly leftist media org is nowhere near as demonstrative as a 'centrist-claiming' one -- and too many better examples of TNR bias exist than quoting something technically true. CNN had a dem talking head online saying Trump "would absolutely try to exterminate people". Cfe the recent ProPublica abortion piece NaraBurns highlighted. And for TNR, 'do you know who else played in Madison Square Garden' is literally on the front page now.
  • "the truth is that Trump, being president and having access to top secret information, knows things we don't" is... the sort of thing that looks like it got pulled from a discussion on the classified documents trials. It makes some approximation of sense there; it's too unrelated from even the often-schizophrenic theories for voter stuff, if only because it would paint Trump's post-J6 unwillingness to declassify whatever more transparently fake than the UFO stuff.
  • People who care enough about this to write at length aren't going to dismiss sketchy witnesses without naming them or some shape of what they're supposed to be lying about. I recognize I'm at the upper end of grudge-holding, here, but there's just been so many incredible claims that just shrugging about who or what makes for a weird bit.
  • A lot of the other terminology is way too hesitant to spell things out. "then the demographics of the next elections will favor the Democrats" is passive voice in the sort of way that ... uh, is a lot harder for Blue Tribers to not passive voice. "stuck with a notion of equality that is anything but" and "it's central to a nation that it defends its borders" are currently google-bombs pointing here today, while other framings of the same concept are well-established in other fields.
  • "my own mental health" isn't as much of a Blue Tribe shibboleth as 'for mental health reasons' or 'mental wellness reasons', but it's still weak evidence.
  • And, yes, the author's word choices and topics of focus don't match any of the right-wing long-term posters who had been present here and then deleted their accounts. This is not a Zontargs post.

It's probably worth letting it through anyway, but it's worth spelling out that it also should be collapsed and ignored unless someone pulls a silk purse from this sow's ear.

I guess you don't have to think about what I have to say if I'm a troll. We live in a shocking reality. Easier to ignore it.

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