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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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It's hard to become a dictator in the US, would be one huge reason. When people are worried he's going to 'become a dictator' there are a lot of steps that would need to happen, only some of which he has any control over.

Sure. But it seems like this is just bolstering my case. Yes, it is hard to turn the US into a dictatorship. That's why he wasn't able to do it in his first four years. We can extrapolate that he probably won't do it in his second four years either.

I think the right's self image of being very tolerant of different opinions is massively exaggerated though

I don't disagree. Especially if we take a broad historical view. Going back not only through the religious right of the 80s and 90s, but going all the way back, through the centuries of western political thought; if we polled most people who could at all be classified as "rightist" throughout history, "tolerance of dissent" would probably not rank highly as a political virtue for most of them. And the right is no stranger to moral judgement and condemnation, certainly. I don't deny any of that.

Ultimately the only person I can speak for is myself. The views I have expressed here are not universal among "my side", although they are not wholly unique to me either.

The terms "left" and "right", although convenient, may not be the most accurate terms for our current political context. Perhaps "woke" and "anti-woke" might be better?

there are tonnes of people on the right who absolutely revel in liberal tears and obviously loathe their political opponents.

Oh sure. Some amount of animus towards your political opponents is natural and unavoidable. I get angry at people, I find myself wondering why they have to be such NPCs. But I think all of that is still importantly different from thinking that your opponents are evil. Evil is harder to come back from; there's less chance of redemption. It seems unclear how one could sincerely wish for there to be any space for "evil" to flourish in the world. If possible, I'd like for my opponents to have a space in the world where they can be happy and live their lives according to the principles they believe in. I just want them to do it away from me.

You say you just see me as different but in the end our ideas are probably incommensurate so if you are going to impose your beliefs on mine (as is the right of those who win elections), how do you feel okay about it if you don't think your ideas are superior but just different?

I don't think there's much that can be said in the abstract here without a concrete example to work through (what am I imposing on you, by what mechanism, etc).