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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   27741 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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The minority support of trump upends this entire argument, making it clear that wokeness was not supporting the preferences of the inevitable majority.

Unfortunately, my view from the ground here in blue country is that people are extremely resistant to absorbing this particular truth, no matter how many numbers are thrown at them.

An adversary that doesn't learn from their mistakes is a godsend.

Harris lost 15m biden voters because she was too cosy with Cheneys? Is this the 'democrats weren't woke enough, so their supporters stayed home' argument? Democrats needed to be more woke, promise more DEI positions, legally enshrine black representation, force a ceasefire on Israel (but not Hamas). If the dems did that, then the army of disappointed minority socialists would feel welcome in the now sufficiently progressive democrats?

Sounds just like the DSA meetings I attended in college. Rooms full of white (literal) autists and their racial adjacents (asian autists, latino autists, tranny autists, black autists, white progressives) theorycrafting about the hidden socialists eager for the revolution. In your neck of deep blue county are there people of working class values there, or is it primarily class aspirants?

Yup. I heard someone railing against moderate candidates in CA because "look we sent a SF moderate to run for President and it didn't work".

Harris lost 15m biden voters because she was too cosy with Cheneys? Is this the 'democrats weren't woke enough, so their supporters stayed home' argument?

Nothing succeeds like success. Nuking the legislative filibuster to make Puerto Rico and DC states, or otherwise passing big reforms that actually do things (not just the IRA with its patronage handouts that aren't even getting spent because of restrictive rules) make you look successful. Whinging and begging for table scraps from a dissident faction of the enemy party (let alone a dissident faction which contains your own party's biggest boogeymen circa 10 years ago) makes you look weak and desperate.

Harris lost 15m biden voters because she was too cosy with Cheneys? Is this the 'democrats weren't woke enough, so their supporters stayed home' argument?

I live in a deep blue enclave of a blood red region, and what I saw is that yes, she did alienate left wing voters by not running hard to the left. Her prosecutorial history in California and her stance on Gaza were both highly unpopular among the University set.

She simultaneously alienated centrists and and squishy Republicans by running too hard to the left, but on different topics. Trans stuff, DEI, and gun laws all came up when talking to people outside the boundary.

It seems like she was uniquely bad at activating her base, but also rallied her opposition.

Did they stay home instead of voting? And were they in significant enough numbers to move the needle were they to turn out? I have very lefty friends telling me that supporting Gaza would have won Harris Michigan and North Carolina (I don't understand this one) for (((reasons -ok jew hate))), and that defund the police backlash will blow over once the social programs start driving down crime, winning over Pennsylvania and Geoegia. In their view this would have given her the popular vote by increasing turnout across the blue strongholds, and flipped the key battleground states. This seems too deep in the woods for me as an external observer, but at the very least it seems that my lefty pals have retreated deeper into their shaky mottes, even as more normies are ok talking openly about how theres too many ugly dudes in dresses talking shit about kids.

I haven't really pressed, but I get the impression that a significant number of them didn't actually go out and vote. They all talked like they didn't want to participate in a Harris win, but assumed it was fait accompli.

Democrats needed to be more woke, promise more DEI positions, legally enshrine black representation, force a ceasefire on Israel (but not Hamas).

Be different from Biden in some tangible way, at least.

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