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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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I don't buy into that standard but I do think there is a cult. It is just a general problem than only one that relates to Trump that applies to many politicians, or even broader political factions or groups.

Making it all about Trump makes it seem that politics is separated between the bad orange man and superior other elites, or Trump cultists and then people who care about expertise when actually politics and political discourse is full of fanatics, actual shills who actually get paid to promote certain agendas, and shit politicians. Politicians doing what people who pay for them want over what is good for their country is actually a worse form of corruption than this which it self is a bad thing.

When Trump's problem's are not unique that much and he exemplifies much of what is bad about politics as usual and the establishment right. Even if he has some areas that he is better and others like this which he might be worse than a Romney figure. This is to say, Trump is not the worst thing ever nor the savior.

I don't like the impersonal process-oriented bureaucracy, the expert elite, the oligarchy behind democracy, whatever you call it. They are hypocritical, corrupt, dysfunctional, whatever else. But they're not infinitely that. Society still more or less works. If

Acting as if this means that society no longer works and is worse than what other oligarchs do, well, you haven't really justified this.

Whether it is supporting BLM, their fanatical enormous nation destroying racism, their gigantic incompetence on issues relating to their generally culturally far left viewpoint and even outside of just that as it happened with California fires, mass migration, totalitarianism and making dissent to their false narratives (enabling further predation) a crime or censorship, promoting false views such as lab leak = conspiracy theory (which I believe you have also done and been highly critical of dissenters), oppressing opposition, enormous corruption, the take over of influence by far left NGOs, intelligence services, Jewish lobby which of course results in enormous corruption and redirection of resources and two tier society, and a lot other stuff. Neither California, nor Biden regime, not the neocon/liberal elites are representative of a less corrupt, more competent way to govern.

It isn't as if Trump is actually sufficiently good on any of these, but the "expert elite" do not exist. Corruption, stealing money, insane ideology. Any experts are not representative of elites and it devalues the concept of expertise to associate it with them.

Actually I don't see how this approach to praise the alternative as elite experts and take it as a given that this proves Trump is the epitome of corruption is any less cultist than the kind of Trump supporter who always supports Trump even if as he betrays the principles that would make him more enticing figure than establishment as usual. Trump is converging quite a lot with the neocon establishment in fact even if his domestic policy isn't going to be as bad as Kamala's.

Anyway, this is pretty scummy from Trump to do since the coin is eventually going to go down and is pure speculation at best, and the guy deserves a backlash for this.But your framing is making it to the benefit of something even worse. Is Biden's history of corruption and enrichment better? Not really. Is promoting crypto speculation and a coin of his own the kind of thing that is such a morally depraved act that puts the corrupt establishment as automatically superior as you present it? No, because even with Trump and certainly even with the corrupt establishment, there are worse things than this.

The cult that is in favor of the dominant faction of elites, ideologues that marched on institutions (which includes donors who by buying politicians get their agenda through) is not a superior alternative to Trump's cult. Actually there seems to be some crossover, I don't buy into the myth of Trump phenomenon being at least today completely separate. It would be better to reject both cults and to hold politicians accountable. Rejecting the myth of their good nature, expertise, and automatically correct instincts.