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PaperclipPerfector  22d ago (text post)   32021 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 2025

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Seconding FC.

You are making it very hard to believe that you’re acting in good faith.

But, since another deletion was somewhat predictable:

Is Matt Walsh going to leave The Daily Wire?

For most of his career as a public figure, Matt Walsh was the embodiment of Con Inc.: self-styled "anti-woke", socially conservative (but not in a way that instantly triggered accusations of bigotry), and most importantly, color blind. For him, "America [was] a set of ideas".

Well, something has changed, because Walsh has been steadily creeping rightward over the last several months and the end product of that transformation appears to be here (and here). The impetus for that video was this interaction between Sam Seder and a right wing zoomer.

We're seeing the right splinter in real time among racial lines in a way that it hasn't in many decades. Which side will win out in the end?

For whatever my opinion is worth, I'd like to register that both Seder and the young woman didn't come out looking well. Seder couldn't articulate a response in real time, but his opponent is likewise regurgitating right wing talking points that she doesn't appear to have put a lot of thought into.

Unrelated, but I thought I'd bring it up just because I was going through his Twitter:

Can you imagine if even one Bud Light warehouse was firebombed or even one Bud Light drinker was assaulted during the Bud Light boycott? There would be mass media hysteria and FBI investigations. Yet Tesla facilities and Tesla drivers are being attacked all across the country by leftist militants and the media ignore it entirely. I've noticed this phenomenon among the right (necessary disclaimer: I completely acknowledge that this is true of the left as well, but they're not in power now so it's not as fun to scrutinize them) to boldly assert the truth of easily falsifiable claims. The "media ignore it entirely" is such a claim: CNN, CBS, ABC, and my favorite, an ominous report from the Washington Post. This story is obviously being covered - maybe more than it deserves to be - so why type something out you know to be a lie or something that 5 seconds of research would falsify? As someone who might otherwise be open to Walsh's ideas, I can't help but take him less seriously now.

Charitably, Walsh must be communicating something other than the plain meaning of his words. In this case, he must mean "I don't think the media is covering this enough", or "the media isn't being adequately sympathetic to Tesla".

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