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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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All these institutions have going for them is credibility.

I'm not sure all they have going for them is credibility. Many of them are monopolies. Many of them have the ties via informal business relationships or regulatory capture to strangle all competitors in the crib. Many of them are government agencies, so "monopoly on violence", etc, etc.

And even with the media, the degree to which they are loss leaders/propaganda outfits funded by nonsense advertising budgets cannot be understated. CNN doesn't get $628m in ad revenue because of their ratings. Nor is it the default channel at airports or government lobbies because of it's clear quality. It's the neo-liberal regime scratching the back of it's propaganda outlets. Literally 2 people in the world could be watching CNN of their own free will, and the ad dollars would still flow, because it's about maintaining the legitimacy that the ad spend relationship gives CNN and the company advertising.

All of that is correct, but credibility is what keeps the government institutions (e.g. CDC) alive. If your average GOP voter believed that 3/4 of government agencies need to be dissolved, things would look quite a bit different.

CNN isn't doing great, but their reputation still has a long way to fall.

credibility is what keeps the government institutions (e.g. CDC) alive

It's credibility huh? I thought it was our tax dollars that are extracted from us under threat of being thrown into a rape cage.

Short term yes, long term not as much