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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31957 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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So Erdogan won the Turkish presential election in the final round today.

First, a brief guide to Turkish politics. The liberals in Turkey are often paradoxically more racist than the conservatives. This sounds very weird in a Western context but Islam is after all a proselytizing religion. Race is a barrier that must be broken to increase your adherents to the faith. What follows is that if you're a serious moslem (and Erdogan is by all accounts) then you must categorically reject racism.

Unsurprisingly, Erdogan has taken in millions of Syrian refugees and even began to slowly give them citizenships. The liberal/secular opposition in Turkey have no strong religious identity. In its stead, there is often an ethnic emphasis and, as you might imagine, they are not too happy with being flooded with millions of Arabs.

There are of course other factions. Some ultra-hardliners on the right have campaigned even harder against refugees but their main candidate got eliminated in the 1st round and who did he endorse? Erdogan! I never promised this would make sense.

Given how long Erdogan has been in power, I don't think it's necessary to provide some in-depth commentary on the man. He is a "known entity" by now. I suspect the biggest impact will be in foreign policy. The liberal candidate openly distanced himself from Russia during the campaign, whereas Erdogan has repeatedly emphasised his supposed friendship with Putin. Erdogan will also likely want to extract a steep price from the US in exchange of Sweden's NATO membership. The official explanation about some Kurdish terrorists is likely mostly a smokescreen. The US kicked Turkey out of the F-35 programme after the Turks bought the Russian S-400 missile system. Now Turkey wants at least F-16s but opposition in the US congress is steep. Enter the NATO accession diplomacy and you begin to understand the context.

From a European perspective, I am not certain a victory for Erdogan is bad. I don't want to see his country in the EU and while the chance would have been remote if the liberal opposition won, it is all but dead with him in power. Turkey is also more likely to keep refugees in their country, though they will probably continue to intermittently use them as human shields in order to get something they want in exchange from Europe.

One final reflection. Given Erdogan's economic mismanagement, many wonder why he wasn't voted out. I think this is yet another example of the importance of cultural politics. Why has the white working class been voting GOP for many decades despite essentially voting against their economic interests? Because they sense the seething hatred that liberal elites have for them. I suspect it isn't much different in Turkey. Politics is often tribal, more than we give acknowledge in the West, and so who you voted for is often a function of your identity as much as your rational interests.

Why has the white working class been voting GOP for many decades despite essentially voting against their economic interests?

This part always annoys me. What are their economic interests? Where are the jobs under Democrats going to be? "Kick out DeSantis, vote blue, and you can all go work for Disney"?

Anyway, I'm not at all surprised Erdogan won. He's had his hands on the reins of power for too long to give up now. It's fascinating, though, to see Turkey slowly pivoting away (or being pivoted away) from Attaturk's vision of a secular society. Maybe the resistance to letting Turkey join the EU makes more sense now?

Why has the white working class been voting GOP for many decades despite essentially voting against their economic interests

Why have the democrats failed to provide any possible case for getting them to switch?

What is actually appealing about the Democrat's vision for the future in terms of how it has actually manifested?

If it were a matter of GOP voters being utterly stupid you might think it would be easy for dems to figure out how to push their buttons or provides something they want.

I don’t think there’s anything necessarily appealing for poor whites about the ‘Democrats’ vision’ but it seems straightforwardly likely that a Democratic supermajority and subsequent huge expansion of the federal government’s welfare programs, tax credits, housing support, childcare and so on would probably benefit those below the net-contributor threshold.

subsequent huge expansion of the federal government’s welfare programs, tax credits, housing support, childcare and so on would probably benefit those below the net-contributor threshold

People who are already eligible for such programmes can apply. I don't know where you're getting the idea that the Democrats would suddenly splurge on public spending to include people who are "below the net-contributor threshold" but not getting or applying for support right now.

To be cynical, if there is such expansion of services, poor whites are going to be last on the list to get any of that and they know it.

In the face of zero opposition, I imagine many of those goals would be supplanted enough by efforts to uplift specific demographics that it wouldn't make a tangible difference to a poor white person anyway.

The only rational conclusion one can draw is that as stupid as the working class may be, the sort of person who votes democrat is even more so ;-)

  • -10

You've managed to draw seven reports on this comment (boo-outgroup - 3, antagonistic - 3, low-effort - 1) which is far from a record but it's still pretty impressive.

You've also managed to get meta-moderated at "Not-Bad" (lowish confidence) so I'm pinging @ZorbaTHut as this is the first significant meta-moderation outlier I've seen during the testing phase.

Anyway, more partisanship = more effort, please.

I was being tongue in cheek hence the smiley, but at the same time in every jest...

This is literally the old "what's the matter with Kansas" cliche'. IE look at these inbred hillbillys caring about low-status shit like their jobs and their families and their stupid backwoods trailerparks instead of important high-status things like climate change and lgbtq+ rights. Deplorable. But here's the thing, if intelligence is about processing new information and building accurate models, the "experts" haven't exactly been covering themselves in glory over the last 30 years or so, and the ones who have (IE guys like Bezos and Musk) are visibly treated with scorn, so maybe caring more about your job and your hometown even if they are low-status is a much more reliable proxy for intelligence than being regarded as an "expert".

Now Turkey wants at least F-16s but opposition in the US congress is steep.

OP probably knows this but to clarify, that means F-16 upgrades like the F-16V which are pretty good. Turkey has been building F-16s under license for decades, they have a surprisingly large aviation industry. They've also got an indigenous 5th gen aircraft project (which looks the same as an F-35 but with two engines). However it's unclear how much progress they're making, it's difficult to make these things in large numbers even if you have a very mature aerospace sector.

which looks the same as an F-35 but with two engines

So, a F-22?

The resemblance is remarkable, it does look quite like an F-22. It's a bit of a shame how modern fighters are starting to look the same. At least the J-20 has some canards to distinguish it and the SU-57 has its big wings.

The Turkish government really gets screwed in many ways by the rest of NATO. Turkey maintains one of the most powerful conventional forces in NATO, it hosts millions of refugees that otherwise the EU would be faced with hosting, its supposed ally the United States openly supports militant groups that are allied with militant groups that seek to secede from Turkey, and many Europeans seem to regard Turkey with a contempt that has noticeable racial undertones even though I am sure that most such Europeans would deny it in polite company. Sometimes I wonder what the Turks are getting out of all this that makes it worth it. Advanced technology from the US? Something else?

They don’t lose much either, and the US largely allows Turkey to conduct its own foreign policy in the region that while not mostly hostile to the U.S. is more ‘adjacent’ than fully-aligned. The large military is a reality of the neighborhood. Refugees are a choice and, as the OP said, Erdogan doesn’t particularly want them to go home. US and Israeli support for Kurds is relatively timid and largely limited to support (in America’s case) for Iraqi Kurdistan, which Erdogan himself appears to have mixed feelings about and which Turkey has long attempted to improve relations with.

The main hostility from the West is from the usual civil liberties groups who whine about every conservative leader from Budapest to Jerusalem. Inside Europe it’s from Germans and Austrians who host large populations of Anatolian peasants that have in many cases become the backbone (along with Albanians) of their countries’ criminal underworlds. It’s unclear whether this means much to Erdogan.

Sometimes I wonder what the Turks are getting out of all this that makes it worth it.

Work visas they can convert into chain migration into Germany.

It's not quite EU-membership total freedom of movement, but it's close.

One final reflection. Given Erdogan's economic mismanagement, many wonder why he wasn't voted out. I think this is yet another example of the importance of cultural politics. Why has the white working class been voting GOP for many decades despite essentially voting against their economic interests? Because they sense the seething hatred that liberal elites have for them. I suspect it isn't much different in Turkey. Politics is often tribal, more than we give acknowledge in the West, and so who you voted for is often a function of your identity as much as your rational interests.

There is no silver lining if he keeps doing what he has done. The country needs an infusion of IQ and or capital. I don't see either of those, so its economy, currency, etc. will keep falling and worse inflation. The mismanagement is not so much to blame as the fact that it is missing the ingredients needed for growth. Those come externally. Ireland fixed this problem by becoming a tax haven, compared to stagnation elsewhere in Northern Europe .

GOP for many decades despite essentially voting against their economic interests?

The usual answer would be ‘they aren’t voting against their economic interests, but they understand their economic interests better than CNN talking heads paid to sell books about the culture wars’.

The usual answer would be ‘they aren’t voting against their economic interests, but they understand their economic interests better than CNN talking heads paid to sell books about the culture wars’.

What, then, in the GOP platform is supposed to benefit the economic interests of the working classes?

I know that the Covid Lockdowns have since wiped out those gains, but the period between 2018 and 2020 was saw one of the largest expansions in job market participation and median wage buying power since the dot com boom of the 90s.

Republican policy can hardly have induced that though, except perhaps the tax cuts which were completely at odds with professed Republican fiscal policy.

Bringing back manufacturing industries. Yeah, we all know that's a dead duck, but the Democrats policy seems to be "learn to code" (get new jobs in the new green industries that are gonna pop up any time now), which is doubly ironic advice in the face of the rise of AI.

Such benefit is indirect, that is the premise of supply-side. Instead of direct transfers, create conditions conducive to long-term growth such as lower taxes and less regulation.

Obviously this is a plausible argument, though not one I agree with, but can it really account for a change in voting behaviour of a large class of people? Did the WWC just suddenly decide to change their minds on economic policy in the last 20/30/40 years?

The Republican platform (put aside whether they actually pursue it) is low regulation, low taxes, low transfer payments.

If you believe that system in the medium to long term creates economic growth AND that the vast majority benefit from growth (either on the job side or the consumer side), then you’ll support the Republican platform.

If you believe that government hand outs ossify the economy and create a culture that rewards sloth, then you’ll be against the Democrats’ platform even if it benefits you in the short run.

That is, you are almost certainly correct the Democrats bread and circuses platform is better for the white working class in the short run. But it is a question whether it is better in the long run, and many voters care about the long run.

The "White working class" are some of the most fervent opponents of trade liberalization. This would not be the case if they were willing to take a hit in the short run to maximize economic growth in the long run.

Of course, no one is consistent and chooses optimal policies. I agree trade liberalization makes sense. But one can also say low tax low regulation but trade barriers is superior to high tax high regulation with trade barriers.

Also, it’s interesting that the white working class seems to support policies they think will preserve jobs; not necessarily wealth transfers. They may be against the sloth mindset that wealth transfers creates. Of course, I think trade restrictions creates some degree of entitlement itself but it is a secondary effect.

Cutting environmental regulations, for one.

Cutting environmental regulations, for one.

Cry the people calling for renewable energy instead and utilising rechargeable batteries, which are made using minerals mined in other countries under conditions that devastate their environment. What was that line about "no ethical consumption under capitalism", again?

The Congo should be making a fortune out of its mineral reserves, and it may well be - but the money is not going past the pockets of those who put themselves in power in order to profiteer.

Maybe for certain workers whose jobs rely on coal, oil etc., but really those jobs' days are numbered anyway and the left and centre-left are the ones who want there to be a safety net/reasonable transition for coal miners when the last of the jobs move to China or just get replaced by renewables or gas. For the average working class person though doesn't seem profoundly important, certainly nowhere near as important as healthcare, public services etc.

After all, working class people also benefit disproportionately from many environmental policies, living as they do in the most polluted areas of towns and cities etc.

Those jobs' days are only numbered if the side numbering them wins.

Environmental legislation etc. will obviously have an impact, but I don't see any plausible scenario under which America's coal mines stay open indefinitely. What policies could produce that outcome without imposing intolerable costs on the rest of society?

The same policies that allowed coal plants to be built and coal to be burned in the past. The minimum is to roll back environmental legislation just that far.

I don't think that would achieve such a goal. Oil, gas and foreign completion killed coal mining, not the EPA. Hence why the decline of coal mining in Britain preceded concern about carbon emissions by decades.

More comments

Except there are no sides, at least not in the traditional sense. I live in Western PA and coal mining had a brief resurgence in the mid '00s as oil prices shot up and "clean coal technology" became the new buzzword. We were the "Saudi Arabia" of coal. Turns out we were also the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, and as soon as the shale boom happened coal mines were closing left and right, and coal power plants were either converted to gas or razed completely. A lot of people tried to blame Obama and stricter environmental regulations for the closures, but long-term the economics were against them. Had the shale boom not happened the coal operators would have simply paid the costs of compliance, and had Obama declined to increase regulation the mines would have closed a year or two later, since cost wasn't the only consideration when it came to power plants switching to gas. The only thing that could have realistically saved the coal industry was increased regulations on natural gas development, but it's not like political alignments are set up as pro-coal anti-gas v. pro-gas anti-coal. It's more like pro-fossil fuels vs. pro-renewables, and this made the laid-off miners in PA, OH, and WV get pissed off at Obama but not equally pissed off at their respective state governments for not putting the screws to the gas industry. Quite the contrary; most of these people were in favor lowering the tax burden on gas development and minimizing regulation.

A lot of people tried to blame Obama and stricter environmental regulations for the closures, but long-term the economics were against them.

"The economics" and environmental regulations are not separate issues.

And now cities and states are banning natural gas well. These cities and states have a political party in common. There are indeed sides.

Ding ding.

Consider the possibility that the elites living in Washington aren't actually in tune with the true interests and preferences of people they never interact with and live entirely different lifestyles.

Whether this is true or not, it doesn't really have any partisan implications, it's hardly as if the GOP national-level politicians are any less part of that elite.

Right.

But the GOP voters are picking GOP candidates for their state and local-level offices as well, right?

There's presumably some explanation.

Yes and while certain users here like to point to the constant infighting between the GOPs national representatives and state-level committees as evidence of incompetence. A lot of GOP's voters regard it as the system working as designed.

Oh, it is indeed Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The only thing is that Tweedledee at least pretends to be on your side, while Tweedledum is calling you a bunch of dumb ignorant redneck fascists.

at least pretends to be on your side

Is that really any better? Anyways what matters in policy not general cultural vibe. Let me know when Democrats start pushing Right-to-work, cuts to public services and tax cuts for high earners.

Anyways what matters in policy not general cultural vibe.

So you'd vote for an anti-idpol pro-worker party? The whole "will breaking up banks solve sexism?" bit from a certain politician does not inspire a lot of confidence that anyone cares about policy.

So you'd vote for an anti-idpol pro-worker party?

Yes. Within reason obviously (not if they started literally trying to bring back Jim Crow or something), but if it were a choice between a politician with average Republican social views and average Democratic economic views, and the opposite, I would certainly vote for the former. Assuming with all else equal, for instance that they had the same foreign policy views.

I don't know how you decided Jim Crow is an example of an extremely anti-idpol policy, but otherwise it's good to hear.

I don't think voting against the people who want to systematically discriminate you in education and hiring is voting against your economic interests

Do you seriously think that affirmative action poses any genuine threat to the material condition of the average working class person? Maybe there are some outliers at the margins, but there are tens or even hundreds of more compelling issues at the moment.

  • -10

credentialism probably a bigger problem than AA

Objectively yes. You have to have way better test results to be accepted into an AA university than a person of a favored race.

And you can use the same "there are hundreds of more important issues" argument to abolish AA entirely.

While the working class mostly thinks AA is stupid, they have an accurate assessment that this is essentially intra elite fighting anyways. Very, very few working class kids would be going to an Ivy League or a UC school unless helped along by affirmative action, and virtually no one minimally qualified gets denied admission to podunk state.

Affirmative action covers more than colleges. It covers employment and contracting as well. That affects the white working class.

Most working class people won't go to AA universities, by definition elite unis must only comprise a small proportion of students, and most of those will be middle or upper-middle class

And you can use the same "there are hundreds of more important issues" argument to abolish AA entirely.

This wasn't a statement about the advisability of the policy, just pointing out that it shouldn't really govern anyone's voting behaviour (on either side as it happens but the discussion here was about working class Republicans)

Most working class people won't go to AA universities, by definition elite unis must only comprise a small proportion of students, and most of those will be middle or upper-middle class

And as more and more racialized politics becomes the mainstream the less there will be any possibility for them to enter. Don't really see how voting for the party that wants them as second class citizens is in their interests.

This wasn't a statement about the advisability of the policy, just pointing out that it shouldn't really govern anyone's voting behavior (on either side as it happens but the discussion here was about working class Republicans)

What issue do you think should be more important to the working class white that would compel them to vote Blue?

What issue do you think should be more important to the working class white that would compel them to vote Blue

Obviously I'm not saying there is some defined set of Objectively Important issues to care about, but the following I would say are patently more significant than AA to the material condition of the average WWC person;

Taxation structure, welfare provision, healthcare, housing and planning, transit (plenty of WWC live in cities despite the stereotypes) and road safety, consumer protection, minimum wages, union laws, public services in general, education (i.e. funding for schools and the like, not irrelevant culture war crap) etc. etc. etc.

Schools: The left wants teachers and schools to trans my kids.

Infrastructure in General/Public Services: The left defends dangerous hobos, one can't even defend himself from them or risk going to jail like with the Neely case.

Taxation (Total fiscal policy if you will): Fucking Biden, Inflation is eating me alive and his stooges in congress just want to spend more and make the situation worse (BTW Fuck McCArthy, useless piece of shit.).

Welfare State: I don't have anything for this one, but maybe can be linked with the taxation and inflation one.

I imagine those are more or less what they think when they contemplate the left's policies. Something more direct to them, like getting rejected from University or their kids being rejected while Jamal or Tyrone gets in with worse grades would be more important, as getting into a prestigious University (or their children doing it) in their minds, is equivalent to upward mobility and a way to avoid several of the disadvantages of being poor like the enumerated points above.

Yeah I’ve long felt the whole “What’s the matter with Kansas?” Hypothesis is incredibly brain dead and even downright insulting.

It’s not even really a hypothesis. It’s not coming from them actually talking to the right. The “hypothesis” is “we’re clearly better in every way, so why won’t they vote for us,” with the only answers being things like FOX News, racism, and poor education— all things that, unsurprisingly, they can’t do anything about.

I think it has applicability for the left too, but more pronouns, diversity, and genders instead of better-funded social programs or higher taxes. It's not only about voting against interests, but politicians not delivering on their promises, on either side of the aisle. Raising taxes and expanding social programs is much harder than promoting wokeness. For the right, same for trying to undo or restrict immigration.

Sure, but woke / pink corporatism is absolutely in the PMC’s class interest, which now seems to be the core class supporting the Democratic Party.

which now seems to be the core class supporting the Democratic Party.

It has been since the Clinton days.

Maybe I'm just old but my recollection is that Reagan stole a march on the DNC by selling "Morning In America" to working class union types like my parents only for Bill and Hillary to counter by making the Democratic party the explicit party of college-educated urbanites and Goldman Sachs.

counter by making the Democratic party the explicit party of college-educated urbanites and Goldman Sachs.

College-educated urbanites yes (though really it's just all urbanites, rich or poor, educated or not), 'Goldman Sachs' absolutely not. Obviously their workforce is composed mostly of urbanites, but their corporate interests (lower taxation and lighter regulation) clearly align more closely with the GOP than the Democrats.

I know Democrats like to claim this, but it's not reflected in how their representatives actually vote.

It wasn't house Republicans who spent the 90s pushing for deregulation of the banking industry and greatly reduced corporate tax rates under the guise of "modernizing the 1933 banking act" and "making credit more affordable", It was people like Clinton, Schumer, and Feinsten.

And then after about a decade of the structural issues they had introduced being allowed to fester and grow a leopard came out of nowhere and ate all the bankers' faces.

Maybe I'm just old but my recollection is that Reagan stole a march on the DNC by selling "Morning In America" to working class union types like my parents only for Bill and Hillary to counter by making the Democratic party the explicit party of college-educated urbanites and Goldman Sachs.

What do you mean? College graduates supported the GOP over the Democrats all throughout the 90s, Clinton won plenty of rural states (92, 96), and Reagan was pretty famous for being a pathbreaking union buster.

It wasn't house Republicans who spent the 90s pushing for deregulation of the banking industry and greatly reduced corporate tax rates under the guise of "modernizing the 1933 banking act" and "making credit more affordable",

It was though.

Republican controlled both the House and the Senate in 99. Gramm, Leach, and Bliley, the Senators and Representative who proposed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, were all Republicans, and the votes for GLB were 52 Republican Senators in favor vs 38 Democrats, and 207 Republican Representatives in favor vs 155 Democrats. Trent Lott, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, considered it a major victory and later went on to be a bank lobbyist. Clinton governed very much in the mold set by Reagan, and was more in line with GOP regulatory and fiscal policy then and now (ie the recent GOP efforts to cut spending and introduce work requirements for welfare). This is why if you hear about banking regulation nowadays it's likely Democrats passing it and Republicans repealing it.

Separately, idk if Gramm-Leach Bliley did anyone much good but there's isn't agreement that it led to 2008. The Housing securities market already existed and wasn't impacted much by allowing investment and commercial banks to mix (ie Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers had never undergone mergers). Imo the structural causes are deeper, a combination of the the New Deal guaranteeing housing loans, thus incentivizing banks to be riskier, plus the Reagan era deregulation on lending in housing, probably plus some other stuff.

It wasn't house Republicans who spent the 90s pushing for deregulation of the banking industry and greatly reduced corporate tax rates under the guise of "modernizing the 1933 banking act" and "making credit more affordable", It was people like Clinton, Schumer, and Feinsten.

Yes it was; it was Democrats too but at least there were some dissenters. Gramm-Leach-Bliley had about ten votes against in the Senate, only one was Republican, same story in the house. 51 D nays, 5 R nays. And of course, Gramm, Leach and Bliley were all Republicans.

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