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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30730 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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A common theory is that DEI programs are a luxury program, the first to go when businesses look to trim fat.

I think this undersells a deeper structural shift seen in many domains of the US elite (media, tech, even academia). We're seeing a broad pullback from the excesses of the past.

Ultimately, the fact that US elites are overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning is a structural weakness for the US system because the population is much more evenly split. That's why conservatives broke with previous Reaganite dogma about never using the state for their own ideological means. Hence why nobody is now protesting Abbott or DeSantis for using raw state power to enforce ideological norms. Too many members of the "old" conservative establishment, such as David French, essentially became advocates for what can only be termed as "losing beautifully". It's okay if liberals keep winning because at least we're not being statists!

But it's not only the right that changed. I think liberal elites also understood what was happening and that they had to rein in their crazies. That's why the people who manage Biden told him not to stack the court, which enraged the progressive base. But if you're concerned about overall system stability, it was a smart move. If one side just keeps running over the other side, which is largely what happened during the 2010s (even under Trump) then at some point the losing side will simply disengage or even become actively hostile.

That's also why the media has been somewhat restrained in their treatment of the SCOTUS decision, lamenting weakly in what I see as crocodile tears. The right has gotten tougher and the liberals have gotten smarter and it has led us to this moment. If Darwin's maxim about the most adaptable species are those who are fittest to survive is also true of systems, then we must rate the US system highly.

That's also why the media has been somewhat restrained in their treatment of the SCOTUS decision, lamenting weakly in what I see as crocodile tears.

Are you claiming the editors and reporters of the New York Times et al are secretly fine with student loan debt not being forgiven?

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