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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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You know the answer and it's none.

I don't know if people realize how much they're aping Ibram X. Kendi with this kind of argument. Kendi's core thesis is that racial differences of any kind are ipso facto evidence of racism. Why are there more black people in prison? Obviously the only explanation is racism. Hopefully you have the awareness to see the fallacy when it's presented in this manner, as the obvious retort to this explanation is to examine whether there's more black people in prison because they commit more crimes. Similarly, the fact that Trump is the first and only former US President to face any prosecution doesn't tell us the full story. We also have to examine whether he's facing more prosecutions because he happens to commit more crimes. You can't examine the world with selective blindfolds and expect to arrive at the truth.

We also have to examine whether he's facing more prosecutions because he happens to commit more crimes. You can't examine the world with selective blindfolds and expect to arrive at the truth.

Out of all the people committing crimes, the US legal system chooses to expend so much effort on Trump. The one President that has not started any war and has actually tried to downsize the war effort.

The one President whose foreign policy actually seems like it was made by an America-minded person. Not somebody working for the military industrial complex, foreign lobbies...

One thing I would not mind Trump being investigated for would be his involvement in the Covid masquerade.

Go ahead, investigate the Trump admin's role in the Pfizer vaccine development, advertisement and distribution. As long as it's not just Trump but every other little cog in that huge machine that took over America for 3+ years.

So many interesting things that could be investigated from torture and other war crimes [in the Middle-East], to Epstein, military-industrial complex influence, Big Pharma corruption, lobbies pressuring government to pressure social media to censor, human and fentanyl trafficking at the Southern border and beyond...

This is your average US politician, but somehow Trump is a vicious criminal that must be stopped now, or something

Ed Buck

Sam Brinton

Bob Menendez

The argument that black people aren't persecuted because of their race can be bolstered by showing that they benefit from AA, that the media defend them, and there are sympathies in their favor among the establishment. Plus making a direct comparison with other groups by looking at homicide statistics.

Of course had things been opposite and all were hostile this would actually support the idea that blacks are getting mistreated. It wouldn't support the idea that crime rates are fake, but it could explain why black political leaders are imprisoned.

Political persecution of political opponents is something much more common historically than a group being falsely blamed for having high crime rates. Indeed when that happens, it is better to notice and respond quickly to oppose it than to let it escalate.

Beyond that, there was Russiagate which was in fact a criminal conspiracy to get Trump. One that involved members of the FBI conspiring with the Clinton campaign. This in itself is huge.

We also know that entreched bureaucrats were not friendly to Trump. We also know that outside the USA and even in it we have seen the rise of hate speech codes, and intolerant ideology who are against non leftist and especially the right wing ideology on culture war issues and especially immigration. Authoritarian antinativism is persecuting political opposition today.

When it came to J6 we had unprecedent punishments. Nobody expects those who recently invaded Capitol to be punished similiarly. Actual terrorists who bombed the Capitol of a very far left ideology got pardons and people like Bill Ayers were allowed to remain close to the establishment.

The media is also quite partisan, and does not respond not just to Trump but to what it sees as right wing adjacent including figures like Rittenhouse with objectivity with fairness. The attitude is more how they can "get them".

So these are just some of the reasons why we should not take at face value the idea that the prosecutions of Trump is because Trump is particularly bad criminal. The more fair view is that the faction in control of key institutions have demonstrated hostility both towards Trump and other figures ideologically related and are willing to go after them.

Plus it is possible that partisanship unrelated to such ideological concerns also plays a role but to the extend this is the case, we also have a track record of hostility.