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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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The apparent "Spirit of 68" was mostly a tiny vanguard getting signal boosted by a very sympathetic media, academia, and bureaucracy. The "Spirit of 16" never existed. Rather than a fervor that swept the nation, it felt more like a small, intense, yet frail flame that could be snuffed out at any moment due to overwhelming headwinds from the pro-68er institutional powers. Those headwinds successfully prevented the 16er movement from growing strong enough to convince normies to trade their 68er moral framework for an alt-right one.

I don't think ZHPL is (purely) grifting here though. Right-wing anger has been simmering since the Tea Party (earlier?) and Trumpism was its most recent eruption. Trust in the soap box and ballot box have been eroded by these failures. ZHPL is exhorting right wingers to resist demoralization and prepare for the next opportunity. I'm not terminally online (I don't use any social media), but I am doing most of the things he encourages right wingers to do, and if there were any actual opportunity to wrest control of the country from my enemies, I'd participate somehow. Perhaps he's trying to convince young men disappointed by the failure of Trumpism not to simply check out and take the blue pill.