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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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I’m going to disagree a bit. There’s a tipping point for any person at which they’re willing to cross a whole lot of lines to get things back to how they believe they should be. And to be honest most of the people who believe that believe in either communism or stolen elections are probably not going to do anything to stop someone else from doing it. If I truly believe that Joe Biden won in 2024, I may not personally fly to DC to try to stop certification, but I’m also not going to stop you from doing exactly that. If it bothers me enough, I might even donate to causes that believe in what I believe. The lady in the pews who opposes abortion probably donates to the cause.

To cut a very long story short, there are gradations in radicalization and normalization in any political or social opinion. And there are gradations of being involved as well. Not everyone is going to be on the bleeding edge, but they will often at least grudgingly accept those who are. And as you get closer to whatever edge you’re on, you’re increasingly okay with personal involvement in the cause. And those support networks allow the fringe to. Operate more easily. If it’s a militant group, someone might allow them to meet in their field. Or even just not say anything to outsiders about the group.

I agree with most of this, but I don't think the US is anywhere near where it was in the 70's in this regard, and certainly not as divided as Northern Ireland was, and things held together just fine. The tipping point for most people in a wealthy country is pretty high.

1973 saw 2-3 domestic bombings daily! We don’t blow up transformers and police stations anymore so much as shoot groups of random people.

Of course, the domestic terrorists of the 70s were left wing radicals whose white leadership often went on to careers in academia which is hard to imagine for the current right wing radicals.

Back to the topic at hand. I don’t know how to compare the two.