17 ms·

A Worsening Culture War

182 points by admiralspoo 6y ago

moomin 6y ago
This thing is phrased in a really weird way. First: "The left believe the right are dumb and don't have values" followed by "Evidence the left are correct" then "They're as bad as each other".
- rinze 6y ago
  I'm trying to find your quoted phrases inside the article and I'm not able to. Can you paste the entire paragraph?
  - zo1 6y ago
    He's paraphrasing. E.g. the first part about the left thinking the right are dumb and without values is covered with this quote from the article: "From the “vast right-wing conspiracy” through the “basket of deplorables” to now, the Democratic message increasingly focuses on the illegitimacy of the ordinary conservative voter’s opinion: ignorant, conspiratorial, and racist, so terrible that the only hope is mass-reprogramming by educated betters."
- xibalba 6y ago
  No, I don't think so. Rather, Taibbi proposes that the very wealthy and powerful see as useful the division of the country into a "stupidity death-cult" vs. "roving bands of Pelosi-coddled Antifa troops looking to 'attack your homes'".
- eplanit 6y ago
  The Right looks at the Left and finds them misguided and stupid. The Left looks at the Right and finds them evil.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Conservative people think "left" iz evil and disgusting too.
hprotagonist 6y ago
"That's all the media and the politicians are ever talking about, the things that separate us, things that make us different from one another. That's the way the ruling class operates in any society. They try to divide the rest of the people. They keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they the rich, can run off with all the fucking money. Fairly simple thing. Happens to work. You know, anything different, thats what they gonna talk about. Race, religion, ethnic and national backgrounds, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality. Anything they can do, keep us fighting with each other so that they can keep going to the bank. You know how I describe the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep them showing up at those jobs." George Carlin had us pegged ages ago. So did Doctor King: The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I'm in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong. So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking—calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point—that was the second or third day—to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes." And I said, "You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march."
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Aunche 6y ago
  Virtually everything about that Carlin quote is completely wrong. There is no business in the world outside of news media (which includes the author) that makes or preserves money from the middle class fighting with the lower class. They'd rather the power classes get over their differences so they can make money off them. The top 1% in US pay more taxes in taxes than the bottom 90%. Before you ask, I do think that they should be paying more rather than less.
gogopuppygogo 6y ago
So both sides identify the problem and have different ways to solve it. Keeping the two sides focused on their own method of solving the problem prevents any meaningful change. This keeps the rich ruling class in place as-is for now. Sounds like they are doing short term self preservation well.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It's short term EVERYTHING it seems to me; no long term plans, just focus on the next election. It's not about improving the country, it's about making your mark during your 2-4 year tenure (in whatever position the politicians may find themselves). And because of the US' broken democratic system that moves towards and maintains a two-party system, it's becoming an us-vs-them fight, with the sides entrenching themselves more and more. A Dem win or a Republican win (wherever) will not improve things much, it'll just flip flop things around for a little bit and the other side will be pissed off until they win again. It's a downward spiral and I'm not seeing anything being done to break the cycle, it's just damage control and short-term improvements. Reboot the system, change the democratic system, allow for more varied representation, reduce the power of the president (and for fuck's sake moderate their statements, Trump's twitter diarrhea was an embarrassment to everyone), etc.
javert 6y ago
This is just another blame-the-rich piece without any evidence. I guess blaming the rich is very popular right now. The article is really interesting, so it's too bad he mars it with this kind of unproven, cruel and vitriolic thesis.
- willis936 6y ago
  He makes specific points about the ways the rich have abandoned social responsibility and the knock-on effects. If you’re looking for a convenient lie, there are plenty of sources for that.
  - javert 6y ago
    > If you’re looking for a convenient lie, there are plenty of sources for that. Don't be nasty. Engage in legitimate conversation or be quiet.
    - willis936 6y ago
      I am interested in legitimate conversation. Ignoring key points of the article while criticizing it is not a start to that.
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  What's cruel about it?
  - javert 6y ago
    It would be cruel if he blamed the Jews. It would be cruel if he blamed the blacks. It would be cruel if he blamed the poor. Somehow it's not cruel if he blames the rich?
    - lukebitts 6y ago
      This isn't a good argument. If there is blame to be assigned it is not unthinkable that some groups are not to blame and another is.
recursivedoubts 6y ago
Essentially, in the wake of Trump, the political class is accepting the inevitability of culture war, and urging it on, as something preferable to populist revolt. In a rare inversion, the headline is more correct than the article. The wealthy (really, the elites: a wealthy small business owner has nothing to do with this) want culture wars because they want the middle and bottom fighting with one another, rather than with the elites. They aren't accepting anything, this is what they want, and they have the means to achieve it.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  In my experience, the “elites” support better wage laws and worker protections. It’s the small business owners I know that rabidly vote against better protections for wage earners as it would lower their profits, and might affect their lifestyle.
  - CivBase 6y ago
    Small businesses do not operate in a bubble. They have to compete with large businesses. And unlike the millionares who sit atop the ladder of large businesses, most small business owners have their livelihood tied in with their business. Small businesses suffer much more from a minimum wage increase, so of course their owners are against it. Meanwhile, large business owners benefit from a minimum wage increase thanks to the ensuing reduction in competition. I'm not arguing for or against a higher minimum wage here, but saying small businesses owners "rabidly vote against" it simply because it "might affect their lifestyle" is disingenuous. Both types of business owners have clear incentives which have nothing to do with altruism or avarice.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - HelloNurse 6y ago
    What you call "elite" (affluent nice people who feel safe enough to be somewhat left-wing) is clearly a very different set of people than is meant in most other comments (wealthy guilty people who feel unsafe and unsustainable enough to screw everyone else).
Roritharr 6y ago
The craziest part of this american culture war, to me, is that it seems to spill over to the rest of the world. My sister and I, living in Germany, have a very loving relationship, but we absolutely disagree on almost everything political and basically are stuck in our seperate bubbles. This gave us an interesting observation: 5 years ago it took us about two to three months, to have a fight over something that started to become a hot-topic in the US. Over time, this has shrunken to about 48 hours. This is not because our bubbles are particularly US centric, more that it has become envogue to simply discuss whatever gets "the other side" going. In particularly, it is very interesting that "the other side" is aligning ever more so with the US political spectrum, where in the past such a thing was unheard of, atleast here in Germany. I've heard similar stories from Friends in other Non-US Nations, be it in Asia, Africa, aswell as other european nations. Does anyone else have similar stories?
- ixtli 6y ago
  This tracks for me, having lots of friends and connections outside of America. Personally I think it’s yet more evidence that what we can often dismissively refer to as a “culture war.” Is a disagreement over fundamental moral issues that we just refuse to talk about directly or really act on.
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    An example of how the US argues over the death penalty in a way which doesn't happen elsewhere, but perhaps should: >In fact, opinion polls show that Europeans and Canadians crave executions almost as much as their American counterparts do. It's just that their politicians don't listen to them. In other words, if these countries' political cultures are morally superior to America's, it's because they're less democratic. "Death in Venice" (http://wayback.archive.org/web/20091009111114/http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/europeans-support-capital-punishment-too.php http://wayback.archive.org/web/20091009111114/http://tpmlive...), Joshua Micah Marshall, The New Republic, 31 July 2000
    - Retric 6y ago
ixtli 6y ago
I generally agree with the notion that the parties raise money off this rhetoric. However the implied group in the title, “America’s wealthy” isn’t covered here. The DNC fundraisers benefit a group of people who don’t generally fall into that category. They’re rich, and powerful sure, but they’re not Jeff Bezos. Americans would do well to be able to tell the difference between the oligarchs and their lackeys.
- admiralspoo 6y ago
  Are you sure about that? Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Bloomberg, is well, Bloomberg, who spent $1 billion in an attempt to buy the presidency. And Eric Schmidt is looking at tax havens, ironically reported in the media arm owned by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-24/wealthy-u-s-citizens-are-increasingly-eyeing-a-second-passport https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-24/wealthy-u...
- syshum 6y ago
  Seems you have fallen into the paradigm that the article talks about, DNC = Good and moral, and implying that RNC == Bad and Evil The reality is the wealthy are entrenched into ALL political parties, even the so called "3rd parties" the DNC is not a "moral and ethical" bull fighting the good fight against the "pure evil" of republicans which is what your comment seems to be implying
harryf 6y ago
The real question to me is whether FaceBook and Google are _deliberately_ complicit in creating devisive bubbles through recommendation systems or whether that’s just an unfortunate byproduct that’s unfixable? In Taiwan they have social media designed to reward agreement - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/taiwan-civic-hackers-polis-consensus-social-media-platform https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/taiwan-civic-h... - whether it’s truly successful or not I can’t say but if so, then Facebook and Google could adapt
- im3w1l 6y ago
  It's not that people want to create division. But the left becomes upset with your product if you show them rightwing opinions, so if you want to have rightwing content you have to make bubbles so they don't see it. This is what I have seen professionally. Edited a bit.
  - Apotheos 6y ago
    That seems a little simplified, specifically just categorizing it as left wing vs right wing. If I recall from my Sociology studies, smaller minority opinions (in this case what you call "right wing ideas") coalesce into smaller silo'd communities BECAUSE their ideas do not resonate with any majority. In a wide open environment, the minority ideas / culture would not survive, so the participants of the minority views shrink the environment into the bubbles so their ideas don't have as much competition.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      > In a wide open environment, the minority ideas / culture would not survive, so the participants of the minority views shrink the environment into the bubbles so their ideas don't have as much competition. How does that square with the commonly accepted observation that "any community without moderation turns into a 4chan cesspool".
  - criley2 6y ago
    >It's not that people want to create division. But the left becomes upset with your product if you show them rightwing opinions, so if you want to have rightwing content you have to make bubbles so they don't see it. It's funny, but it's actually the opposite. The right wing folks using Facebook become so incensed and outraged at being shown left wing content that they complain all the way to Congress, and the radical right-wing politicians who are slaves to the whims of the populist movement then haul social media executives in front of Congress and literally pepper them with ignorant conspiracy theories. Facebook has notably had to wine and dine famous radical conservatives for years to prevent negative press, something they never have to do with the left. Facebook notably even created "Conservative-only" high level level positions to ensure that their entitled right-wing users were placated. They added outright propaganda outlets to their "Fact Checking Initiative" not based on any objective metric, but on the political calculus of "Both-sides-ism -- we'll put your fact checker next to this liar, both sides get a spot at the table". When you look at the radical right-wing populist movement, the search for Parler and more right-wing safe spaces, and how they use their fact-free media and conspiracy theory-friendly politicians to push truly ridiculous nonsense, I think you can see the full picture of a quickly-radicalizing right wing populist base that becomes incensed and even violent when viewing left-wing or moderate/centrist content. Remember, this is an America where Fox News is currently being abandoned for being "part of the Left", and there are millions who are abandoning Facebook and Fox News for Parler and OANN, so you have to see this as the radical right actively seeking out and creating ever more ideologically pure safe spaces.
porpoise 6y ago
The cause of culture war, as with all wars, is at bottom boredom, and the cure is to find intrinsically motivating pursuits that engage you so much that you look upon the culture warrior the same way you look upon those who spend all day playing videos games.
- colordrops 6y ago
  If there wasn't massive inequality and poverty to be tapped, bored energy wouldn't be so easily redirected to the culture war.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Oh please. You think it's the poor who is spending hours on Twitter arguing with each other? Or watching CNN for hours a day? They don't have the time nor is it of any consequence to their lives. They're too busy trying to pay this month's rent. It's all middle and upper-middle class Americans who have the luxury and time to spend time on social media (often at work).
    - Loughla 6y ago
      I mean, even poor folks have smart phones with data plans now. You'd be surprised how full facebook is with Twitter screenshots and right-wing "news" orgs in the very poor, rural area that I live. So, no, it's not just middle- and upper-middle class Americans on social media.
      - refurb 6y ago
        No doubt the cleaning lady I see in my building working 12 hour days trying to house and feed her two kids is prioritizing getting her political thoughts out on Twitter.
    - diomedes 6y ago
      As someone who lives in Latin America and sometimes interacts/works remotely with North Americans I get this same impression. For better or for worse, America always seemed like the a place with issues, but with a people which could quickly gather and get shit done. Nowadays it seems you folks worry too much about semantics & ideology (on both sides) and will keep electing the next populist in hopes it'll fix all problems, just like Latin America lol. Your opponent nowadays is a very pragmatic autocratic regime, with it's own issues, but this corona-crisis at least showed they can keep their mandate of heaven. Four more years in this culture war and you won't be able to get consensus on anything.
puranjay 6y ago
Social media has made it wildly easy and incredibly cheap to propagate any misinformation. Head over 4chan and you'll see a factory line of ideas being thrown at the wall to see what sticks - which is then further spread across social media. If you were a foreign power and wanted to sow discord in a rival country, you had to buy off dozens of journalists and funnel money to media houses and hope that they'd at least be secretive, if not effective. Now you can just pop open Photoshop, come up with 10 memes in 30 minutes, and use your sock puppet accounts to spread them everywhere - an operation that a single person can handle all by himself. It's incredibly naive to think that social media is not absolutely flooded with propaganda and counter-propaganda by malicious actors. And it's only going to hasten the collapse in democratically minded countries across the world.
- kodah 6y ago
  > Social media has made it wildly easy and incredibly cheap to propagate any misinformation. Head over 4chan and you'll see a factory line of ideas being thrown at the wall to see what sticks - which is then further spread across social media. 4chan has always been like this. Pre-2007 it was basically the boiler room of the internet. You could find memes before they hit mainstream along with all the shitty ones that didn't make the cut. I'm sure this natural filtering was disrupted when we brought millions of users online for the first time and convinced them that social media is the internet.
- snarf21 6y ago
  The is true and is just more proof of the oligarchy we live in brainwashing us to believe the "other side" is the enemy while the rich and powerful robs us blind.
  - florencebuzz 6y ago
    join https://classunity.org https://classunity.org
  - bilbo0s 6y ago
    more proof of the oligarchy we live in brainwashing us to believe the "other side" is the enemy while the rich and powerful robs us blind Whose fault is that though?
Aunche 6y ago
Despite there being no quantitative evidence of cultural divisiveness being profitable for the wealthy as a whole, it's a popular narrative because it's a simple deflection of blame. Maybe the author should reflect on their own writing rather than point a finger at the rich. I'm sure Bezos would be happier if the Trump adminstration wouldn't rig a multi billion dollar defense contract in response to his newspaper. Youtube, would make a lot more advertising dollars if they weren't pressured to demonetize so many videos.
- meekmind 6y ago
  I will agree there is a degree of culpability in the general population and a preference to deflect blame on both sides. I would also agree that it is important to define what "rich" means since making class distinctions and comparisons does change the emphasis and logic considerably. That said, the (ultra) wealthy tend to profit either way and prefer chaos because it puts an incredible downward pressure on the classes below them. That downward pressure minimizes the likelihood of future competition. It's a long game that only the (ultra) wealthy can afford to play. Also, leverage is an important consideration. It's easier for a billionaire to leverage 1 billion dollars compared to 1 billion people leveraging 1 dollar. There would be measurable consequences either way, but that billionaire is in a much different position by having singular command of that wealth.
  - Aunche 6y ago
    > That said, the (ultra) wealthy tend to profit either way and prefer chaos because it puts an incredible downward pressure on the classes below them. Is there any quantified evidence that supports this hypothesis? The corporations owned by the ultra wealthy spent a lot more money on backing Hilary and Biden rather than Trump.
    - meekmind 6y ago
      All that says is dumping money into an election in a constitutional republic designed specifically to put limits on authoritarian power does not guarantee victory. I'm comfortable saying there is considerable evidence to back up the argument. However, I suspect any researcher who put forth such a hypothesis might have difficulty finding a grant. Take from that what you will.
norwegianwhale 6y ago
Much of the discord would be fixed by banning Twitter, where group hatred gets organized into political platforms. And on top of it, their content editors have a very particular slant, that so far has brought a lot of whining, and nothing positive.
deleted 6y ago
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djitz 6y ago
Some of the responses here are amazing examples of this very thing.
- troughway 6y ago
  Don't bother, you'll just get downvoted/flagged.
- kodah 6y ago
  I was sitting here scrolling and my immediate thought was, "Did these people even read the article?" then it dawned on me how late stage this is. People can read an article that speaks clearly about the overarching problem and how it is fueled, but they miss everything that would make a connection to things they value or believe in.
motohagiography 6y ago
The wealthy as the plotters in this article overlooks a change in the last 50 years. A century ago, private industrial wealth and power were in effect synonymous, but today the industrial wealthy are relative front men to a core of institutional players with considerably less wealth, but who have the levers of policy that pervade every micro aspect of life now.The wealthy people I know are not running the culture wars, they are toeing the party line as an appeasement plan to what they perceive as the mob. In this sense, any opposition they might have had has been neutralized. The taboo I think is it's not a culture war, it's a class war that sets largely publicly employed people against mostly privately employed ones. For all the rhetoric around race, this is mostly a Girardian schism between white city "burghers" and their country "redneck" complement. The former see their role as global, and the latter see their identity as national. I don't think even a model with predictive power can do much to mitigate the consequences. It may have festered too long. If you destroy what a culture has built, it will have to contend with you and your organizations to rebuild afterwards.
- florencebuzz 6y ago
  join https://classunity.org https://classunity.org
  - krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NdE9CjkvTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NdE9CjkvTY I'm sure the billionaires are terrified.
    - florencebuzz 6y ago
      Our article is better than the video https://classunity.org/let-them-clap/ https://classunity.org/let-them-clap/
      - krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
        Nice to see that there are some genuinely bread-pilled Americans out there.
fallingfrog 6y ago
Ironically, the idea that ethnicity and other signifiers are used to divide the working class against itself has been a pillar of socialist thought for over 100 years- it’s not a centrist position. Edit: you don’t have to agree with the position I just stated but it is a fact that that it is a socialist position and has been since the days of Marx. I’m just pointing out that the author is trying to paint it as a middle position, and it’s not, it’s a left position. In its most extreme form it has a specific name: class reductionism. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3fterm=Class%2bReductionism&amp=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.... Now I think you can make the case that this is too ideological and not good HN material. That’s fine. But if it is HN material is it not fair to make basic points about the topic of the article itself?
rmrk 6y ago
was making sense until the bs "both sides" conclusion: "We have two donor-fattened parties that across decades of incompetence have each run out of convincing pitches for how to improve the lives of ordinary people." I find the ideas of fixing healthcare, reinvesting in our economy and infrastructure, and shoring up our social programs highly convincing. And I'm pretty sure the polls show those ideas resonate across the political spectrum. And I only hear those ideas coming from one party.
- awakeasleep 6y ago
  Both parties campaign on fixing healthcare. After the latest fixes, insurance for a self employed family of four is about $25k a year after insurance and deductibles.
  - slfnflctd 6y ago
    I'm not 100% sure what the point you're making here is, but in case the reader is unaware, under the Trump administration, the ACA was definitely heavily gutted (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/14/768731628/trump-is-trying-hard-to-thwart-obamacare-hows-that-going https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/14/7687316...). Over less than 3 months, a friend of mine's monthly premium went up an order of magnitude - with reduced benefits - to the point where it made no sense to do anything but drop it completely and start seeing a doctor who takes cash. There was nothing wrong with the concept other than the failure to include single payer. Democrats under Obama managed to come up with something less good which still was a net gain, but it was destroyed by Republicans. Just wanted to make that clear.
    - syshum 6y ago
      What exactly was "gutted" other than the Fine if you did not carry insurance? Which was largely regressive and blatantly unconstitutional but since they labeled the fine a "tax" it just scraped since the court system has not ruled a federal program unconstitutional since FDR threaten to Stack the court.
    - slfnflctd 6y ago
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Pfhreak 6y ago
I agree with the central thesis -- we should be shaking hands with our neighbors and looking to take back power and wealth from the rich. But how do you get neighbors to shake hands when one believes that gay marriage is truly evil and another is gay? Both sides in America constantly fight bitterly over identity politics and it seems like many of those identities are irreconcilable with one another. I'm non binary and use singular they, and I've had some absolutely incredible vitriol directed at me for nothing beyond, "hi, I'm name. I use they/them pronouns. Nice to meet you!" How do we get past the part where people decide it's ok to tell me I should be sterilized or committed, and get to the point where we start turning towards the capital class together?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The key point is that identities don’t have to be reconciled. There’s no reason a hunter and a vegan can’t work together on common problems, even though they don’t like or particularly respect each other’s lifestyles. On many hit button issues, unfortunately including nonbinary people, we’ve just lost this common understanding that working with someone neither constitutes an endorsement of how they live nor requires them to endorse how you live.
  - HelloNurse 6y ago
    There's also the understanding that working with someone doesn't mean taking an inappropriate interest in their gender identity, their romantic interests, their health, how they vote, and so on.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    I consider 'reconciled' to include 'willing to work with'. The behavior I'm calling out are, for example, the people who get abusive immediately when faced with an out group member. I can work with people whose personal views I consider morally bankrupt. If they start threatening others because of who those others are, that's a problem. And it's an uncomfortably common problem. People have asked about my politics, and I'll often say simply, "I'm a democratic socialist." and I've had people tell me I'm "a cursed person who has drunk from the trough of the demons" and that I'm "here to destroy freedom and the constitution." Those aren't exaggerations, those are real quotes in response to a short introduction. I'd be thrilled to get to the point where I could work alongside those types of people.
hannofcart 6y ago
This might be slightly offtopic but related to this article: what sources of conservative opinion would American conservatives on HN recommend to a liberal who genuinely wants to see things from the other perspective? Are there any right leaning bloggers/talk show hosts that you would recommend?
- jetrink 6y ago
  Russ Roberts brings a conservative perspective to his interview program EconTalk. (Russ describes himself as a 'classical liberal' rather than as a Conservative.) Though originally primarily focused on economics, the show's topics have become increasingly diverse in recent years. Russ' conversations with people he disagrees with are his best in my opinion and are always respectful and edifying.
- foofoo4u 6y ago
  I highly suggest you make yourself familiar with Thomas Sowell. He has written countless books on the topics of economics, politics, race, policy, and more. I find he makes the most compelling arguments for the "conservative" side of the spectrum.
wasdfff 6y ago
The working class is the largest voting block their is. How do you keep them reliably voting against their own economic interests and maintain your position at the top of the economic ladder? Turn one half against the other and divide and conquer. It’s pretty easy to push people into fearing some ‘other’ and tap into that inherent tribalism we have in our primal instincts.
freetime2 6y ago
This article seems to imply that the wealthy don't have any stake in the culture war, and stand to benefit most by maintaining the status quo. But that seems to ignore the fact that two of the issues at the heart of the culture war are taxation and government regulations - and one side's stance on these issues is far more beneficial to the wealthy than the other's. One of the few major pieces of legislation that Republicans actually passed while in power over the past four years were tax reforms which were very beneficial to the wealthy. And the Trump administration changed several of the EPA's environmental policies to be more business friendly (and less friendly to the environment). Democrats, on the other hand, are in broadly favor of increasing taxes on the wealthy. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in particular had some policy proposals that would have taxed the wealthy quite significantly. Democrats in recent history also passed the Dodd-Frank act, which imposed a number of regulations on the finance industry (and was partially repealed by Republicans in 2018). These issues are front and center in the culture war. Remember Joe the Plumber and "Drill baby, drill" in 2008? Or Trump's vows to save the coal industry in 2016? And how many times did Pence bring up the subject of fracking in the 2020 vice presidential debate?
bergstromm466 6y ago
"False consciousness is a term used—primarily by Marxist sociologists—to describe ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies, concealing the exploitation intrinsic to the social relations between classes." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness
moralsupply 6y ago
Maybe it's time to realize that the "culture war" is just the realization that we're all living inside bubbles of information, and that there's no way to reconcile that with a centralized "democratic" government ruling people on the basis of narratives and coercion. We're most likely heading towards a society of private laws, but the path to that is likely to be very painful.

182 points by admiralspoo 6y ago

This thing is phrased in a really weird way. First: "The left believe the right are dumb and don't have values" followed by "Evidence the left are correct" then "They're as bad as each other".

rinze 6y ago
I'm trying to find your quoted phrases inside the article and I'm not able to. Can you paste the entire paragraph?
- zo1 6y ago
  He's paraphrasing. E.g. the first part about the left thinking the right are dumb and without values is covered with this quote from the article: "From the “vast right-wing conspiracy” through the “basket of deplorables” to now, the Democratic message increasingly focuses on the illegitimacy of the ordinary conservative voter’s opinion: ignorant, conspiratorial, and racist, so terrible that the only hope is mass-reprogramming by educated betters."
xibalba 6y ago
No, I don't think so. Rather, Taibbi proposes that the very wealthy and powerful see as useful the division of the country into a "stupidity death-cult" vs. "roving bands of Pelosi-coddled Antifa troops looking to 'attack your homes'".
eplanit 6y ago
The Right looks at the Left and finds them misguided and stupid. The Left looks at the Right and finds them evil.
- watwut 6y ago
  Conservative people think "left" iz evil and disgusting too.

hprotagonist 6y ago

"That's all the media and the politicians are ever talking about, the things that separate us, things that make us different from one another. That's the way the ruling class operates in any society. They try to divide the rest of the people. They keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they the rich, can run off with all the fucking money. Fairly simple thing. Happens to work. You know, anything different, thats what they gonna talk about. Race, religion, ethnic and national backgrounds, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality. Anything they can do, keep us fighting with each other so that they can keep going to the bank. You know how I describe the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep them showing up at those jobs." George Carlin had us pegged ages ago. So did Doctor King: The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I'm in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong. So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking—calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point—that was the second or third day—to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes." And I said, "You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march."

deleted 6y ago
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Aunche 6y ago
Virtually everything about that Carlin quote is completely wrong. There is no business in the world outside of news media (which includes the author) that makes or preserves money from the middle class fighting with the lower class. They'd rather the power classes get over their differences so they can make money off them. The top 1% in US pay more taxes in taxes than the bottom 90%. Before you ask, I do think that they should be paying more rather than less.

gogopuppygogo 6y ago

So both sides identify the problem and have different ways to solve it. Keeping the two sides focused on their own method of solving the problem prevents any meaningful change. This keeps the rich ruling class in place as-is for now. Sounds like they are doing short term self preservation well.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
It's short term EVERYTHING it seems to me; no long term plans, just focus on the next election. It's not about improving the country, it's about making your mark during your 2-4 year tenure (in whatever position the politicians may find themselves). And because of the US' broken democratic system that moves towards and maintains a two-party system, it's becoming an us-vs-them fight, with the sides entrenching themselves more and more. A Dem win or a Republican win (wherever) will not improve things much, it'll just flip flop things around for a little bit and the other side will be pissed off until they win again. It's a downward spiral and I'm not seeing anything being done to break the cycle, it's just damage control and short-term improvements. Reboot the system, change the democratic system, allow for more varied representation, reduce the power of the president (and for fuck's sake moderate their statements, Trump's twitter diarrhea was an embarrassment to everyone), etc.

javert 6y ago

This is just another blame-the-rich piece without any evidence. I guess blaming the rich is very popular right now. The article is really interesting, so it's too bad he mars it with this kind of unproven, cruel and vitriolic thesis.

willis936 6y ago
He makes specific points about the ways the rich have abandoned social responsibility and the knock-on effects. If you’re looking for a convenient lie, there are plenty of sources for that.
- javert 6y ago
  > If you’re looking for a convenient lie, there are plenty of sources for that. Don't be nasty. Engage in legitimate conversation or be quiet.
  - willis936 6y ago
    I am interested in legitimate conversation. Ignoring key points of the article while criticizing it is not a start to that.
tenebrisalietum 6y ago
What's cruel about it?
- javert 6y ago
  It would be cruel if he blamed the Jews. It would be cruel if he blamed the blacks. It would be cruel if he blamed the poor. Somehow it's not cruel if he blames the rich?
  - lukebitts 6y ago
    This isn't a good argument. If there is blame to be assigned it is not unthinkable that some groups are not to blame and another is.

recursivedoubts 6y ago

Essentially, in the wake of Trump, the political class is accepting the inevitability of culture war, and urging it on, as something preferable to populist revolt. In a rare inversion, the headline is more correct than the article. The wealthy (really, the elites: a wealthy small business owner has nothing to do with this) want culture wars because they want the middle and bottom fighting with one another, rather than with the elites. They aren't accepting anything, this is what they want, and they have the means to achieve it.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
In my experience, the “elites” support better wage laws and worker protections. It’s the small business owners I know that rabidly vote against better protections for wage earners as it would lower their profits, and might affect their lifestyle.
- CivBase 6y ago
  Small businesses do not operate in a bubble. They have to compete with large businesses. And unlike the millionares who sit atop the ladder of large businesses, most small business owners have their livelihood tied in with their business. Small businesses suffer much more from a minimum wage increase, so of course their owners are against it. Meanwhile, large business owners benefit from a minimum wage increase thanks to the ensuing reduction in competition. I'm not arguing for or against a higher minimum wage here, but saying small businesses owners "rabidly vote against" it simply because it "might affect their lifestyle" is disingenuous. Both types of business owners have clear incentives which have nothing to do with altruism or avarice.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- HelloNurse 6y ago
  What you call "elite" (affluent nice people who feel safe enough to be somewhat left-wing) is clearly a very different set of people than is meant in most other comments (wealthy guilty people who feel unsafe and unsustainable enough to screw everyone else).

Roritharr 6y ago

The craziest part of this american culture war, to me, is that it seems to spill over to the rest of the world. My sister and I, living in Germany, have a very loving relationship, but we absolutely disagree on almost everything political and basically are stuck in our seperate bubbles. This gave us an interesting observation: 5 years ago it took us about two to three months, to have a fight over something that started to become a hot-topic in the US. Over time, this has shrunken to about 48 hours. This is not because our bubbles are particularly US centric, more that it has become envogue to simply discuss whatever gets "the other side" going. In particularly, it is very interesting that "the other side" is aligning ever more so with the US political spectrum, where in the past such a thing was unheard of, atleast here in Germany. I've heard similar stories from Friends in other Non-US Nations, be it in Asia, Africa, aswell as other european nations. Does anyone else have similar stories?

ixtli 6y ago
This tracks for me, having lots of friends and connections outside of America. Personally I think it’s yet more evidence that what we can often dismissively refer to as a “culture war.” Is a disagreement over fundamental moral issues that we just refuse to talk about directly or really act on.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  An example of how the US argues over the death penalty in a way which doesn't happen elsewhere, but perhaps should: >In fact, opinion polls show that Europeans and Canadians crave executions almost as much as their American counterparts do. It's just that their politicians don't listen to them. In other words, if these countries' political cultures are morally superior to America's, it's because they're less democratic. "Death in Venice" (http://wayback.archive.org/web/20091009111114/http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/europeans-support-capital-punishment-too.php http://wayback.archive.org/web/20091009111114/http://tpmlive...), Joshua Micah Marshall, The New Republic, 31 July 2000
  - Retric 6y ago

ixtli 6y ago

I generally agree with the notion that the parties raise money off this rhetoric. However the implied group in the title, “America’s wealthy” isn’t covered here. The DNC fundraisers benefit a group of people who don’t generally fall into that category. They’re rich, and powerful sure, but they’re not Jeff Bezos. Americans would do well to be able to tell the difference between the oligarchs and their lackeys.

admiralspoo 6y ago
Are you sure about that? Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Bloomberg, is well, Bloomberg, who spent $1 billion in an attempt to buy the presidency. And Eric Schmidt is looking at tax havens, ironically reported in the media arm owned by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-24/wealthy-u-s-citizens-are-increasingly-eyeing-a-second-passport https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-24/wealthy-u...
syshum 6y ago
Seems you have fallen into the paradigm that the article talks about, DNC = Good and moral, and implying that RNC == Bad and Evil The reality is the wealthy are entrenched into ALL political parties, even the so called "3rd parties" the DNC is not a "moral and ethical" bull fighting the good fight against the "pure evil" of republicans which is what your comment seems to be implying

harryf 6y ago

The real question to me is whether FaceBook and Google are _deliberately_ complicit in creating devisive bubbles through recommendation systems or whether that’s just an unfortunate byproduct that’s unfixable? In Taiwan they have social media designed to reward agreement - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/taiwan-civic-hackers-polis-consensus-social-media-platform https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/taiwan-civic-h... - whether it’s truly successful or not I can’t say but if so, then Facebook and Google could adapt

im3w1l 6y ago
It's not that people want to create division. But the left becomes upset with your product if you show them rightwing opinions, so if you want to have rightwing content you have to make bubbles so they don't see it. This is what I have seen professionally. Edited a bit.
- Apotheos 6y ago
  That seems a little simplified, specifically just categorizing it as left wing vs right wing. If I recall from my Sociology studies, smaller minority opinions (in this case what you call "right wing ideas") coalesce into smaller silo'd communities BECAUSE their ideas do not resonate with any majority. In a wide open environment, the minority ideas / culture would not survive, so the participants of the minority views shrink the environment into the bubbles so their ideas don't have as much competition.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    > In a wide open environment, the minority ideas / culture would not survive, so the participants of the minority views shrink the environment into the bubbles so their ideas don't have as much competition. How does that square with the commonly accepted observation that "any community without moderation turns into a 4chan cesspool".
- criley2 6y ago
  >It's not that people want to create division. But the left becomes upset with your product if you show them rightwing opinions, so if you want to have rightwing content you have to make bubbles so they don't see it. It's funny, but it's actually the opposite. The right wing folks using Facebook become so incensed and outraged at being shown left wing content that they complain all the way to Congress, and the radical right-wing politicians who are slaves to the whims of the populist movement then haul social media executives in front of Congress and literally pepper them with ignorant conspiracy theories. Facebook has notably had to wine and dine famous radical conservatives for years to prevent negative press, something they never have to do with the left. Facebook notably even created "Conservative-only" high level level positions to ensure that their entitled right-wing users were placated. They added outright propaganda outlets to their "Fact Checking Initiative" not based on any objective metric, but on the political calculus of "Both-sides-ism -- we'll put your fact checker next to this liar, both sides get a spot at the table". When you look at the radical right-wing populist movement, the search for Parler and more right-wing safe spaces, and how they use their fact-free media and conspiracy theory-friendly politicians to push truly ridiculous nonsense, I think you can see the full picture of a quickly-radicalizing right wing populist base that becomes incensed and even violent when viewing left-wing or moderate/centrist content. Remember, this is an America where Fox News is currently being abandoned for being "part of the Left", and there are millions who are abandoning Facebook and Fox News for Parler and OANN, so you have to see this as the radical right actively seeking out and creating ever more ideologically pure safe spaces.

porpoise 6y ago

The cause of culture war, as with all wars, is at bottom boredom, and the cure is to find intrinsically motivating pursuits that engage you so much that you look upon the culture warrior the same way you look upon those who spend all day playing videos games.

colordrops 6y ago
If there wasn't massive inequality and poverty to be tapped, bored energy wouldn't be so easily redirected to the culture war.
- refurb 6y ago
  Oh please. You think it's the poor who is spending hours on Twitter arguing with each other? Or watching CNN for hours a day? They don't have the time nor is it of any consequence to their lives. They're too busy trying to pay this month's rent. It's all middle and upper-middle class Americans who have the luxury and time to spend time on social media (often at work).
  - Loughla 6y ago
    I mean, even poor folks have smart phones with data plans now. You'd be surprised how full facebook is with Twitter screenshots and right-wing "news" orgs in the very poor, rural area that I live. So, no, it's not just middle- and upper-middle class Americans on social media.
    - refurb 6y ago
      No doubt the cleaning lady I see in my building working 12 hour days trying to house and feed her two kids is prioritizing getting her political thoughts out on Twitter.
  - diomedes 6y ago
    As someone who lives in Latin America and sometimes interacts/works remotely with North Americans I get this same impression. For better or for worse, America always seemed like the a place with issues, but with a people which could quickly gather and get shit done. Nowadays it seems you folks worry too much about semantics & ideology (on both sides) and will keep electing the next populist in hopes it'll fix all problems, just like Latin America lol. Your opponent nowadays is a very pragmatic autocratic regime, with it's own issues, but this corona-crisis at least showed they can keep their mandate of heaven. Four more years in this culture war and you won't be able to get consensus on anything.

puranjay 6y ago

Social media has made it wildly easy and incredibly cheap to propagate any misinformation. Head over 4chan and you'll see a factory line of ideas being thrown at the wall to see what sticks - which is then further spread across social media. If you were a foreign power and wanted to sow discord in a rival country, you had to buy off dozens of journalists and funnel money to media houses and hope that they'd at least be secretive, if not effective. Now you can just pop open Photoshop, come up with 10 memes in 30 minutes, and use your sock puppet accounts to spread them everywhere - an operation that a single person can handle all by himself. It's incredibly naive to think that social media is not absolutely flooded with propaganda and counter-propaganda by malicious actors. And it's only going to hasten the collapse in democratically minded countries across the world.

kodah 6y ago
> Social media has made it wildly easy and incredibly cheap to propagate any misinformation. Head over 4chan and you'll see a factory line of ideas being thrown at the wall to see what sticks - which is then further spread across social media. 4chan has always been like this. Pre-2007 it was basically the boiler room of the internet. You could find memes before they hit mainstream along with all the shitty ones that didn't make the cut. I'm sure this natural filtering was disrupted when we brought millions of users online for the first time and convinced them that social media is the internet.
snarf21 6y ago
The is true and is just more proof of the oligarchy we live in brainwashing us to believe the "other side" is the enemy while the rich and powerful robs us blind.
- florencebuzz 6y ago
  join https://classunity.org https://classunity.org
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  more proof of the oligarchy we live in brainwashing us to believe the "other side" is the enemy while the rich and powerful robs us blind Whose fault is that though?

Aunche 6y ago

Despite there being no quantitative evidence of cultural divisiveness being profitable for the wealthy as a whole, it's a popular narrative because it's a simple deflection of blame. Maybe the author should reflect on their own writing rather than point a finger at the rich. I'm sure Bezos would be happier if the Trump adminstration wouldn't rig a multi billion dollar defense contract in response to his newspaper. Youtube, would make a lot more advertising dollars if they weren't pressured to demonetize so many videos.

meekmind 6y ago
I will agree there is a degree of culpability in the general population and a preference to deflect blame on both sides. I would also agree that it is important to define what "rich" means since making class distinctions and comparisons does change the emphasis and logic considerably. That said, the (ultra) wealthy tend to profit either way and prefer chaos because it puts an incredible downward pressure on the classes below them. That downward pressure minimizes the likelihood of future competition. It's a long game that only the (ultra) wealthy can afford to play. Also, leverage is an important consideration. It's easier for a billionaire to leverage 1 billion dollars compared to 1 billion people leveraging 1 dollar. There would be measurable consequences either way, but that billionaire is in a much different position by having singular command of that wealth.
- Aunche 6y ago
  > That said, the (ultra) wealthy tend to profit either way and prefer chaos because it puts an incredible downward pressure on the classes below them. Is there any quantified evidence that supports this hypothesis? The corporations owned by the ultra wealthy spent a lot more money on backing Hilary and Biden rather than Trump.
  - meekmind 6y ago
    All that says is dumping money into an election in a constitutional republic designed specifically to put limits on authoritarian power does not guarantee victory. I'm comfortable saying there is considerable evidence to back up the argument. However, I suspect any researcher who put forth such a hypothesis might have difficulty finding a grant. Take from that what you will.

norwegianwhale 6y ago

Much of the discord would be fixed by banning Twitter, where group hatred gets organized into political platforms. And on top of it, their content editors have a very particular slant, that so far has brought a lot of whining, and nothing positive.

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djitz 6y ago

Some of the responses here are amazing examples of this very thing.

troughway 6y ago
Don't bother, you'll just get downvoted/flagged.
kodah 6y ago
I was sitting here scrolling and my immediate thought was, "Did these people even read the article?" then it dawned on me how late stage this is. People can read an article that speaks clearly about the overarching problem and how it is fueled, but they miss everything that would make a connection to things they value or believe in.

motohagiography 6y ago

The wealthy as the plotters in this article overlooks a change in the last 50 years. A century ago, private industrial wealth and power were in effect synonymous, but today the industrial wealthy are relative front men to a core of institutional players with considerably less wealth, but who have the levers of policy that pervade every micro aspect of life now.The wealthy people I know are not running the culture wars, they are toeing the party line as an appeasement plan to what they perceive as the mob. In this sense, any opposition they might have had has been neutralized. The taboo I think is it's not a culture war, it's a class war that sets largely publicly employed people against mostly privately employed ones. For all the rhetoric around race, this is mostly a Girardian schism between white city "burghers" and their country "redneck" complement. The former see their role as global, and the latter see their identity as national. I don't think even a model with predictive power can do much to mitigate the consequences. It may have festered too long. If you destroy what a culture has built, it will have to contend with you and your organizations to rebuild afterwards.

florencebuzz 6y ago
join https://classunity.org https://classunity.org
- krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NdE9CjkvTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NdE9CjkvTY I'm sure the billionaires are terrified.
  - florencebuzz 6y ago
    Our article is better than the video https://classunity.org/let-them-clap/ https://classunity.org/let-them-clap/
    - krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
      Nice to see that there are some genuinely bread-pilled Americans out there.

fallingfrog 6y ago

Ironically, the idea that ethnicity and other signifiers are used to divide the working class against itself has been a pillar of socialist thought for over 100 years- it’s not a centrist position. Edit: you don’t have to agree with the position I just stated but it is a fact that that it is a socialist position and has been since the days of Marx. I’m just pointing out that the author is trying to paint it as a middle position, and it’s not, it’s a left position. In its most extreme form it has a specific name: class reductionism. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3fterm=Class%2bReductionism&amp=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.... Now I think you can make the case that this is too ideological and not good HN material. That’s fine. But if it is HN material is it not fair to make basic points about the topic of the article itself?

rmrk 6y ago

was making sense until the bs "both sides" conclusion: "We have two donor-fattened parties that across decades of incompetence have each run out of convincing pitches for how to improve the lives of ordinary people." I find the ideas of fixing healthcare, reinvesting in our economy and infrastructure, and shoring up our social programs highly convincing. And I'm pretty sure the polls show those ideas resonate across the political spectrum. And I only hear those ideas coming from one party.

awakeasleep 6y ago
Both parties campaign on fixing healthcare. After the latest fixes, insurance for a self employed family of four is about $25k a year after insurance and deductibles.
- slfnflctd 6y ago
  I'm not 100% sure what the point you're making here is, but in case the reader is unaware, under the Trump administration, the ACA was definitely heavily gutted (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/14/768731628/trump-is-trying-hard-to-thwart-obamacare-hows-that-going https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/14/7687316...). Over less than 3 months, a friend of mine's monthly premium went up an order of magnitude - with reduced benefits - to the point where it made no sense to do anything but drop it completely and start seeing a doctor who takes cash. There was nothing wrong with the concept other than the failure to include single payer. Democrats under Obama managed to come up with something less good which still was a net gain, but it was destroyed by Republicans. Just wanted to make that clear.
  - syshum 6y ago
    What exactly was "gutted" other than the Fine if you did not carry insurance? Which was largely regressive and blatantly unconstitutional but since they labeled the fine a "tax" it just scraped since the court system has not ruled a federal program unconstitutional since FDR threaten to Stack the court.
  - slfnflctd 6y ago

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Pfhreak 6y ago

I agree with the central thesis -- we should be shaking hands with our neighbors and looking to take back power and wealth from the rich. But how do you get neighbors to shake hands when one believes that gay marriage is truly evil and another is gay? Both sides in America constantly fight bitterly over identity politics and it seems like many of those identities are irreconcilable with one another. I'm non binary and use singular they, and I've had some absolutely incredible vitriol directed at me for nothing beyond, "hi, I'm name. I use they/them pronouns. Nice to meet you!" How do we get past the part where people decide it's ok to tell me I should be sterilized or committed, and get to the point where we start turning towards the capital class together?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The key point is that identities don’t have to be reconciled. There’s no reason a hunter and a vegan can’t work together on common problems, even though they don’t like or particularly respect each other’s lifestyles. On many hit button issues, unfortunately including nonbinary people, we’ve just lost this common understanding that working with someone neither constitutes an endorsement of how they live nor requires them to endorse how you live.
- HelloNurse 6y ago
  There's also the understanding that working with someone doesn't mean taking an inappropriate interest in their gender identity, their romantic interests, their health, how they vote, and so on.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  I consider 'reconciled' to include 'willing to work with'. The behavior I'm calling out are, for example, the people who get abusive immediately when faced with an out group member. I can work with people whose personal views I consider morally bankrupt. If they start threatening others because of who those others are, that's a problem. And it's an uncomfortably common problem. People have asked about my politics, and I'll often say simply, "I'm a democratic socialist." and I've had people tell me I'm "a cursed person who has drunk from the trough of the demons" and that I'm "here to destroy freedom and the constitution." Those aren't exaggerations, those are real quotes in response to a short introduction. I'd be thrilled to get to the point where I could work alongside those types of people.

hannofcart 6y ago

This might be slightly offtopic but related to this article: what sources of conservative opinion would American conservatives on HN recommend to a liberal who genuinely wants to see things from the other perspective? Are there any right leaning bloggers/talk show hosts that you would recommend?

jetrink 6y ago
Russ Roberts brings a conservative perspective to his interview program EconTalk. (Russ describes himself as a 'classical liberal' rather than as a Conservative.) Though originally primarily focused on economics, the show's topics have become increasingly diverse in recent years. Russ' conversations with people he disagrees with are his best in my opinion and are always respectful and edifying.
foofoo4u 6y ago
I highly suggest you make yourself familiar with Thomas Sowell. He has written countless books on the topics of economics, politics, race, policy, and more. I find he makes the most compelling arguments for the "conservative" side of the spectrum.

wasdfff 6y ago

The working class is the largest voting block their is. How do you keep them reliably voting against their own economic interests and maintain your position at the top of the economic ladder? Turn one half against the other and divide and conquer. It’s pretty easy to push people into fearing some ‘other’ and tap into that inherent tribalism we have in our primal instincts.

freetime2 6y ago

This article seems to imply that the wealthy don't have any stake in the culture war, and stand to benefit most by maintaining the status quo. But that seems to ignore the fact that two of the issues at the heart of the culture war are taxation and government regulations - and one side's stance on these issues is far more beneficial to the wealthy than the other's. One of the few major pieces of legislation that Republicans actually passed while in power over the past four years were tax reforms which were very beneficial to the wealthy. And the Trump administration changed several of the EPA's environmental policies to be more business friendly (and less friendly to the environment). Democrats, on the other hand, are in broadly favor of increasing taxes on the wealthy. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in particular had some policy proposals that would have taxed the wealthy quite significantly. Democrats in recent history also passed the Dodd-Frank act, which imposed a number of regulations on the finance industry (and was partially repealed by Republicans in 2018). These issues are front and center in the culture war. Remember Joe the Plumber and "Drill baby, drill" in 2008? Or Trump's vows to save the coal industry in 2016? And how many times did Pence bring up the subject of fracking in the 2020 vice presidential debate?

bergstromm466 6y ago

"False consciousness is a term used—primarily by Marxist sociologists—to describe ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies, concealing the exploitation intrinsic to the social relations between classes." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness

moralsupply 6y ago

Maybe it's time to realize that the "culture war" is just the realization that we're all living inside bubbles of information, and that there's no way to reconcile that with a centralized "democratic" government ruling people on the basis of narratives and coercion. We're most likely heading towards a society of private laws, but the path to that is likely to be very painful.