Quo Vadis GOP?

[Sheilbh]

An example of that well-funded conservative ecosystem - the money sloshing around the Federalist Society and Supreme Court appointments:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/01/dark-money-leonard-leo-judicial-activism-00084864

[grumbler]

I think I've said this before.  I will consider wokeism to have been defeated when people surrender the thinking that only members of protected minorities have standing to pass judgement on what constitutes unfair and unjust action against their group.

That's pretty much exactly what Bill Maher's definition of "wokism" is.  His example was his involvement in a program to house the homeless, that was fractured by a large minority that didn't believe that the homeless should be housed, but instead should simply be supported in their street living.  "The street was their home" thinking.

This is the kind of thinking that leads to "that statement/act offended a member of a protected minority, and so must be punished no matter how true or correct it was."

The concept of "woke" is very old - early 20C at the latest -in the Black American community.  It wasn't culturally appropriated until very recently, though.

[DGuller]

Why the hell are we discussing whatever nebulous strawman is this "disagreeable wokeism" that we can't even agree to describe and not the fascistic drift of the GOP?

I think the answer has been stated multiple times, including in the very first reply to your original question.  Wokism gets GOP elected.  You can play dumb and pretend that such a thing doesn't even exist, but yet somehow progressive mayors keep getting voted out, because maybe some policies borne out of the progressive echo chamber lead to some very real anxieties.  Maybe we ought to consider relaxing on the "consequences" for free speech, so that maybe we could get an earlier indication of the true level of support for the woke dogma.

[crazy canuck]

Why the hell are we discussing whatever nebulous strawman is this "disagreeable wokeism" that we can't even agree to describe and not the fascistic drift of the GOP?

I think the answer has been stated multiple times, including in the very first reply to your original question.  Wokism gets GOP elected.  You can play dumb and pretend that such a thing doesn't even exist, but yet somehow progressive mayors keep getting voted out, because maybe some policies borne out of the progressive echo chamber lead to some very real anxieties.  Maybe we ought to consider relaxing on the "consequences" for free speech, so that maybe we could get an earlier indication of the true level of support for the woke dogma.

There is somebody playing dumb and it isn't Larch.

[DGuller]

I think liberals understand that government is not the only source of power that can be projected onto the individual.  In fact, wokists do as well, which is why trying to get someone fired is their default method of setting an example on the few so that the many will get the hint.  At least with the government you have some recourse, whereas there is no appeals court for getting canceled.

I agree that nutballs trying to get people fired and other idiocy is very bad. But this is a tiny number of people who are accountable to nobody. One of the great "gifts" of social media is that it can make a small hardcore number of idiots very powerful indeed.

If they are accountable to nobody and get their power via a platform that is privately controlled and managed and also accountable to no elected official...what can be done about it? Hunting everybody down?

And by the way it is not like this is just a leftwing deal. When I was on twitter I certainly saw plenty of remarkably brutal harassment by rightwing people. Interesting that none of that is considered "wokism" or "cancel culture."

Presuming by "wokism" you mean this kind of mob justice. Mob justice is always bad justice even if I agree with the cause.

Do the Democrats need to hunt down and silence people in the name of free speech so they will not be unwittingly used by Republicans?

I recently listened to a podcast discussing a lot of this, and why this has the effect that it does.  If you're interested, here is the link starting at the most pertinent spot, but the whole episode is a good listen:  https://youtu.be/GkZz2I6sK08?t=9083.  The segment I linked to addresses a lot of your questions, presented in a better way than I myself could manage.  The guest is not a Trump-ite "accepting the rhetoric about wokism at face value" (as if that is a remotely fair accusation against anyone here ), he's a liberal just like me.

[Admiral Yi]

I made it about 20 minutes.  Really wished he would have brought up some specific cases.

[crazy canuck]

So a social media star talks about a lot about pop psychology, creates some odd charts which describe his own theories of how social psychology works, backed up by no evidence but a lot of assertions, and that is supposed to be somehow persuasive.

To the gullible I suppose.

[HVC]

So a social media star talks about a lot about pop psychology, creates some odd charts which describe his own theories of how social psychology works, backed up by no evidence but a lot of assertions, and that is supposed to be somehow persuasive.

To the gullible I suppose.

While I normally abhor puns, you passed up a really good one

[The Minsky Moment]

There will always be people on the left saying stupid things and there will always be people on the right capitalizing for political advantage. That's a fight that can never be won.

I agree that eg people advocating subidies for homeless street living are batty. But that does not  constitute a meaningful threat to the viability of the American democratic constitutional system.

[The Minsky Moment]

guest is not a Trump-ite "accepting the rhetoric about wokism at face value" (as if that is a remotely fair accusation against anyone here )

Hans seems to have left for good so I don't think anyone is making that accusation

[DGuller]

guest is not a Trump-ite "accepting the rhetoric about wokism at face value" (as if that is a remotely fair accusation against anyone here )

Hans seems to have left for good so I don't think anyone is making that accusation

I guess if we're just stating things that we don't accept in this thread for no particular reason, I'll say that I don't accept arguments in support of genocide.

[DGuller]

I made it about 20 minutes.  Really wished he would have brought up some specific cases.

I don't think what he was saying required an example.  How do you even support with specific examples an assertion that protections of free speech from the government coupled with cancel culture still leads to no free speech in society?  That's a reasoning-based argument:  you either feel free for your words to match your thinking, in which case society can openly discuss how to solve problems, or you're not, regardless of what entity makes you say things different to what you're thinking.  Do you really need specific examples to see how this environment leads to suboptimal decision-making?

[grumbler]

I made it about 20 minutes.  Really wished he would have brought up some specific cases.

I can think of ten examples without trying very hard. 

[DGuller]

There will always be people on the left saying stupid things and there will always be people on the right capitalizing for political advantage. That's a fight that can never be won.

I think that so utterly and completed misses the point, which has already been stated multiple times.  It's not about people saying stupid things, it's about a dynamic where people exercise the power of the twitter mob to cow structures with real power into doing the suppression of free speech for them, successfully enough that on multiple subjects there is no longer a truthful debate due to resulting self-censorship.  Whether the mob is saying stupid things or extremely sophisticated things is even beside the point.

[garbon]

Hey Musk is doing what he can to get rid of the tyranny of twitter