Would the Right have more success if it dropped the culture wars?

[Airyaman]

Or if they went back to supporting small government and limited federal powers?

They still do that...when a Democrat is president.

 

[Winston]

I think many in this thread are operating on a Pre-Trump playbook.

Trump accelerated the GOP culture war by like 30 years.

 

[bongsaway]

I suspect they would have more success if they quit worrying about who is loving who and who wants to be what a person wants to be.
I also suspect it's not the Republicans entirely but those who give and control the purse strings. (Koch and others)

I agree. These are not grass roots issues, these are issues ginned up by the money people to keep the base of the gop fired up. If a woman has an abortion in montana, how does anyone but her and the medical professionals know? So, with that in mind, how did her abortion affect anyone but herself and yet it's a huge issue for some reason?

Culture wars are all the gop has, they have no ideas for policies, they don't know how to govern and will give tax cuts to those who don't need them while protecting their dearly beloved second amendment no matter how many people die from firearms, not even their own children.

 

[bongsaway]

Or if they went back to supporting small government and limited federal powers?

In a country of three hundred and fifty million folks, what does small government look like? The gop does everything in its powers to limit federal powers already, when the dems are in control.

 

[JMB802]

After stinging losses spurred by the GOP position on abortion rights, is it time the Right reconsiders its position on the culture war?

I think a lot of the culture war drama and angst is fueled by Conservative media outlets. We see people posting "random weirdo from the other side behaving badly" threads here all the time. The stories obviously get clicks and drive revenue so I don't see them vanishing anytime soon. It seems to be generational so perhaps the demand for angertainment will eventually die off (so to speak).

 

[Dans La Lune]

After stinging losses spurred by the GOP position on abortion rights, is it time the Right reconsiders its position on the culture war?

What would they have to run on without the culture wars? The eternal question I ask Republicans is what their favourite GOP policy is. The answer is always crickets.

No, they wouldn't have more success. The culture wars are designed to distract Republican voters from their abysmal, anti-working class, downward-punching economic policies.

The rich be like, "Tax cuts for me, hatred for thee!"

 

[Dans La Lune]

The Left, generally, is the aggressor in the culture war - it's in the very name "progressive".

No, the right is the aggressor of the culture wars. The social left (disaffected minorities, LGBTQ) are like, 'Can you please treat us as equals?'

The right is like, 'NO! How DARE you ask for special treatment. How DARE you ask for a police not to beat and harass you. You're TOO WOKE.'

They are the ones trying to change society along an ever-shifting set of positions that leave the "woke" beliefs of ten or fifteen years ago "hateful bigotry" today. The Dobbs decision created "a" crosswave of young voters (always more left) showing up to the polls, but, the wokeness stuff has cost Democrats consistently.

Woke definition:

Definition of WOKE

aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice) —often used in contexts that suggest someone's expressed beliefs about such matters are not backed with genuine concern or action… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

Woke literally means that are you aware that some people are systemically treated differently than others. The alternative to woke is almost definitionally to be ignorant.

Democrats are trying to do this while a huge chunk of their base - African Americans - remain deeply religious, and generally more conservative theologically. That's a serious internal vulnerability for them.

I think Democrats would be better served by giving up most culture war issues, and sticking to economic ones, than Republicans would.

^^^^

Pure, unadulterated ignorance of actual history.

Republicans, and even the religious right, were unconcerned with abortion as an issue until guys like Jerry Falwell decided to use it as a wedge issue.

 

[coyote505]

The Left, generally, is the aggressor in the culture war - it's in the very name "progressive". They are the ones trying to change society along an ever-shifting set of positions that leave the "woke" beliefs of ten or fifteen years ago "hateful bigotry" today. The Dobbs decision created "a" crosswave of young voters (always more left) showing up to the polls, but, the wokeness stuff has cost Democrats consistently.

Democrats are trying to do this while a huge chunk of their base - African Americans - remain deeply religious, and generally more conservative theologically. That's a serious internal vulnerability for them.

I think Democrats would be better served by giving up most culture war issues, and sticking to economic ones, than Republicans would.

When I think of "progressive", I think of cancer, a progressive disease. Gangrene is also progressive.

Whether "progress" is good depends on the direction it is going. I for one do not find the Democrat direction appealing.

 

[Phys251]

After stinging losses spurred by the GOP position on abortion rights, is it time the Right reconsiders its position on the culture war?

If they did that, they'd alienate their evangelical base. Republicans cannot win at the national level without white evangelicals.

 

[Phys251]

The Left, generally, is the aggressor in the culture war - it's in the very name "progressive". They are the ones trying to change society along an ever-shifting set of positions that leave the "woke" beliefs of ten or fifteen years ago "hateful bigotry" today. The Dobbs decision created "a" crosswave of young voters (always more left) showing up to the polls, but, the wokeness stuff has cost Democrats consistently.

Democrats are trying to do this while a huge chunk of their base - African Americans - remain deeply religious, and generally more conservative theologically. That's a serious internal vulnerability for them.

I think Democrats would be better served by giving up most culture war issues, and sticking to economic ones, than Republicans would.

In the midterms, we held the Senate and staved off major losses in the House because we focused on social over economic issues.

Social conservatism is a dinosaur.

 

[Dans La Lune]

In the midterms, we held the Senate and staved off major losses in the House because we focused on social over economic issues.

Social conservatism is a dinosaur.

I would say there are a number of factors that lead to the Dems holding the Senate and only barely losing the House. The biggest factor is that the right-wing is chaotic, anti-democratic, post-truth, and literally have no policies except picking fights in bathrooms over genitalia and sifting through school libraries looking for books to ban. There is no stability from them. People are looking for stability. The Republicans picked terrible candidates, but honestly aren't 99% of their candidates terrible at this point? Who is left? They drained the swamp, leaving nothing but rancid feces. The odour is not palatable to voters.

The Democrats' actual message was secondary at best (IMO), and COVID deaths that disproportionately impacted Republicans ate around the edges of close races.

While I think Dems would win almost every single race if they ran on a progressive, populist, FDR-esque message, their current brand of being moderate / milquetoast ironically benefited them.

 

[Jacksprat]

After stinging losses spurred by the GOP position on abortion rights, is it time the Right reconsiders its position on the culture war?

Does the GOP have anything else?

 

[Phys251]

I would say there are a number of factors that lead to the Dems holding the Senate and only barely losing the House. The biggest factor is that the right-wing is chaotic, anti-democratic, post-truth, and literally have no policies except picking fights in bathrooms over genitalia and sifting through school libraries looking for books to ban. There is no stability from them. People are looking for stability. The Republicans picked terrible candidates, but honestly aren't 99% of their candidates terrible at this point? Who is left? They drained the swamp, leaving nothing but rancid feces. The odour is not palatable to voters.

Fair points.

The Democrats' actual message was secondary at best (IMO), and COVID deaths that disproportionately impacted Republicans ate around the edges of close races.

And yet the grassroots support for women's choice worked.

While I think Dems would win almost every single race if they ran on a progressive, populist, FDR-esque message, their current brand of being moderate / milquetoast ironically benefited them.

Underpromise and overdeliver?

 

[AGENT J]

After stinging losses spurred by the GOP position on abortion rights, is it time the Right reconsiders its position on the culture war?

Yes
and i ase that answer over the amount of righties in real life that i hear bitch about it and that are upset with their own party and have not voted, voted for other parties or voted for a righty that didnt get the elite support because that person was not doing the false narrative boogie man thing

 

[jpevans]

Would the no nothing party have more success if they knew something...

 

[reflechissez]

The Left, generally, is the aggressor in the culture war - it's in the very name "progressive". They are the ones trying to change society along an ever-shifting set of positions that leave the "woke" beliefs of ten or fifteen years ago "hateful bigotry" today. The Dobbs decision created "a" crosswave of young voters (always more left) showing up to the polls, but, the wokeness stuff has cost Democrats consistently.
" and "
Democrats are trying to do this while a huge chunk of their base - African Americans - remain deeply religious, and generally more conservative theologically. That's a serious internal vulnerability for them.

I think Democrats would be better served by giving up most culture war issues, and sticking to economic ones, than Republicans would.

You need to quantify "huge chunk" and "deeply religious." I'm black. I'm not seeing it.

 

[reflechissez]

This I completely agree with.

In a nutshell, culture wars are a boon to the Republicans (who really have nothing to run on, but culture wars and wedge issues) and a bane to Democrats where they diminish the focus on economic issues of overwhelming importance to Americans.

Unfortunately this is by design because so many Democrats are effectively and lucratively paid by their donor base not to focus on said issues as the policies needed to address them would hurt the bottom line of these benefactors; culture wars importantly fill that void and smokescreen for their inaction on said issues.

show your work

 

[choiceone]

No, culture war stuff is what the right excels at. They nominate candidates who are personally off-putting, authoritarian, or unfit for office. Voters hate cutting spending so Republicans can cut taxes for Scrooge McDuck. Their abortion policies are similarly unpopular.

In contrast, voters are with them on culture war stuff. That's the entire reason Republicans win approximately 50% of the time...because Republicans intuitively understand their values and don't talk to them like they are idiots. When it comes to culture war stuff, it's the *Democrats* who need to knock that shit off. Stop talking about how you want to defund the police and use the money for sex change surgeries for illegal immigrants, and Dems will win more elections.

You write as if the Republican policy on abortion is not part of their culture war stuff. It most certainly is. It has to do with economics only indirectly. It's all about controlling persons sexually and using authority to define sex, what it's for, etc.

Being against gayness, gay marriage, sex change surgery, etc., is directly related to being against abortion, because it is against sex that does not result in pregnancy, as it is pregnancy that does not result in childbirth. These people want women to have sex to become pregnant and to carry pregnancies to term. They don't want gay people, people who can't reproduce, etc.

It's even why they want to get rid of Medicare and probably accounts for their Covid policies (let the old die naturally because they aren't good for reproduction any more).

 

[choiceone]

The Left, generally, is the aggressor in the culture war - it's in the very name "progressive". They are the ones trying to change society along an ever-shifting set of positions that leave the "woke" beliefs of ten or fifteen years ago "hateful bigotry" today. The Dobbs decision created "a" crosswave of young voters (always more left) showing up to the polls, but, the wokeness stuff has cost Democrats consistently.

Democrats are trying to do this while a huge chunk of their base - African Americans - remain deeply religious, and generally more conservative theologically. That's a serious internal vulnerability for them.

I think Democrats would be better served by giving up most culture war issues, and sticking to economic ones, than Republicans would.

This is ridiculous. The biggest of the culture war policies is the legality/illegality of abortion.

Roe v Wade was preceded by a decade-long movement for the reform and repeal of state anti-abortion laws, and it was led by doctors and Protestant pastors and church group women as well as feminists. The only organization in the US that was against at least reform of those laws was the Catholic church as an organization, though about half of lay Catholics were pro-choice then and more than half are pro-choice now.

Roe v Wade was decided half a century ago, a period about one-fifth to one-fourth of the life of our nation.
In the last few months, some state laws have gone into place that:

threatened a pregnant woman's life so much that the feds took it to court;
caused a woman to have to carry a dead fetus till she had a stillbirth;
cause a woman tobleed out for over a week at home after a miscarriage while waiting to be close enough to death to be treated.

A Republican would say, of course, that all this will eventually work out. That's because a Republican doesn't care if women die in the interim. They actually believe that an embryo with no mind at all is equal in value to a woman with a mind who is therefore a person, probably because they don't believe women ARE persons.

This isn't a culture war issue. I for one think the SC made a mistake when it suggested that the 14th A did not
recognize that pregnant girls/women had a right to life and health/autonomy as part of liberty and so a right to self-defense in relation to them and doctors had a right to help their self-defense in that regard.

I'll never change, so if this far right wing court is the way things ought to be, I'll just move on to the next plane of existence grateful that my nephew and his wife and daughter are safe because the latter two are Canadians.

 

[choiceone]

When I think of "progressive", I think of cancer, a progressive disease. Gangrene is also progressive.

Whether "progress" is good depends on the direction it is going. I for one do not find the Democrat direction appealing.

You need to start thinking of progressive as the basis of your being on this forum. Computers, internet, focums, communication by transgressing physical spacetime boundaries - all that is progress. Erase it and if you had cancer, there'd be no medical cure or advancement toward cure. Gangrene would set in, because there wouldn't have been medical progress to prevent that result.

That is the Democratic direction - more medical progress, more communication progress, more transportation progress, etc. The Republican direction is back to the 19th century, and its shorter lifespan and larger population that truly believed people would never be able to fly and going to the moon was a pipe dream of kooks.

 

[Gatsby]

You write as if the Republican policy on abortion is not part of their culture war stuff. It most certainly is. It has to do with economics only indirectly. It's all about controlling persons sexually and using authority to define sex, what it's for, etc.

Being against gayness, gay marriage, sex change surgery, etc., is directly related to being against abortion, because it is against sex that does not result in pregnancy, as it is pregnancy that does not result in childbirth. These people want women to have sex to become pregnant and to carry pregnancies to term. They don't want gay people, people who can't reproduce, etc.

It's even why they want to get rid of Medicare and probably accounts for their Covid policies (let the old die naturally because they aren't good for reproduction any more).

Sounds like we are operating under two very different definitions of what constitutes "culture war stuff." I don't think it's synonymous with all non-economic policies, nor is it synonymous with social liberalism/conservatism, although there is definitely some overlap. There are plenty of social conservatives who I wouldn't consider culture warriors (e.g. Ross Douthat, David French) and plenty of culture warriors who aren't particularly socially conservative (e.g. Milo Yiannopolis).

In my view, what defines culture war stuff are issues where there is a lot of grievance peddling (e.g. critical race theory); issues where the values of many people change suddenly and inexplicably (e.g. transgender medicine for children); or issues that are mostly engaged performatively to show how horrible the other political tribe is, rather than out of any deep concern for the issue at hand (e.g. asylum caravans vs kids in cages).

That kind of stuff usually plays to conservatives' benefit, because by definition their side is the slower to change. That's sometimes bad because they are slower to embrace needed societal changes (e.g. civil rights and same-sex marriage), but it's often good because they are more likely to avoid the latest goofy social craze (e.g. puberty blockers and defunding the police).

Liberals would be a lot better off if they just picked a few tried-and-true social issues where they have popular views (e.g. legal abortion, legal weed, and legal whatever kind of freaky sex people want), and otherwise dropped it. Then they can run mostly on economics and vanilla pro-democracy talking points. Liberals would benefit from toning down the culture war stuff much more than conservatives would.

 

[coyote505]

You need to start thinking of progressive as the basis of your being on this forum. Computers, internet, focums, communication by transgressing physical spacetime boundaries - all that is progress. Erase it and if you had cancer, there'd be no medical cure or advancement toward cure. Gangrene would set in, because there wouldn't have been medical progress to prevent that result.

That is the Democratic direction - more medical progress, more communication progress, more transportation progress, etc. The Republican direction is back to the 19th century, and its shorter lifespan and larger population that truly believed people would never be able to fly and going to the moon was a pipe dream of kooks.

I think of the Great Society, which destroyed Black and many other families by encouraging fathers to move on. I think of gun control and BATF at Waco. And a lot of other disgusting things.

 

[Ouroboros]

After stinging losses spurred by the GOP position on abortion rights, is it time the Right reconsiders its position on the culture war?

How do you interpret the debate on abortion rights to be part of the "culture war?"

Hint' it's not.

 

[Ouroboros]

I think of the Great Society, which destroyed Black and many other families by encouraging fathers to move on. I think of gun control and BATF at Waco. And a lot of other disgusting things.

I've heard about deleterious effects of the welfare state, but what are the specific factors that encouraged Black fathers to "move on?"

 

[Ouroboros]

What would they have to run on without the culture wars? The eternal question I ask Republicans is what their favourite GOP policy is. The answer is always crickets.

No, they wouldn't have more success. The culture wars are designed to distract Republican voters from their abysmal, anti-working class, downward-punching economic policies.

The rich be like, "Tax cuts for me, hatred for thee!"

Well, since you hate crickets so much, I'll do my best to accommodate you:

"Holding China to account for intellectual property theft" is one of my favorite GOP policies. Even if it may have encouraged the CCP to spread Covid to the rest of the world.