IGF CultureWatch

WOW. Richard Grenell is stepping down as ambassador to Germany.

Looks like Grenell is available for Director of the FBI!

— thebradfordfile™ (@thebradfordfile) May 25, 2020

Thank you, Senator. https://t.co/bJqZBcKTMt

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) May 24, 2020

Job well done @RichardGrenell around the clock, as US Ambassador to Germany and Acting Director of National Intelligence. THANK YOU for your exceptional service! ? ??

— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) May 24, 2020

And many, many more accolades from the right.

#PrideMonth pic.twitter.com/YFkdrbeZnk

— Gregory T. Angelo (@gregorytangelo) June 2, 2020

Yes, I’m blogging far less these days. But this article struck me as well-reasoned. Eventually, the limits and cultural contradictions of “LBGTQ” will put asunder this construct.

Author of landmark plays about gay men and AIDS was felled by coronavirus.

This does not seem magnanimous on the part of LGBT activists.

Interesting take on the difference in Sander’s support in 2016 vs. 2020.

I misread Bernie’s broad 2016 ideological coalition as a generic candidate net favorability vote. But it now seems like he combined ideological objections to Hillary from 2 directions, the economic left & the social/racial/gender right, & has mostly retained only the left side

— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) March 8, 2020

I think both Clinton and Sanders perceived Hillary’s attacks on Bernie as insufficiently left on culture to be effective when in fact they were counterproductive.

This misunderstanding went on to shape many candidates’ 2020 decision-making. https://t.co/RK1Dj4jA95

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 8, 2020

Rural/non-college white vote for Sanders in 2016 was mostly socially right of Hillary and those voters are comfortable with Biden now (and in the general that could potentially include some Obama- Trump voters too).
Bernie’s association with the “squad” cost him this vote.

— Campaign Diaries (@CampaignDiaries) March 8, 2020

A similar point, looking at why Warren’s campaign imploded. Via Tucker Carlson:

“Warren got derailed. More precisely, she got infected with a virulent strain of identity politics…. Elizabeth Warren went intersectional, and it killed her.”

Coleman Hughes writes:

Perhaps the most pernicious consequence of intersectionality, however, is its effect on the culture of elite college campuses. … It operates as a master formula by which social status is doled out. Being black and queer is better than just being black or queer, being Muslim and gender non-binary is better than being either one on its own, and so forth. By “better,” I mean that people are more excited to meet you, you’re spoken of more highly behind your back, and your friends enjoy an elevated social status for being associated with you. …

At the same time, elite campus culture is overcorrecting for more traditional forms of identity-based oppression by giving cis-straight-white students—or at least those among them who are embedded in the intersectionalist subculture—a choice between being honest with themselves and being held in high esteem by their peers. Ultimately, we should want to create a culture that does not provide strong incentives for people to be anything other than who and what they are.

A lesbian couple had a baby through artificial insemination. https://t.co/gRQGasyjtL

— Chad Felix Greene (@chadfelixg) December 28, 2019

Every minute women give birth to 250 babies. Congratulations to every one of them! https://t.co/o2qsU7elFb

— LGB Alliance (@AllianceLGB) December 29, 2019