If that were true, DeSantis wouldn't have eaten dirt as hard as he did. He ran super hard on culture war "issues" and toned it down towards the end of his campaign as it became clear that nobody actually gives a shit outside of twitter nazis.

Trump is winning polls because life has gotten materially worse for Americans under Biden. It has nothing to do with culture war nonsense.

[–] Grandpa_garbagio@hexbear.net 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Trump is also legitimately charismatic. If there was a democrat that could banter half as well it'd be a dunk. hell a quarter of what Trump is bringing would do it

[–] somename@hexbear.net 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Also, Biden is decaying before our eyes, which doesn’t help.

[–] whatdoiputhere12@hexbear.net 12 points 7 months ago

you may also consider the feud he had with trump that must have also taken a major hit at meatballs reputation

[–] WithoutFurtherBelay@hexbear.net 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Nobody actually gives a shit except twitter Nazis for but for some reason literally every candidate keeps throwing bones to Twitter Nazis for no reason

[–] UmbraVivi@hexbear.net 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Right-wing culture war "issues" come from the top down, they are manufactured, fake problems to distract the people from relentless capitalist exploitation. "The reason you're so angry all the time is not because the rich are destroying everything that makes your life livable, it's because they let men into the lady's room! The world has gone mad!"

Fox News and Republican candidates talk about them because they're cooperatively speaking them into existence, appealing to an audience they themselves create in the process. But at the end of the day, this audience is quite ephemeral because culture war "issues" simply don't have a real basis in reality. Transphobia, bathroom bills, anti-abortion, all of these topics are not actually that popular with the average Republican voter.

The number of freaks who seriously care about culture war nonsense is way smaller than media discourse would have you believe. Right-wingers have to talk about fake solutions to fake problems because every real solution to real problems would involve getting rid of them. They don't talk about Disney transing the youth because it's what their voters care about, they talk about it because if they talked too much about the real problems, they'd risk people figuring out what's actually causing them.

Edit: Republicans aren't winning because Americans hate trans people, Americans hate trans people because Republicans are winning. Whatever culture war issue Fox News is babbling about is completely interchangeable with any other one and their voters will stop caring the second they stop talking about it.

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 15 points 7 months ago

Right-wing culture war "issues" come from the top down, they are manufactured, fake problems to distract the people from relentless capitalist exploitation.

Spot on

[–] mushroom@hexbear.net 5 points 7 months ago

two reasons that i can see: if they bring it up in small doses it can help, it only really hurts if they make it their whole thing; and also the only young people who want to work with republicans as staffers and election aides and stuff are brainfried twitter nazis, so they have an outsized say in terms of messaging