Do you need consent to start a war?
Just hear me out.
An interesting thing happened in One Piece recently. It was revealed that there had been a war going on for hundreds of years, but no one knew about it1. It seems likely that the instigators were kind of just waiting for their enemy to appear. They consolidated power, stockpiling for a supposedly “inevitable” clash which was only going to result from their own hubris and desperation for control.
Why do I bring this up? I think something pretty similar is going on in America.
So I’ve been trying to expose myself to more conservative primary sources. Not Fox2, things like interviews, podcasts, and articles. That previous hyperlink is for an eye-opening piece with JD Vance while he was running for Ohio Senate. To be clear, I am in no way recommending that anyone else use their time to watch this. It’s only interesting in the “oh, now I know exactly how we’re fucked” way, which is not particularly fun.
The problem is the anger.
Vance and the host were both absolutely riled up about the “woke rot” in our schools, our institutions, and our corporations.
They railed on the “woke pipeline”, where humanities majors are brainwashed in college, go work in HR departments, and distort company policies from the inside.
They bemoaned “woke money”, where government and regulator ESG requirements are passed through venture capitals to force businesses to make “bad decisions”.
They - wait. Stop the script.
What is that absolute NIGHTMARE FUEL picture?
Is this the best AI can do? Are we really burning through entire countries worth of power to be able to replicate the things a late-stage Alzheimer’s patient probably sees?
This will be discussed tomorrow.
But for now, back to JD Vance and his war of terror.3
The point is: these guys are genuinely angry and they really feel wronged. And factual accuracy of those wrongs is not especially relevant.
Apparently, “too much of the enemy” already infiltrated in the government as career civil servants. In order to truly remove the rot,4 Vance repeatedly hammered on this idea that a great labor reset was required in order to ensure government security and stability. This idea has not gone anywhere in the two years since - as John Oliver has detailed5, getting more loyalists in government is a core tenet of the controversial Project 2025.
Until I watched this video, I thought that the culture wars was a sort of abstraction, but I’m learning that there are people who take it much more seriously. Vance and his buddy (and likely most of their listeners) really believe that there is a liberal movement designed to crush everything that doesn’t fit into a woke, atheist agenda.
It kind of makes sense, if you put yourself in their shoes. As the political minority, it’s probably not too hard to see recent liberal trends like cancel culture and DEI initiatives as signs of a group trying to assert total control over the status quo. Combine that fear with anger, and I’m sure you have plenty of people convinced that there is a conspiracy designed to pull the country further and further down the “wrong path”, with anyone voting for it either too stupid to deserve a say or too corrupt to be trusted6. Thus, our fellow countrymen are repainted as enemies.
I choose to believe that the good faith pursuit of a more equitable society continues to be justified. I assume that the average worker is just someone trying to feed their family, and they aren’t too wrapped up in this high-minded political crap.
All of that is to say that there are people being unwittingly targeted as a member of a faction they don’t know about as part of a war they don’t know about.
And thus, we have arrived back at the title. If you’ve decided you’re in a war, and no one else knows, are you just manufacturing unneeded violence? Couldn’t diplomacy have still been an option?
How does wartime and peacetime decision-making differ? If you don’t even know you’re in a war, are you guaranteed to lose it?
If no one has agreed that a war has started, how can they agree when it’s over?
I’d include a picture, but that’s pretty impossible without entering spoiler territory.
Never Fox.
I’d probably prefer a war on terror at this point.
Remember, it’s a result of brainwashed individuals ending up in positions where they have some sway.
Highly, highly recommend watching this one.
Kinda reminds me of the liberal opinion of MAGA, if we’re being honest.
Thanks for that eyebleach image.
"If no one has agreed that a war has started, how can they agree when it’s over?"
I feel like you've hit upon a big problem with two-party politics and all of this "increasing divide in our country" rigamarole. Instead of being two primary facets of our country sort of floating in a soap of political opinions, pushing and pulling against each other, the language and urgency being used is the language of an all out war. If you don't fight now, you won't have a country to go back to. I'm not sure it's completely wrong, especially not when a Trump presidency could mean a Supreme Court supermajority, but still. It does get the troops rallied, but when did we become troops?
Did you ever watch that hbomber guy war on christmas video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZo4x0NbbI
I really feel that that JD Vance is a just a more well-spoken version of these far-right conspiracists. These culture wars have been going on for a while, they've just been promoted from fringe extremism to part of the Republican Presidential platform. Unfortunately.