Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
There is this weird opinion that unlike the very online, normies are indifferent/apathetic to politics and are just absorbed in their narrow normie lives This is 100% untrue. They’re all powerfully committed to unexamined politics, and their absorption in narrow lives is the most political thing on the planet
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Ben Basche
@basche42
I think this is true for the middle and lower middle classes (most of America) but not really the working class. They’re mostly tuned out
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Disagree. Driving a pickup truck when you have no work need for one, and listening to talk radio as your routine drive-time entertainment is the opposite of tuned out. That's what I mean by unexamined. But you know it's real because they react *really* strongly if you push even a little on their lifestyles.
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Ben Basche
@basche42
Those are middle class affectations regardless of cultural signifier. Driving a pickup truck means you’re at least lower middle class. IMO banal to say these people are politicized, the real “middle” or depoliticized 1/3 of country has a decent chunk of it that is people with too many real problems for politics
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Ben Basche
@basche42
Ok, driving a newer pickup truck that you don’t need for work I should say. That exact guy
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Kind of people I'm thinking of (I know several) are definitely working class, buy used trucks and cut spending elsewhere to spend on their truck :) But the truck is just an example. My point is there's lots of signifiers of all class lifestyles that are extremely rigid, and whose politics are revealed if you push
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