It doesn't cost much to validate people's opinion of their on pre concieved notions. For example; censor offensive language and imagery and you make both the fundies and a lot of feminists happy. Or enact draconian laws for regulating stuff that can be manufactured in a garage or imported by the ton, like guns and drugs, and you make anti gun liberals and anti drug fundies happy. And all the while they make money on surveillance and incarceration.
Create a relationship with religion because its a lot easier to manipulate populations through a few, preferably one, strong charismatic leader than through the Democratic process. Market forces, which typically favor the rich, will determine the most influential religious leader.
That's how they peel support away from progressives. They turn us into cultural consumers who only need to have their opinion of themselves validated.
When we fight the culture wars we're demanding something our political opponents, the 1%, don't need. They will always be decadent, corrupt, racist, mysogynistic, perverse assholes. When we enact laws to control culture, we only restrict our own freedom to live and make the rich richer doing it.
There is no culture, faith, love, compassion, hope, or respect in politics. Politics is the art of who gets what. It determines who has the power to distribute resources through government. Demanding anything other than money is demanding, and fighting for, nothing at all.
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