Of course. It’s a good distraction from how bad they are at doing their jobs.
Campaigns employing caricatures are increasingly ineffective, according to a study by King’s College London (KCL) and Ipsos UK:^1
>More than half of people feel politicians are using so-called culture wars to distract from other issues, according to a survey which also found the term “woke” is increasingly seen as an insult.
>Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the policy institute at KCL, said: “The speed and scale of the UK’s adoption of ‘culture war’ issues and rhetoric in our media and politics has been one of the key trends of the last few years, and it has gone hand-in-hand with big shifts in public awareness and opinion.
>“But opinion is also swinging against the use of these identity divisions, with one of the biggest shifts being the increase in the public’s perception that politicians are inventing or exaggerating culture wars as a political tactic.
>“The evidence suggests it may not be a particularly successful approach to an election, as tiny minorities pick out culture war-related issues as important to how they’ll vote.”
>Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos UK, said: “While negative associations of ‘woke’ are rising, most people do not consider themselves to be either ‘woke’ or ‘anti-woke’.”
It’s not just politicians. You listen to them, the news, media, Reddit and you think these are hugely divisive issues. Then you live in the real world and most people don’t care one way or the other, or if they do, it’s not with searing passion or outrage.
To be fair, this country has never been more divided and it’s only getting worse.
One of the few occasions where ‘the public’ is actually right, then.
It is a tactic, and the tactic is to avoid any or all focus on things that are actually affecting people’s lives, like the horrendous cost of living crisis, and so on.
Politicians are clinging on to cultural division because they know they have no possible solutions to anything else.
As someone who is a member of a community that’s been targeted by the culture wars it’s extremely obvious.
Much like Brexit. No one cares five years before the vote, was a torla non issue and somehow we ended up voting to leave. Fucking mental what people can be made to care about.
No, they don’t “feel” it. They know it. They’re fully aware.
Divide and conquer. A tactic as old as time.
A bit late to the social media trick:
Create a lie, feed it into an echo chamber and then share it with as many people as possible.
Unfortunately, just like reality TV they’ve oversaturated the market thinking they can keep using this trick but people wise up and get tired of hearing the same vile shit again and again and the same things keep happening without tackling any really issues which could improve peoples lives
I mean we went from the tories supporting Self-Id in 2017 to them wanting to roll back trans rights to the 1970s in 2023, clearly it’s a distraction tactic
Proof that if you repeat a lie often enough people start to believe it
Trans people is the clearest example for me.
It’s staggering the difference between the number of trans people I’ve interacted with in comparison to the frequency with which it’s discussed by certain groups.
I mean trans and queer people have been saying this for years
If you believe culture wars to be not important, you can give them up and the views you have on them at any time. You have the power.
Who is really going to care about culture war “woke” malarkey when rents and mortgage rates are rapidly rising, we’ve been on a brink of a recession for over a year and we’re having to worry about safely heating our homes again?
If anything politicians leaning into the culture wars are turning me off them. Feels like time wasting and laziness. It’s easy for them to spout slogans but does nothing to impact our daily lives
The government maybe should have issued stricter internal guidelines on using the word “woke”
Turns out when you use it to describe absolutely anything you don’t like, people will start to wise up to it being a division tactic instead of an actual issue
18 comments
Of course. It’s a good distraction from how bad they are at doing their jobs.
Campaigns employing caricatures are increasingly ineffective, according to a study by King’s College London (KCL) and Ipsos UK:^1
>More than half of people feel politicians are using so-called culture wars to distract from other issues, according to a survey which also found the term “woke” is increasingly seen as an insult.
>Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the policy institute at KCL, said: “The speed and scale of the UK’s adoption of ‘culture war’ issues and rhetoric in our media and politics has been one of the key trends of the last few years, and it has gone hand-in-hand with big shifts in public awareness and opinion.
>“But opinion is also swinging against the use of these identity divisions, with one of the biggest shifts being the increase in the public’s perception that politicians are inventing or exaggerating culture wars as a political tactic.
>“The evidence suggests it may not be a particularly successful approach to an election, as tiny minorities pick out culture war-related issues as important to how they’ll vote.”
>Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos UK, said: “While negative associations of ‘woke’ are rising, most people do not consider themselves to be either ‘woke’ or ‘anti-woke’.”
^1 https://news.sky.com/story/public-feel-politicians-invent-or-exaggerate-culture-wars-as-a-tactic-poll-suggests-12998875
It’s not just politicians. You listen to them, the news, media, Reddit and you think these are hugely divisive issues. Then you live in the real world and most people don’t care one way or the other, or if they do, it’s not with searing passion or outrage.
To be fair, this country has never been more divided and it’s only getting worse.
One of the few occasions where ‘the public’ is actually right, then.
It is a tactic, and the tactic is to avoid any or all focus on things that are actually affecting people’s lives, like the horrendous cost of living crisis, and so on.
Politicians are clinging on to cultural division because they know they have no possible solutions to anything else.
As someone who is a member of a community that’s been targeted by the culture wars it’s extremely obvious.
Politicians and journalists working for Sly News…
https://metro.co.uk/2023/10/21/sky-news-apology-kay-burley-husam-zomlot-israel-had-it-coming-19700470/
Much like Brexit. No one cares five years before the vote, was a torla non issue and somehow we ended up voting to leave. Fucking mental what people can be made to care about.
No, they don’t “feel” it. They know it. They’re fully aware.
Divide and conquer. A tactic as old as time.
A bit late to the social media trick:
Create a lie, feed it into an echo chamber and then share it with as many people as possible.
Unfortunately, just like reality TV they’ve oversaturated the market thinking they can keep using this trick but people wise up and get tired of hearing the same vile shit again and again and the same things keep happening without tackling any really issues which could improve peoples lives
I mean we went from the tories supporting Self-Id in 2017 to them wanting to roll back trans rights to the 1970s in 2023, clearly it’s a distraction tactic
Proof that if you repeat a lie often enough people start to believe it
Trans people is the clearest example for me.
It’s staggering the difference between the number of trans people I’ve interacted with in comparison to the frequency with which it’s discussed by certain groups.
I mean trans and queer people have been saying this for years
If you believe culture wars to be not important, you can give them up and the views you have on them at any time. You have the power.
Who is really going to care about culture war “woke” malarkey when rents and mortgage rates are rapidly rising, we’ve been on a brink of a recession for over a year and we’re having to worry about safely heating our homes again?
If anything politicians leaning into the culture wars are turning me off them. Feels like time wasting and laziness. It’s easy for them to spout slogans but does nothing to impact our daily lives
The government maybe should have issued stricter internal guidelines on using the word “woke”
Turns out when you use it to describe absolutely anything you don’t like, people will start to wise up to it being a division tactic instead of an actual issue