This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Trump announces Ken Paxton as possible AG pick: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/20/donald-trump-ken-paxton-attorney-general/
This is interesting because 1) Paxton is an aggressive partisan willing to engage in skullduggery, exactly the sort of person project 2025 would want and 2) he’s one of the few people trump has shown loyalty to. Also unlike Greg Abbott, who turned down the VP job, he seems to want the job. Also, last time he was out of office Abbott appointed his own chief of staff as attorney general, so it’s not like that would strip mine the Texas state government of conservative talent.
It’s worth noting that a lot of trump’s policy success from the last admin came through bill Barr, and an aggressive consiglieri in the AG seat is probably what trump needs to be effective.
God.
Paxton represents everything I dislike about this state. Setting aside his little scandal, he’s a shameless partisan who grandstands whenever he gets the chance. Every AG statement just drips with condescension and/or righteous anger at the opposition. I suppose, given our political climate, that makes him a savvy political operator.
While we have various stupid and offensive laws, I can’t really blame him for enforcing them. But I do not look forward to seeing how he operates with a more deadlocked legislature. Especially if Trump is looking for opportunities to get even.
Tangentially related...
How much should Trump get even, if he is elected? Either choice he makes seems pretty fraught.
Option 1) Play the bigger man. Pardon himself, obviously, and a few limited other people. Beyond that do nothing. This will prevent a wider conflagration in the culture war. Downside: without a tit-for-tat, the left will be emboldened for much greater tats in the future.
Option 2) Do unto him as he hath done unto me. Pursue corruption investigations against his pursuers (many of whom quite deserve them). Go after voter fraud and ballot harvesting. Turn the executive branch against the left in the same ways it has been turned against the right thus far. Upside: When both sides are armed, the chance for peace is higher than when only one side is armed. Downside: The system will probably resist him, and it could provoke a bigger backlash.
If I were Trump, I'd go with option 1. In reality, I expect him to just do whatever he wakes up feeling like he should do that day with little follow through.
To be clear, this is not a corrupt policy choice and shouldn't be lumped in as some malicious attack motivated by revenge-getting. It is just actually bad that elections are insecure and political operatives collect ballots.
The problem there is that going after voter fraud in a non-grandstanding way means he actually needs to name names and have evidence. You can't just say there was MASSIVE FRAUD in Detroit or wherever; you have to actually say here is a corrupt election official and here's exactly what he did and here's the evidence to prove it. Most of the voter fraud stuff in 2020 was more along the lines of "I don't like the looks of this", which doesn't exactly help you out too much when it comes to a prosecution.
I've written on this at some length in the past, but the evidence is much stronger than "I don't like the looks of this". I'll accept that the elections are free and fair when there aren't thousands of people mentally adjudicated incompetent voting in my state. If the clerk's office admits it's not capable of running a cross-check that prevents that subset, specifically covered as ineligible to vote, I have no idea why anyone would believe it's capable of preventing the myriad of other ineligible voting that occurs.
I hate to do this but you did the math wrong in the earlier post. You said:
The article says that there are about 22,000 voters on the incompetent list in Wisconsin. A random sample of 1,000 taken showed that 95 people had cast ballots at some point since 2008. Without numbers specific to 2020 there's no way to estimate how many improper votes were cast. That being said, if they want to implement a system to catch this I'm all for it. If they want to prosecute the people who voted illegally, I'm all for it, though going after incompetent people probably isn't a good look.
The same is true for the indefinitely confined. If you want to go after these people that's fine, but you'd better be prepared to investigate all 250,000+ instances and prosecute each one that doesn't meet whatever strict reading you want to give the law. You can't just go into Milwaukee and find a few black people or bleeding heart liberal activists who violated the law and use them as an example of "Democrat voter fraud"; you have to be willing to go into rural areas and ask MAGA hat guys detailed questions about whether Grandma is really indefinitely confined when she still has an active driver's license and was seen at the grocery store walking around the day before submitting her application. That isn't going to sit well with anybody, which is why nobody is ever going to suggest such a thing.
I actually very much appreciate it. I've referenced this a few times and haven't had anyone point out the error, which was going to result in me continuing to reference it. That this goes back to 2008 rather than being a single year count probably makes the per election frequency roughly an order of magnitude lower. So, duly noted, and thanks for that.
With regard to the second paragraph - yeah, I know, and I've tried to be pretty consistent about stating that none of these numeric estimates are intended to prove that 2020 was "stolen" since they don't even provide evidence on the direction of fraud and error. The point here isn't that each instance is a vote that should have gone the other way or that I think all of these people are criminals (in fact, I'd bet almost none of them intended to do anything illegal), but that the system is so shoddy that it allows a whole bunch of illegal voting that everyone shrugs at. I don't think we need to go track down a bunch of illegal votes from 2012 or something, we can just implement a system going forward that makes a reasonable attempt to have clean databases and require identification. Personally, I would prefer elimination of absentee balloting, but I know this isn't politically tenable. My offer to opponents would be replacing it with excellent early in-person balloting and making election day itself a holiday; I still know that's not getting done, but I do believe that it's a good-faith position to hold for someone that cares about security but isn't actually trying to engage in nefarious voter suppression.
Finally, while these numbers don't give any definitive data on fraud, I strongly believe they bring the lie to the ridiculous claims that there is basically no illegal voting. When we literally can't stop mentally incompetent people that are explicitly ineligible to vote from doing so, it seems pretty obvious that there are going to be at least a few other categories of illegal voting. The core of my position is that we should make a good effort to stop illegal voting and that we're obviously not doing that right now.
"a whole bunch of illegal voting" I would think that having an order of magnitude error in your thinking pointed out to you would maybe reign in unsubstantiated claims of large amounts of fraudulent votes. There simply is not wide spread voter fraud going on in the United States, when it does happen, even in stupid instances of a college kid voting at school and at home, it is eventually found and prosecuted for the most part.
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud
Lol at the downvotes...amazing stuff. Don't worry, you're about to chase me off. Then you can have your echo chamber.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link