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 -
The context of the "indefinitely confined" issue is a disagreement about whether people who were staying home because of COVID-19 were eligible to vote by post on medical grounds. Eventually the Wisconsin Supreme Court said that they were not, but not in time to purge the voter rolls. So this isn't a case of fraudulent voting - it is a case of irregular voting due to blue-county election officials making an incorrect interpretation of State law in an unusual situation which the Supreme Court didn't correct in time, and voters acting on advice from their counties. Prosecuting individual voters over this would be an abuse of process. Part of the Project 2025 playbook is that an incoming Trump II administration should launch federal prosecutions of the county officials, which would be (and is intended to be) catastrophic for the resilience of the American electoral process, but would not be legally outrageous.
I don't know enough about Wisconsin law to know how likely it was that these votes could have been tossed if the Trump campaign had raised the issue in post-election litigation, but "large numbers of facially valid Dem postal votes should be tossed on technicalities" was an argument the Trump campaign mostly chose not to run with - both in its litigation strategy and in its public messaging.
More options
Context Copy link