Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Activity does seem to be declining, with 750 comments on the last CWR. Any idea why? This is, at least to me, the only place online that has good generalist discussion other than the posts (not comments though) of some substacks.
Is there anything interesting happening out there in the world this week?
I probably wouldn't know, since I use this site for news.
The war in Ukraine drags on. The conflict in Gaza drags on. Pride month drags on. A few people were shot at Juneteenth celebrations, but not enough to invite a lot of attention. There are some marginal improvements in LLMs. The Supreme Court has ruled on some things, and some posters have done write ups for them. There were some blog posts put up as top level comments. They probably got more engagement than they would have on people's personal blogs, anyway. I vaguely remember some disgruntled writing about relationships.
Anyway, I'm not sure it's just the message board, so much as the actual world that's in a bit of a slump.
Well that's certainly a news filter.
One of the things I use this site for is trying to find some balance to news that sounds really bad for the right when reported by mainstream/left-leaning sources. Very few such news items have gotten any discussion at all here in the past several months. Of course, I could write my own effortposts to try to get the discussion going and I don't, so this is partially my own fault.
What are some of the things you are thinking of? (No need to write at length, I'd give my thoughts on a short list.)
Hmm... I definitely remember thinking that multiple times, but I don't remember specifically about what. Some general categories:
Honestly, I've hardly paid attention to all of those. My general perception of the trials was that the document one was real, but the others were mostly politically motivated, conviction notwithstanding.
I haven't looked at project 2025, really. I should. Any concerns you find particularly worrying? I know people are concerned about the one day dictator thing, but my read on that is that he's honest on that: he wants to do a lot on day one, not seize power.
I haven't seen the gaffes (except the shark vs. electrocution one, but that mostly just seemed like him rambling on with an idea that didn't make sense, not age issues). I'd guess that Trump is more competent than Biden, but that's purely vibes. I'm not a huge fan of 80-year-olds in the white house either way.
I'd be happy to be elucidated on any of these. I expect to vote Trump, but that's more just because I think Republicans will handle things better in office (student loans, affirmative action, general wokery, maybe foreign policy). I'd love if someone shrunk the government and put substantial effort into fixing the debt problem and reducing welfare, but it sounds like none of those will be happening any time soon (Republicans are slightly more likely, but really not very. It'd be unpopular and anger the old people, who vote red.). I know people are worried about Trump doing political prosecutions and lawfare, but I honestly think that's less likely when Republicans are in control, given the occurrences against Trump, Musk, Alex Jones, Bannon, etc. I do think the events surrounding January 6th (the Pence stuff, not the riot stuff) were pretty bad, though, and wouldn't have minded too much if the supreme court had ruled that he could be taken off the ballot for that under the 14th amendment, though I'm not quite convinced that it was an insurrection.
What are the reasons that you would point to voting for Biden/not voting for Trump?
The documents trial definitely seems like the most clear-cut case. And there's been drips of really bad-for-Trump-sounding headlines like yesterday "Special counsel probed Trump Mar-a-Lago trip that aides 'kept quiet' weeks before FBI search: Sources". The /r/politics commentariat is pretty convinced Trump and Kushner literally sold classified information to foreign adversaries, but I'd like to think if the government had anything resembling proof of a crime of that magnitude they'd actually indict them on it.
I'm not sure how much to read into it as really different from his first term, but it sounds like a more organized attempt to destroy the functioning of the federal government, so possibly even more effective at stopping a lot of important government functions. Not sure exactly how this interacts with the Chevron Deference case that presumably will get a Supreme Court opinion in the next day or two.
The above bleeds into the general policy issues that are more Republican Party related than Trump-specific: a Republican Party controlled federal government effectively means a 4-year pause on any chance to make improvements in anti-trust, climate/energy, environmental regulations, transportation, voting, public health, healthcare, USPS, IRS (e.g. Direct File), and I'm sure more areas that didn't come to mind writing this list. I don't expect to fully agree with Democratic Party policies, but I can generally expect them to not be actively trying to make things worse and there's a possibility of convincing them to do things better.
Trump's foreign policy in practice didn't seem to be majorly different, but he seems a lot more likely to do something stupid. And with the active wars in Ukraine and Palestine there's more opportunities for him to do real damage.
There's also some culture war-y issues that I'm likely shielded from living a Blue state, although could cause problems if I ever travel to/through a Red state. But a Republican Department of Education following Florida's lead could make it difficult for many of my friends to keep their jobs as people who are both teachers and queer. And many Red states making it difficult for people trying to have children to access healthcare and some national level politicians talking about want to make federal laws along the same lines make me worry about friends who want to get pregnant in the next few years. Also, more Republican appointments to the Supreme Court, among other problems, possibly results in Obergefell being overturned, although I'm not sure how that interacts with the Respect for Marriage Act.
It's good that someone is voting on national issues. I'd love to do so, but I think that would be naive of me.
The Democrats have made pleasant noises about high speed trains and carbon reduction, but in spite of the billions spent on CAHSR and Biden's electric charging stations, zero passengers have ridden CAHSR and only one charging station per billion dollars spent has been built. Millions of DEI hires have probably been made though.
Similarly, I'm sure pleasant noises will be made about anti-trust, but they will only go after political enemies, and big donors like Google will remain unscathed (if they don't actually get given a subsidy or tax break). "Health" funding will of course go to more DEI hiring. "Education" funding won't go to my kids, it will go to forgiving the student loans of AWFLs.
At this point the mask is off.
At this point, it's pretty obvious the Democrats will use the power of purse and prosecution to take from me and mine to benefit the PMC, so in spite of my agreement with their stated positions on so many things, I cannot vote for them.
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