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 -
White Dudes for Harris
It should be remembered that it was the Democrat party that broke the ice on invoking White Identity Politics directly to muster political support. The Republican party has only ever used proxy rhetoric like "they have to come legally" or "tough on crime", but looking at the recent Convention it's clear the Republican strategy is to go for the Big Tent rather than directly appeal to white voters. It's the Harris campaign that makes the direct appeal to white men, and you would not see an event like this hosted within the Republican party.
This is another indication that we're probably over the hill of Peak Woke that a white identity is acknowledged in a non-critical context:
That's a huge shift in messaging from just a few years ago in the midst of the Floyd riots.
No one familiar with the histories of the respective parties should be remotely surprised by this. One of the proverbial "big lies" the Blue Tribe likes to tell itself is that the Republican and Democratic Parties of the mid-19th century are somehow fundamentally different entities from the Republicans and Democrats of today. "Read more early American history" they'll sneer while pointedly ignoring the most pertinent elements of said history.
What would become the modern republican party was founded in the late 1850s and explicitly organized as a big tent coalition of regional religious and business interests who were united in their opposition to slavery and support for westward expansion. The specific policies under debate may have changed over the last 170 years or so but this core of aligned religious and business interests along with it's identity and organization as a "big tent" coalition is still plain to see in the contemporary party. It's right there in the colloquial name of "Grand Old Party".
When pressed to defend this radical separation between past and present, the Blue Tribe response is typically something along the lines of "bUt RePuBlIcAnS dUrInG ThE cIvIl WaR wErE tHe PrOgReSiVeS oF tHeIr TiMe". Even if that statement is true i don't think it matters.
Durring the latter half of the 19th century Slavery was defeated, the West was won, and the GOP began to shift from fighting over territory to consolidating and building upon what they had won. In short while the axioms attitudes and identity of the party remained consistant they became "conservatives" in the sense that they were no longer working to overturn the status-quo they were working to maintain it.
Guys like Glenn Reynolds get sneered at by all "right thinking people" for pointing out that "Democrats are the Real Racists" (and always have been) but when lies are the norm, telling the truth can be a revolutionary act.
In the 19th century racial segregation and discrimination was both legal and popular and this is the status quo that "conservative" Democrats fought to defend before they became "progressives" fighting against the status quo.
In the first half of the 20th, the status quo that "Progressive" Democrats like Woodrow Wilson looked to weaken and push back against was that which had been forcibly imposed during reconstruction and subsequently codified in the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments. While the branding may have changed ("safe spaces" replacing "separate but equal") over the last century the position of contemporary "Progressive" has not. They are still fighting for legalized racial discrimination/segregation against a Republican opposition party.
In otherwords, this is not...
It is a return to thier normal position after the George Floyd riots and associated fallout/backlash forced the pro-IdPol faction of the DNC to backpedal and "hide thier power" for a bit.
Oh hey, I feel called out.
The modern Republican party was formed from the ashes of the Whigs (who were very much a big and incoherent tent of anti-Jacksonians), and eventually accrued some northern Democrats, along with a substantial share of the Know-Nothings. They weren't initially an anti-slavery party (some abolitionists were Democrats, and many Republicans were anti-abolitionist), though they adopted a harder anti-slavery platform because of the Civil War, obviously. (But even during the war, the "Radical Republicans" who wanted complete and total emancipation and civil rights for blacks were the leftist wing of the party that even Lincoln found difficult.)
YeS THat iS bAsICalLY CorREcT. How does it not matter?
I am really not following your argument - you flat-out admit that the GOP of the 19th century was very nearly the opposite of the modern GOP, and then say it "doesn't matter" and this is a "Big Lie" that Blue Tribe tells. Where is the lie?
Whereas Red Tribe really likes to bring up that the Democratic Party dominated the post-Confederate South and that most KKKers were Democrats, but sneers at the "Southern Strategy" and the great flipping of the Solid South as if it were some kind of myth. If it were not true that most of the people who voted Democrat before Reagan vote Republican now, then where did all those Democratic voters go and where did all the Republican voters come from? Of the few remaining KKKers today, how many do you think vote Democrat? (Note that I am not saying that Republicans are white supremacists or the party of the KKK, but I am definitely saying that the Republicans and Democrats represent cultural roles and political ideologies that are nearly a reverse of their 19th century incarnations. Just saying "Democrats have always been racists - first they were anti-black, now they're anti-white" is a very weak specimen of the "DeMoCRatS arE the ReAL RaCIsTS!" argument.)
Exactly. People change their party affiliations over time. Parties change their platforms over time. Ascribing a consistent principled philosophy to a political party, a group that is a Ship of Theseus in both membership and in ideas, is a fool's errand. It would be more accurate to treat the parties as brand new groups every election. Republicans_1984 is not Republicans_2024. And criticizing a party based on the platforms of past parties that share the same name is invalid. It was different people and a different platform.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link