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 -
That's complete cope with no evidence. I can partially agree that it's not the Twitter anons that got Trump elected, though you're overselling it, but there's a reason why every other candidate got slaughtered in the primaries.
I don't remember them giving a lot of weight to the "but they're here legally!" argument when it was applied to Haitians.
A wet paper bag could have beaten Biden/Harris. Biden has obvious dementia, but even beyond that, there was the economic crises (inflation AND recession), billions for Ukraine, the complete botching of hurricane relief (there are still people living in tents), and the border. There’s no positives to vote for.
Trump is winning because he at least wants to upend the system. Whether another person could win that handily, I don’t know, it’s possible. But only the ones who promise to fix the broken system so Americans have a functioning government again.
Yes, everything is obviously inevitable now that it happened. Just go back to the pre-election predictions on this forum, even Trump supporters where pessimistic. I was maintaining "it's a toss-up" and I was in the minority, I remember precisely one guy telling everyone that they're nuts for being this blackpilled.
https://www.levernews.com/how-democrats-learned-to-love-losing/
I think honestly the secret sauce of MAGA and Trump is breaking the consensus of hyper normalization. Hyper normalization is the thought that basically, it’s broken, it sucks, and nobody can actually fix it. They don’t even try, and until Trump, nobody bothered to pretend to try. And especially on the democratic side, there’s just no thought process of “just doing something” to fix whatever the problem is. There’s no “buck stops here” in government in which the person or group promises to make actual concrete changes that will actually fix the problem. And because Trump is the guy at least claiming to try to fix things, he’s the guy who can actually win and people like him can actually win. Biden Harris were absolutely the opposite. They can pass acts that everyone knew wouldn’t fix inflation, they can appoint czars to head up not fixing whatever crisis they’re appointed to pretend to care about. But they lack the sort of extreme ownership, the will to actually take the levers of power and do something with them, the will to make decisions that the6 intend to stick with.
I think given how into hyper normalization the DNC is, just about any not-democrat could have won. The DNC is the party of “whelp, we tried absolutely nothing, and it didn’t work. Nothing else we can do, sorry, it’s just going to suck now.” Anyone promising “I can absolutely fix immigration, and here’s how we do it,” has the edge. Anyone who says “we can fix the government and make it work again,” who isn’t desperate to hear that kind of thing? Whether Trump can actually fix all of these problems is an open question. But I think the hope he’s giving that we can take the powers of the government to actually make life better — that we don’t have to accept that everything will be getting worse and we should sit and drink wine and watch America slowly rot away from the inside. Even if you don’t like him, the thought of someone trying to actually fix things is hope.
Politics runs on hope. When you have no hope to offer, no credible policy proposal that can serve as a vessel for the public's aspirations for a better life, policy starvation sets in and the public transfers their support to the most credible available proposal. Since people are lazy, the most credible available proposal will be at least somewhat more radical than the recently-discredited proposals. Repeat until the problem is solved or radicalization triggers a crisis that eclipses all previous priorities.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If it helps I both predicted publically here Trump would win due to the fundamentals (the economy) and believe that means a generic Republican would also have won.
Inflation hit too hard across the board for Democrats to have won absent some other major factor (war, big terrorist attack etc.).
The fundamentals were good enough for the Republicans I have a hard time seeing any decent candidate of theirs losing. Especially with switching Biden out late making Democrats look weak.
You are correct though that a lot of people here were predicting the opposite. Either out of doomerism or listening to the media/polls I suppose.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link