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 -
Why aren’t Democrats physically occupying government buildings?
I’ve been reading and watching a lot of left-wing content lately. A big topic of conversation is what exactly Democrats could do to slow down or stop Trump. The “mainstream” opinion is that Democrats can’t really do anything except sue, since they control zero branches of federal government. I disagree.
DC voted 90% for Kamala. Pretty much every federal employee is in danger of losing their job if Trump successfully consolidates power. They could collectively decide to simply not comply with Trump’s orders. He would have to blow all of his political capital on calling in the national guard while his allegedly illegal orders get litigated.
Look at this video from the other week purporting to show Congressional Democrats being “physically blocked” from entering the Department of Education. They aren’t even really trying to get inside. They could totally storm in if they wanted!
Has anyone chained themselves to their desk? Or better yet, to one of these mystical “servers” containing so much sensitive personal data? We saw more effective civil disobedience over Gaza than we are seeing over our own government.
I have two theories for this incompetence, but am eager to hear more:
All of the organizations and groups that typically organize and support these types of protests blew their entire budget on the presidential campaign. Then, money dried up as rich donors feared getting on Trump’s bad side.
After January 6, the Democrats focused their self-image around the idea of “procedure” and “doing things the right way”. This calcified to such an extent that anyone in a position of leadership is now incapable of forming and executing plans which do not conform with the collective PMC understanding of what is allowed or “proper”.
There's an argument that Trump/Elon have disrupted the left's nexus of command and control: a combination of social media/mainstream media/NGOs who could be mobilized to astroturf protests or to fan the flames of existing protests. In this model, a "movement" might start on Twitter with a hashtag #DCsitin and then mainstream media would report on it favorably, people would turn out in the streets (including paid protestors), and the government would feel pressured to do something to make it go away. Some have called this the "color revolution" playbook. I think this is a bit conspiratorial but maybe descriptive of a system that evolved organically.
Note: On a meta level, sorry for posting my top-level comment right after yours. When I see a stale front page I sometimes get motivated to write something. Next time, I'll double-check that no one posted while I was writing.
I mean, this is very much the thesis that Mike Benz keeps putting forward. USAID and it's network of NGOs functioned to almost completely manufacture reality. He's so far down that rabbit hole, he believes that almost everything we perceive about politics and where the consensus lies is a carefully constructed lie by USAID and NGOs.
I had an article once, I can't find it now, talking about the nuts and bolts of how these protests work. Which is basically that a network of like minded (the article doesn't go into funding) activist embedded in various organizations start working the phones and collaborating with each other, and they do so with such speed and behind the scenes deft, the entire effort seems natural. The "community organizer" calls their local representative who calls a friendly reporter. At some point the perfect "victim" with a sob story is selected. Sometimes it's even true! The reporter is networking with the totally doesn't exist anymore Journo Pros mailing list to get their little set piece national coverage. A local affiliate goes out to get the B-Role footage that every cable news network is going to use. And the key to this whole thing is speed. Within 4-8 hours of whatever event occurred that could boost a narrative it's been done. A layman might think it was totally organic, when in reality it was just a rolodex of numbers.
And possibly a bunch of USAID funding...
IF USAID funding was such a key part in all this, it being cut off says a lot about why the Democrats seem completely adrift and feckless. During the Summer of Floyd, Maxine Water's used to be able to nakedly call for violence in the streets, and next thing you knew a mob was harassing random diners in Baltimore. Now, it's like someone took away whatever causal mechanism turned Democratic politician's speech into flashpoints on the streets and then national news stories that bolstered their narrative.
I mean, maybe the nation just isn't feeling it anymore. Maybe 4 years of Biden's "The adults are back in charge" just destroyed something in people's minds about how responsible D's are versus R's. Maybe the skill level of the D leadership has fallen off a cliff and they forgot how to do this shit. Maybe more than just SV billionaires defected to Trump.
Maybe it was USAID the whole time. It's a convenient explanation.
Whatever it was, it seems like the Democrats have lost their mojo.
The most hilarious theory I’ve heard is that Gaza caused democrats to purge the Jews from their leadership and replace them with incompetent black women. Don’t know if it’s true though.
That sounds like nonsense. The Democratic organizational base has been Black women for decades. That's why the party hasn't moved left as much as the very-online contingent of progressives want it to. Those Black women are a lot more conservative (both in the "further right politics" sense and in the "less willing to shake up the status quo" sense).
This is news to me, I thought it would have been Black men who'd be the more conservative type.
Blacks as a whole tend to be overwhelmingly Democrat to a stupid degree - it's why the various polls over the recent years showing movement at the margins tend to result in such concern from the Democratic party as a whole.
When you've spent decades having a solid block of voters and not having to expend any resources to keep said voters, the moment you start to notice a ground-shift often results in panic.
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