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 -
Trumpism is a movement defined by outrageous statements, only some of which they are serious about and it's up to you to guess what. Does Navarro (or Trump) really believe that Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels? Probably not, but you can't dismiss the possibility. Either way, why not say it?
Trump's messaging on tariffs has been incoherent. On the one hand, tariffs are industrial policy, meant to bring back American manufacturing. On the other hand, tariffs are a negotiating tactics, to be dropped in exchange for concessions. On the mutant third hand, tariffs are a revenue alternative - a way to replace income taxes with consumption taxes (though Trump clearly doesn't think of them that way, quite possibly because he doesn't know how tariffs work).
The problem is that at most one of these things can be true. Taking it as a given for now that tariffs-as-industrial policy is effective, you need to maintain the tariffs (so no dropping them as a concession) and you need American consumers to shift to American-made goods (so tariff revenues must decline substantially). If tariffs are a negotiating tactic, you're giving them up for whatever objective you're pursuing and therefore forgoing both industrial development and revenue. If tariffs are supposed to be a revenue stream that substitutes for income taxes, you need Americans to keep buying imports, which means not buying American-made goods at the scale you're expecting for an industrial revival driven by domestic demand.
(In reality, the only one of these that makes any measure of sense is tactical tariffs)
All of which is to say that what Canada can do to reverse the tariffs is probably lobby members of Trump's inner circle to try and change his mind. The likely (but unfortunately not overwhelmingly likely) outcome is that someone prevails upon Trump that this idea is really fucking dumb and Canada makes some symbolic concession so Trump can feel like he got a win. But, there are also quite a few people in the Trump administration who unironically think tariffing everyone is a great idea, so who knows.
Trump himself could probably be sold on the idea of a unified trade bloc going after China -- this would probably an actual Good Thing, but Canadian politics is pretty compromised on that front so we will probably only hear that Going After China is Racist or something.
Canada didn't take a stance of "attacking China is racist" over the past few years when the past few administrations have increasingly become China hawks and drew Canada into things like the Huawei fight.
Trump on the other hand has shown himself to have a disdainful attitude towards the very countries he'd presumably be creating a unified bloc with for ?? reasons that no one can agree with.
All anyone wants is greater integration with America. If anything, part of Canada's weakness here is from becoming too complacent and relying on that. It was already going to happen if the US was bringing back manufacturing. The only impediment to more of that is Trump.
LOL
https://www.nsicop-cpsnr.ca/reports/rp-2024-06-03/special-report-foreign-interference.pdf
For the benefit of people who don't feel like reading a 90-page document in order to continue the conversation, relevant portions (that aren't censored):
NB: I am strongly of the opinion that @jkf should have provided such a digest himself.
More options
Context Copy link
Lol and a pdf? Come on son!
It's more effort than he deserves -- "LPC is hawkish on China" isn't even low effort, it's just agitprop.
That's not my point. I said the LPC hasn't been banging the racist drum even though it's clear that basically every US administration has been getting more and more hawkish on China. Even when it demands actions that create problems for Canada.
Y'know, as we discussed all of a day ago.
As opposed to blaming a lack of further integration on Canadian wokeness when Trump is the one taking a cleaver to his own trade deal because ?? tariffs.
Please
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