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 -
ymeskhout: Bootlicking Millionaires with Severe Tongue Abrasion - Sad!
In the discussion of the Skadden thing, 2rafa wrote "I was thinking that if Trump was really smart, he would have forced them to actually commit to hiring, say, 30% of their junior lawyer intake from a college Federalist Society approved list." and I replied, "How could Trump do that? I can't think of a stick to use, and the only carrot I can think of is being hired as outside counsel, but any firm worth hiring as outside counsel presumably already has every former appellate clerk they can get."
I had seen the headlines about Paul Weiss, but I had hoped it was a weird overreaction, on their part, and could be ignored. But should we worry about the possibility that the Trump administration takes it as a sign they could continue to bully - or even outright extort - law firms? Is this a viable strategy, for the Trump administration? To what extent is Executive corruption limited by POTUS's scrupulousness and Congress's willingness to impeach and convict?
I actually clicked the link and read it.
It's bad. Really bad. So bad that quoting it would reveal how bad it is.
It's just seething resentment disguised as righteous outrage, gratuitous profanity shot though every paragraph, bragging about his wife, and never any admission that what Trump is doing makes sense* for him.
In this case, the topic is the retribution Trump is visiting on the lawyers that tried to prosecute him. Or, in the words of our author,
Vengeful, yes. Petulant baby, not exactly. "When you strike at the King, you must kill him." Well, Trump has been struck, and struck again, and he's alive. Now he is revoking the privileges of access and largesse from those who he disfavors. This is not being a petulant baby, this is rewarding friends and punishing enemies. It is exactly what was done to him by his enemies.
Funny we already had a dementia patient as President, and he wasn't as active as this one. Alas, contempt for Trump excuses everything, especially hypocrisy.
No, what makes you a man is violence, and power, and the capability and willingness to use both. What makes us all gelded is the inability and unwillingness to simply do, to impose your will on reality, whether it be nature and wilderness, or other people and institutions, or least of all your own vices and base desires, like fucking your hot wife.
This is what he misses in his paean of wealth after spitting on those richer and more successful than him:
The GM doesn't have the ability to change his reality. He is less free and less manly than the poorest pioneer, the most wretched and miserable explorer dying thousands of miles from his home of strange foreign diseases, the count or duke or king who never dreamed of central heating or refrigeration or indoor plumbing.
It's a bad post, and I wish I hadn't bothered reading it.
*The image is the only part of this that's relevant to my post.
The whole point of America is that the President is not a King. The whole problem here is that Trump is acting like one.
If FDR, or even Obama, wasn't a problem for America, then neither is Trump.
I think conservatives are pretty unanimous that FDR was a problem for America.
I think liberals agreed, and continue to agree, that nobody should have as much power as FDR did. The standard pro-FDR view is that only reason why FDR was not more of a problem for America (the left agrees that he engaged in at least one egregious abuse of power - the internment of Japanese-Americans) was that he was a man of exceptional virtue in a way that you can't afford to rely on. There were two major bipartisan changes to the system post-FDR intended to stop anyone having that much power ever again - the APA and the 22nd amendment.
FDR's contemporaries thought, correctly, that running for a third term was a breach of the mos maiorum. The only reason historians forgive him for it is that he went on to be an effective wartime leader.
FDR died in office at 63. I do not think the alternative history where he lives to 75 works out well for American democracy.
This effectively means that liberals don't care for America having a president, not a king. They love having a king as long he's a man of "exceptional virtue" (steamrolls checks and balances to implement liberal policies).
The liberals supported the 22nd amendment too. "We should never have another FDR" was not a controversial position once the war was over and the Japanese internment camps stopped feeling like a good idea.
"Never have another FDR" practically means "nobody can fix what FDR broke."
More options
Context Copy link
His abuses of power didn't start with WW2, so "we should never have another FDR" after he reshaped the entire country, setting the tone for next century, is awfully convenient.
Also, this particular line of argument seems irrelevant until Trump starts running for his 3rd term.
KMC, while posting in favour of Trump, compared him to a King and applauded him for punishing lese-majeste in the way a King would. I think that is a problem. You brought up the comparison to FDR, not me. Although if we are going to run with it, I note that if FDR had put out an official portrait of him crowned and enthroned (something Trump did - on @WhiteHouse and not @RealDonaldTrump so it was official government communication) then even his supporters would have objected. If FDR had announced sanctions against law firms who represented his political opponents (which he did not), his supporters should have objected.
FDR's supporters did object to Japanese internment as soon as it was safe to do so. FDR's supporters did object to Court-packing, which is why it didn't happen.
The MAGA base support administrative detention legal immigrants with the wrong tattoos - in peacetime, which makes this worse than FDR. They support various plans to neuter opposition to the administration through the courts. And when Trump talks about running for a third term, they insist he is joking while selling Trump 2028 T-shirts and putting up Trump 2028 banners at CPAC. Trump is already running for a third term in plain sight, or at least maintaining strategic ambiguity about doing so - the correct response from non-fashy Trump supporters would be "This is stupid and I wish he would stop" not "Yay libs so trolled. Trump 2028 for great lulz!!!"
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link