site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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.

12
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Apologies for the low effort but things are looking to get interesting because in the last 60 seconds Trump not only announced that he's running, he's announced that if he's elected going to seek specific laws against insider trading by members of congress, and ban on mail in and electronic voting. Direct quote "third world countries are better at democracy than we are and that is embarrassing"

Edit: "we will be attacked slandered and persecuted by one of the most dangerous and pervasive government apparati ever designed by man or women but we will win."

"We we will defend life liberty and the pursuit of happiness against the great enemy."

Edit 2: Speech has just concluded; Stand Up and Heroes are odd but appropriate choices for walk off music given the speech.

If were being honest I'm actually kind of nervous. On one hand this was a good speech that hit the right notes, it's what Trump needed to say if he wants to get elected. On the other this is the second time in 3 months (the other being Biden's Leni Riefenstahl moment) that a mainstream political candidate walked right up to the line of calling for the opposing party to be arrested and or shot and reading the reaction in red leaning spaces I gotta say that I'm feeling a lot like RDml Painter

I don't personally believe it, but the obvious case for it would be that he learned that things in DC are way more corrupt than what he thought the first time around. In that telling, he'll be putting together loyalist teams to replace the semi-permanent bureaucracy, removing them immediately on victory and installing his own people. Last time, he thought that merely winning an election would grant him the ability to issue orders in the executive branch, but this time he realizes that personnel is policy. He has articulated as much and WaPo has responded with a defense of Our Bureacracy Democracy.

Now, I don't think he has the ability to pull it off, but that's the story you'd have to tell to think he could.

He would be convincing if he had a list of appointments ready to go that he released- after all, he did that last time with judges, and now look, Roe is gone.

I'd love it if all presidential candidates named a full slate of cabinet appointees, and then we got to see the appointees debate. Would really let us zero in on policy issues.

I guess the problem with this is that your potential cabinet members are going to have other important jobs which would be impacted by the announcement that there is a 50/50 chance they'll be quitting.

Most of them would already be talking that over with insiders months before the election, CEOs and such. People know they might get picked.