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 -
While eyes are on Trump and tariffs and all that, there is a minor crisis brewing in the House on proxy voting.
For background, the Constitution provides little substantive guidance for how to run the legislature other than
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, which in practice has been taken to mean that they can make and remake their own rules by a majority vote at any time. One aspect of this is that they need rules to do anything -- without a resolution adopting rules of procedure, the House cannot take up any business. Another facet of the rules (as they are today) is that the Speaker sets the agenda and controls what comes to a vote (and the rules for bringing amendments and so forth). This lead famously to the "majority of the majority" calculation -- a bill must have an absolute majority to pass but it must also have a majority of the majority to be put forth by their leadership to even get a vote. A curious exception to this is the "discharge petition" -- effectively a way for a majority of Representatives to force the leadership to put a particular matter up for vote without delay. Once presented with sufficient votes, a discharge petition is privileged from being preempted by other business.So with all that parliamentary background aside, here's where we are: a (now former) member of the freedom caucus with an solid conservative voting record is leading the charge to allow new parents to designate another member of the House as their proxy to vote on their behalf for 12 weeks after the birth of their child. The GOP leadership refused to put it up for a vote so she got 218 votes to discharge it, which means (under the current rules) the House has vote on it within 2 weeks.
Instead of taking the L, GOP leadership tried to play hardball and brought up a procedural rule to forbid the use of discharge petitions entirely. I found the text here. This apparently rankled enough republicans (changing the rules on what can be voted for because you're about to lose a vote is still frowned upon) to vote against the procedural rule, which in turn means the House is stuck. At that point, Johnson had no option but to adjourn till next week to buy time.
So basically this issue has frozen the House, right at the point where we might need a functioning Congress.
Tallying it up, I see a decent number of conservatives whose opposition to proxy voting for new parents is such that they won't accept any rules resolution in which it might come up for a vote (because they wouldn't accept losing that vote). On the other side, with Luna is is Trump who weight in saying (direct quote, because he's always quotable) "I like the idea of being able to — if you’re having a baby, I think you should be able to call in and vote. I’m in favor of that".
Editorializing a bit, for me the Article I framing firmly puts the procedural rules outside the realm of constitutional or judicial reckoning and makes it a political matter. Hence, I find the legalistic arguments on it to be misplaced -- it's not a legal matter. On the policy, it seems reasonable enough for the House to make a point of being pro-natal and I think voters can throw out any representative if they don't like her votes (by proxy or otherwise) in the next election.
I also think embedding a substantive proposal into a rule is pretty silly -- maybe I'm procedure-brained (or WEIRD) but this is just pants
Instead of designating a proxy, why couldn't they cast votes over a video link?
(That also gives you the side benefit referred to in technicalese as 'continuity-of-government' and in English as 'not having your entire legislature within one blast radius'.
That would be an even more radical change to the rules of the House.
Proxy voting is seen (perhaps wrongly) as a more conservative alternative in which votes are still fundamentally cast in person with a roll call.
More options
Context Copy link
In the age of deepfakes? Untenable.
When it comes to political process you either go simple as dirt or giga-hardened. Either votes are only valid if emitted through some state of the art cryptography or you have to be face to face.
Otherwise you'll end up with your representatives just being video feeds.
The best security is still a locked door and an armed guard where only a few people have the key, and the guard is not one of them.
More options
Context Copy link
I would assume the video feed would be authenticated (in addition to everything else) by a physical token that the representative has to retrieve at the point of swearing in. But anyway, for reasons I added above, this is extremely unlikely -- far more so than the modest request for new mothers not to have to fly to DC with a newborn under 12 weeks.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link