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 -
Per Politico, Zohran Mamdani set to topple Andrew Cuomo in NYC mayoral race, at least the Democratic primary. Live results here if that changes. The general election is in November -- Cuomo left the door open as he conceded tonight already to run as an independent; current mayor Eric Adams already is intending to run as an independent. This is nothing short of a massive political earthquake. Here's what I see as the most important questions raised:
Did ranked choice (and associated strategy) make a major difference?
We don't know yet quite how much. In percents, Mamdani leads 43.5 - 36.4 with 91% reporting as of writing, this means on Tuesday ranked-choice results will be released as he didn't clear 50% alone, since Brad Lander who cross-endorsed Mamdani has 11.4, Adrienne Adams who did not for anyone has 4.1. But it seems a foregone conclusion he will win. I'm not certain how detailed a ranked-choice result we get. Do we get full ranked choice results/anonymized data, or do we only see the final result, or do we get stage by stage? The voter-facing guide is here which I might have to peruse. I think the RCV flavor here is IRV (fewest first-place votes eliminated progressively between virtual "rounds" until one has a majority)
In terms of counterfactuals, I believe the previous Democratic primary system was 40%+ wins, under 40% led to a runoff between top two, so Mamdani would have won that anyways. But the general election is, near as I can tell, not ranked choice, it is instead simply plurality, no runoff. This creates some interesting dynamics. Of course, it's also possible the pre-voting dynamics and candidate strategies of this race were affected.
My thoughts? It seems Cuomo was ganged up on, and I think ranked choice accelerated this. It will be very interesting to see how this did or did not pay off for Lander specifically -- was he close-ish to a situation where people hate Cuomo most, but are still uncomfortable enough with Mamdani to hand Lander a surprise victory from behind? Statistically this seems unlikely in this particular case, but it could still happen, and how close he comes could offer some interesting insights about how popular a strategy like this might be in the future.
Will Democratic support and the primary victory make a difference in the general election?
The literal million-dollar question. Cuomo might very well run again as an independent -- otherwise his career is kind of extra-finished, no? I suppose he could always try and run for Congress later, but this is a black eye no matter how you spin it. Eric Adams, the former Democratic candidate, has also had his share of scandals, so potentially there is some similarity with Cuomo on that level. But he does have an incumbency advantage, and has expected some kind of fight for a while. Republicans might back him more, however, depending on how much they dislike Mamdani. It's hard to say. Also, Mamdani would have the Democratic party machinery and resources behind him. How much will they pitch in? That's an open question for sure. It will certainly help to some extent, for legitimacy if nothing else.
Will these results generalize nationally? And if so, what part of the results?
First of all, you must see this as an absolute W for grassroots. Cuomo is a political super-insider, despite being a major bully who is widely disliked. Yet many former enemies have backed him anyways, especially more "moderate" ones. Interesting article link. Bloomberg for example backed him. He formed a super PAC "Fix the City" and it spent a ton of time on negative attacks against Mamdani, especially on his pro-Palestinian comments framing them as anti-Israel. There's that angle of course. I'd rather not get into it personally, but I'm sure there will be some observations about if the Israel-Palestinian issue was big or not, whether it was fair, etc.
Then there's the socialism angle. Do Democrats want more extreme left candidates? Are socialists ready for the big time? Was this Cuomo's unique weaknesses? Was is just crazy turnout among young people? Did AOC and friends help a lot? All things we will be thinking about for a number of months to come. Personally, I see this as Mamdani doing much, much better among kitchen-table issues for the median voter. All about affordability. Of course, the merit of his attempt is a separate question. He's pro rent control (economically sketchy but not unheard of), wants to create public supermarkets (horrible idea all around, supermarket margins are very small), taxing the rich (will they flee or not?), and is obviously young and not super experienced.
This is just a re-run of the “stunning” surprise justice-reform prosecutor / mayoral wins in some big cities during Trump I. The core of progressive ideology is only temporarily vulnerable to reality-based criticism (for example ‘crime just doubled, the streets are now full of psychotic homeless vagrants, the subway is unsafe, these guys want to defund the police’).
As soon as the issue is even partially resolved, the progressive voter returns to his comforter position (electing candidates like Mamdani) because he never actually questioned whether his own ideas were wrong; his shift to the center was ‘pragmatic’ (fear based), as crime stabilizes he again has the luxury of voting ideologically.
More generally, the Democratic establishment is at least partially responsible for screwing over Adams. Corrupt? Maybe, but there are 50 Dem mayors of major cities over the last 100 years who were more corrupt than him.
Do perceived crime rates really change that quick on average though?
Perceived crime rates change much faster than actual crime rates.
I bet 'perceived crime rates' includes observations of crime-adjacent activities that wouldn't ever be measured in 'actual' rates: the appearance of ubiquitous graffiti (see pictures of 80s subway cars), or of loitering ne'er-do-wells in the park isn't necessarily a wrong perception about crime rates.
You don't have to fully endorse the broken windows theory of (causing) crime to accept that frequent observations of broken windows can cause a true perception of rising crime rates.
I would bet on that being true, but not a complete explanation. I'd add:
A) Crime statistics don't capture all crime. A lot of stuff is never reported. Property crimes so minor that they don't merit the time because you know the cops won't do anything about it, like stuff stolen off your front porch or out of the back of a pickup truck. Scuffles that don't result in major injury. Things that happen to shitbirds while they are engaged in shitbird activities and would prefer not to involve the law. Sexual harassment or assault under gray circumstances. People observe or hear about those even if they aren't reported to police and it figures into their perceptions.
A1) Attempted crimes that don't rise to the level of being worth reporting or prosecuting. I see a guy hanging around my truck in the parking lot and yell hey can I help you and he runs off. The guy that follows my wife for a block or two so she goes into a store and he disappears. Those don't show up in statistics. This largely overlaps with what you are saying.
B) A lot of people are wildly paranoid, and will over-react to news reports of crimes. People will tell me that in a local small city "Two or three people get killed there every weekend;" if I look at the statistics 13 people were killed there in 2021, 9 in 2022, 17 in 2023, 4 in 2024. But that's enough that they can remember a story about a person getting shot, and it makes them start to worry about going downtown.
C) People who are victims of crime talk about it a lot, and typically write over anything they did to "deserve" it.
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