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 -
A moderately interesting interview with Eric Trump just dropped in the FT. (Limited-use gift link - the article is paywalled but may also be accessible on a 5/month basis with free registration)
The headline is "Eric Trump opens door to political dynasty." It isn't explicit, but applying bounded distrust it looks like the FT reporter raised the issue and Eric responded mildly positively. It is consistent with the Trump family's general approach of keeping the idea of an illegal 3rd term and/or a dynastic successor in the public eye while maintaining plausible deniability about actually doing it.
I don't find Eric's denials that the family is making money off the Presidency interesting - the Mandy Rice-Davies principle applies. Eric is lying here and the FT makes this clear to a reader who is paying attention while avoiding words like "lie" and "falsely". It is an interesting example of a political reporter trying to write about a lying politician without engaging in either hostile editorialising or "opinions about shape of earth differ" non-journalism.
If I had to guess, Eric is positioning himself, personally for a future move into politics. Over the last few years Eric has been running the Trump Organisation while Don Jr and Barron support their father's political operation. With Barron taller and more talented, but still a long way off 35, Don Jr is the obvious dynastic successor at the moment. But the bit of the interview about a Trump dynasty is explicitly about the idea of Eric and not Don Jr being the politician.
I do find it interesting that Trump, for all of his self-vanity, does seem to genuinely care about leaving a legacy behind him and grooming successors. I suppose it could be an extension of his vanity, in an old sort of "having a grand legacy men will speak about for a thousand years" sort of way, but it strikes me as quite different from most other politicians that operate at the moment.
It seems underappreciated that regardless of how much or how little he was actually involved in raising them, every single one of Trump's kids have seemingly turned out well-adjusted (especially controlling for being raised with absurd wealth), irrespective of their birth mother.
Often enough major politicians' or business magnates' children can turn into embarrassing thorns in their side, maybe going to the press with stories of neglect or outright abuse, of being two-faced and dishonest. Or just being badly behaved and unworthy to fill their parents' shoes. (I'm constantly reminded of Tom Hanks' son Chet as a reminder for how far the apple can fall.)
Somehow he got five kids to adulthood (Barron's got a ways to go but just look at the guy) and no major blowouts, four of the five with kids of their own now.
The first couple steps to having any kind of Dynasty is raising your kids right and making sure they go on to expand the brood themselves so you have a diverse portfolio of possible heirs (tongue in cheek). It'd be worth trying to figure out what the Trumpian secret sauce is.
I think you’re going from the wrong assumption here. Kids and grandkids of Trump have much more in common with stereotypical children of wealth than they do children of celebrities. Confusing the two is a common mistake, but they are extremely different. A child of wealth learns that they have a parachute if they screw up. A child of celebrities learns that attention = survival, and are clearly poised to learn counterproductive lessons.
Speaking of children of politicians as a sort of weird third category doesn’t make sense. Either they are kids of the attention seeking variety (where some craziness is expected) or wealth (where they largely turn out fine). And I think you far oversell the number of crazy kids of wealth. Now I grant you part of that is wealth does better at hiding even after being busted for something (eg the children of the Reuters guy and their nanny). Despite that it’s impressive how relatively few wealthy kid screwups there are.
By comparison with Hunter Biden, though they may not be perfect, they're not as messy. Even The Onion can only mock Eric and Don Jr. for being childish idiots, whereas they had to go from 'Biden won't pardon Hunter' to 'Biden pardoned Hunter'.
I'm not comparing with the Bidens, though. To me that's too much selection bias, of a sort, but there's more than that besides. We should compare Trump's progeny to other business magnates - the original claim from faceh was that Trump is underappreciated for having well-adjusted progeny, and I reply that no no, he's merely doing par for the course. Billionaire kids, near as I can tell, aren't poorly-adjusted all that often. Politician kids, which were lumped in the same category, are not the same category. They are in fact on the spectrum that leads toward celebrity kids, which is definitely not the same category, despite conflation in that same comment! Trump is a businessman who, in the twilight of his life, decided to be a politician (and some think didn't even fully intend to, alleging he expected to lose). That's a very different thing than a political dynasty family. And even then... you know, children of major politicians being an embarrassment is probably still the exception rather than the rule.
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