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 -
I'm curious what you think the counterfactual world looks like, where Trump comes out instead and claims "There were malicious people at work, and it was all orchestrated by [specific actors]."
What would happen next?
And if you're going off the assumption that Trump is being truthful and fully transparent, then why'd you bring up the election issues?
Are YOU saying that his claims of the election being stolen are credible, since you're here saying that he's honest about such serious matters?
Neat.
Now do the people who don't think Trump was shot at all.
So long as we're addressing conspiracy theories.
The counterfactual would look like Trump introducing his own praetorian guard. But he's Marius, not Sulla. He's not gonna do that. He's gonna say 'the secret service is great- the best. They had a bad day'.
It’s not necessarily smart to do that even if you have evidence of internal plots, because the same usual external plots / random crazies also still exist and people outside the secret service have much less experience identifying or defending against them.
Trump is not necessarily going to do the smart thing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If memory serves, Marius went off the rocker in his old age, and was rather tyrannical, if not quite as bad as Sulla.
Yes. History rhymes. Which of his associates will March on Rome?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Well Bondi hasn't investigated those yet.
/s
The overall problem is that Trump is not a reliable narrator. For this assassination attempt, he came out looking very good, by a centimeter or two. (Can you imagine what would have happened if like the side of his face was blown off, but he survived?)
That led to competing conspiracy theories:
Since Trump came out against the theory favored by (some of) his supporters, that takes all the steam out of it. No reason to expect he would lie on this.
For elections, Trump says basically every one he's in is rigged. If he loses, it's rigged against him. If he wins, it's rigged against him (or they tried to, apparently, in 2024, per his Epstein tweet).
If you're considering the possibility of rigged elections at all, there's nothing inherently goofy about this. "Rigged" doesn't mean "they can fake absolutely any outcome they want"--if they could fake X percent of votes and he wins by more than X percent, it might be rigged against him and he could win anyway.
This is one of those "worst arguments in the world" where "rigged" can now apparently mean "any level whatsoever of voter fraud" instead of what it's commonly expected to mean--major, material effects on or at least attempted changes to an election outcome.
You're just sanewashing Trump's unjustifiable statements for which no actual evidence has ever backed all the myriad theories (and there are accounts where he does admit he actually lost in 2020, by the way.)
Major material effects can still be insufficient to change the outcome.
Sure, and that's why I specified "attempt" in there, but there ought to be evidence of it.
Not mere allegational delusions.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
SOME reason to think he might, because if he straight up named conspirators, then now he's got to prosecute it and most likely try to have them executed.
There are scenarios where that is less than ideal, and the preferred method is letting them know he knows but otherwise dismissing it.
Oh sure, it's definitely not something that could be totally ruled out.
The 180 is hilarious to witness after all that build up.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
To me, the “he faked it” argument doesn’t really pass the laugh test. No one sane is going to hatch a plan in which a guy climbs a roof and shoots a real bullet at his head. No sharpshooter is going to attempt that shot especially outdoors where wind and glares can be a factor. It’s not a reasonable theory because the shot probably 99% of the time ends with the target hit rather than grazed.
The SS wanting a failure I could be convinced of. The reports by rally attendees over at least an hour that went completely unchecked is a pretty big failure. As in any sane person trying to protect a famous person would have at least checked it out sometime between the rally goers reporting the unknown guy on the roof and the actual shooting. I’m completely at a loss for an explanation that isn’t either “these guys are incompetent” or “they set him up.”
I said at the time and look to have been validated, that people have this idea of the USSS as a super competent organization. But at the end of the day they are still an organization, and are thus not immune to the common failure modes of organizations. As I understand the facts that we have, the communication failures (separate radio networks for the main detail and local support), the “good enough” problem (they had someone in the building, just not covering the roof), and “someone else’s problem” (bad or incomplete assignments during the planning phase) are absolutely classic organizational problems that crop up just as easily and pervasively in the USSS as they do in a large for-profit corporation. If anything, there’s less will to shake things up like a CEO might.
More options
Context Copy link
I assure you there were serious theories about fake blood capsules. I saw this from both Right and Left people.
Nevermind the real bullets that killed real people.
I mean again, you’re still stuck with having a guy point a real gun at a person’s head with a real bullet in it and really pulling the trigger. It’s a thing you can’t just gloss over. If Trump decided to fake it, he’s either stupid or crazy because if even the slightest thing goes wrong. He moves tge wrong way suddenly, the wind changes, the sun pops out from behind a cloud, tge scope is a few millimeters off, the shooter gets nervous, or he for some reason has to rush tge shot, there’s no way to be sure that this very real bullet fired from a very real gun doesn’t end up in Trump’s very real brain. We know it was a real bullet fired because it hit people in the crowd behind him. And all of this assumes it’s not at 19 year old dietary aide and community college graduate using a rifle he shoots paper targets at in a gun club once a week. A professional sniper wouldn’t dare try it, an amateur would undoubtedly kill his client trying something like this even at close range, let alone off the top of a building several hundred yards away. If you had a top sniper at gun range distance try to graze the ear of a baliastics gel head that’s randomly moving without hitting the rest of the head, I’d be shocked if anyone could do it even 1/20 times.
Oh I completely agree. The theory was something like: "The sniper was shooting around Trump, not at Trump, and Trump had a blood capsule to burst on his ear." People had to die to really sell it.
Nothing here makes sense in terms of risk/reward. And there's objective evidence to disprove it.
And yet.
I'm honestly surprised the shooter was just good enough to narrowly miss a headshot, but then couldn't even get a body shot for his follow ups. He got off at least three controlled shots before Trump ducked down.
(But we do have a number of people on this very forum that apply roughly the same level of credulity to Ghislaine Maxwell having a longstanding poweruser Reddit account, clearly authored by a Malaysian man, for actually not even a coherent motive. People want to believe.)
Or he was such a poor shot that he was aiming at the body, jerked as he pulled the trigger, and the shot just barely missed the head. Thus the lack of body shot follow ups: he was that bad of a shot.
That is a good point.
Also his scope may not have been zeroed very well.
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