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've written extensively on the recent gubernatorial election in my home state, the state in which three generations of my family have been born and where my wife and I own a house up the street from where I grew up, where I've been registered as a Republican since the day I turned 18. Between Mastriano and Shapiro Shapiro, the Democrat, was the one who would conserve the state I grew up in.
Mastriano planned to cut public school staffing by 2/3. I attended public schools throughout, and got a great education in my local school district, I graduated with 30 college credits and my classmates wound up at a variety of ivy league schools. Houses in my school district, like mine, routinely demand a 20+% premium for the schools. Mastriano and his plan would have reduced my largest assets value, and destroyed a local institution I loved. Not conservative. Shapiro pledged to introduce vouchers for those who wanted them in failing school districts. Great! Compromise!
Mastriano stated repeatedly and clearly that abortion should be banned with no exceptions. So while, yes, abortion is under no immediate threat in my state, that is a result of the R candidate losing last November. If he had won, he would be seeking legislation banning abortion while doing everything in his executive power to make it difficult. My dating life would have been different had it been as high stakes as Mastriano desired. Shapiro wanted to keep things the same.
Mastriano stated that gay marriage should be illegal in all cases, and hinted at sodomy laws being reintroduced. Once again, on the ballot, do uncle James and uncle Craig get to stay legitimately married in their home state, a wedding I went to in Jersey when I was 12.
So, explain to me why the GOP can't be identified with their candidate for the highest office in the fifth most populous state? A purple state with a deep Republican bench in the state Senate and local executives, a state where moderates should do well everywhere but inner city Phillie and Pittsburgh.
I desperately want to vote for competent conservative candidates! I don't want a single day in my kid's school wasted on trans ideology! But my life is basically pretty good, I don't want to turn the world upside down. If all the R on the ballot offers is revolution, it's gonna be tough to vote for him.
Sounds like you have a very red democrat in your state, who had to go far to the right to ensure victory, whereas the GOP felt secure enough to take more extreme positions. I’m not sure if Pennsylvania can really representative or not, I’m not American, but a democrat being in favour of school vouchers seems extremely unrepresentative of a what your typical dem politician is like
It was moreso that we had an extremely smart and intellectually consistent Right wing republican happen to win the primary (Jan 6th attendee who calls himself a Christian Nationalist) and the centrist Dem saw an opportunity to curb stomp him by getting a lot of R state level endorsements. As a result of those smart politics, Dems might get control of the state house for the first time in a long time; it almost certainly saved a US Senate seat for the Ds.
PA is more representative than any state in the union. It has both rural and urban areas, and was the likely flip state in the electoral college for 16 and 20 according to 538. Nowhere else is more representative. Keystone state, baby.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Problem is, you want social liberalisation (access to abortion in case you knocked up that temporary girlfriend; gay marriage for your uncles) and that doesn't just stop at the step of the ladder you are on. The next step up is the trans ideology, just as the step below that was the gay rights, and the step below that was the contraception and abortion access.
Fiscally conservative, socially liberal gives you the guy who conserved the state you grew up in, but his party is the one waving the Pride flags (some out of convenience, some out of conviction) and by the time your kid grows up, then "trans ideology in school" will be "conserving the state I grew up in".
Sure, but I think we're (including my learned friend @Syo above) going afield from the original argument in OP and my response to it.
OP states that Americans are not voting conservative as they get older. A number of other commenters made the point that young people aren't achieving the kinds of lifetime milestones that they'd want to conserve; I'm making the point that even among the subset of 30-40 year olds in America that have achieved those milestones, the Republican party is failing to field candidates or a platform that wish to conserve the world that helped them achieve those milestones.
If the traditional mechanism is young poor 20 year old liberal becomes fat happy married rich homeowner and thus conservative because he wants to preserve the things that made them happy for their (biological or constructive) children; well I'm 31 and I'm a fat, happy, rich, married, homeowner and in my most recent gubernatorial election the Republican party failed to field a candidate that wanted to protect the way I grew up, the things that made me fat, happy, rich, married.
You can argue that the way I grew up was fundamentally disordered and unsustainable, but that's a very different argument, and it's not an argument to conserve it's an argument for change. It's not protecting the real, it is advocating for the hypothetical. That might be the future of the Republican party or the Right more broadly, but that means tactics will need to change: you cannot count on the Coalition of the Comfortable if your plan is to make everyone who likes the world as it is deeply uncomfortable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Do you have data showing the number of such employees when you attended school vs today? Also what fraction of them are actual teachers and how many are bureaucrats that have their job due to the needs of other bureaucrats?
I don't see anything "conservative", at least as understood in America, in widespread premarital sex, with people with whom you intend to part ways in the morning. Thinking this is lifestyle for which the state should permit the sacrifice of unborn children, doubly so.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link