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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8223 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025

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I've been thinking about why some people are terrified of Trump while others, like me, are more indifferent. I mostly tune out Trump news because I assume much of it involves scare tactics or misleading framing by his detractors. When my wife brings up concerns about his supposedly authoritarian actions, my general response is that if what he's doing is illegal, the governmental process will handle it - and if it's legal, then that's how the system is supposed to work. I have faith that our institutions have the checks and balances to deal with any presidential overreach appropriately.

This reminded me of a mirror situation during 2020-2021 with the BLM movement, where our positions were reversed. I was deeply concerned about social media mobs pressuring corporations, governments, and individuals to conform under threat of job loss, boycotts, and riots, while my wife thought these social pressures were justified and would naturally self-correct if they went too far. The key difference I see is that the government has built-in checks and balances designed to prevent abuse of power, while social movements and mob pressure operate without those same institutional restraints. It seems like we each trust different institutional mechanisms, but I can't help but think that formal governmental processes with built-in restraints are more reliable than grassroots social pressure that operates without those same safeguards. Furthermore, the media seems incentivized to amplify fear about Trump but not about grassroots social movements - Trump generates clicks and outrage regardless of which side you're on, while criticizing social movements risks alienating the platforms' own user base and advertiser-friendly demographics.

Until the 2020 election, Trump's opponents were mostly crying wolf. His first administration was a shit show, but besides putting a few migrant kids into cages, he mostly harmed the reputation of the US.

His election denial changed that. The idea that the vote is generally fair and sacred was previously a universal of US politics. Sure, candidates would sometimes quibble over individual districts with irregularities and might need the SCOTUS to resolve their differences, but at least once a verdict was in, the losing side would accept the result and concede. Trump was the first candidate whose ego could not admit defeat, and his party mostly backed him in his lies. J6 showed that he was not committed to a peaceful transfer of power.

Of course, the Democrats reacted with a lot of lawsuits. Some with merit, some pure lawfare. In his 2nd administration, Trump seems completely free of traditional political advice, instead relying on his clique of yes-men to implement his personal ideas. Previous administrations had the decency to do corruption under a mantle of plausible deniability. With Trump it is ubiquitous and brazen.

The key difference I see is that the government has built-in checks and balances designed to prevent abuse of power, while social movements and mob pressure operate without those same institutional restraints.

While I am reluctant to defend the woke mob, I will also notice that government can do a lot of things that most social movements can not do at scale. The BLM riots happened because local governments were willing to turn a blind eye to rioting rather than employ police violence. So the government should at least get half-credit for them. But a bunch of criminals looting is small fries compared to the kind of damage the federal government can do.

Saying that you are less worried about government because it has checks and balances is like saying that you are less worried about nuclear weapons than you are about knives because nukes need a code to activate them while knives let anyone stab people. Sure, the median crazy killer will murder more people with a knife than a nuke, but if the safety mechanism fails the nuke-wielding crazy will be able to do orders of magnitude more damage.

Sure, candidates would sometimes quibble over individual districts with irregularities and might need the SCOTUS to resolve their differences, but at least once a verdict was in, the losing side would accept the result and concede

Sigh. My generally reliable long-term memory superpower is kicking in again.

HE LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU, MOM:

For instance, Abrams at various times has said the election was “stolen” and even, in a New York Times interview, that “I won.” She suggested that election laws were “rigged” and that it was “not a free or fair election.” She also claimed that voter suppression was to blame for her loss, even though she admitted she could not “empirically” prove that. While she did acknowledged Kemp was the governor, she refused to say he was the “legitimate” governor.

Well, probably not. But he was echoing the same sentiment. And I can reiterate my spiel how the 2018 elections in Florida sure looked like they came close to being 'stolen' too.

In his 2nd administration, Trump seems completely free of traditional political advice, instead relying on his clique of yes-men to implement his personal ideas.

When almost every single person he appointed to help him due to "traditional political advice" backstabbed him, usually immediately after exiting the administration, why the hell would he repeat that mistake?

Previous administrations had the decency to do corruption under a mantle of plausible deniability. With Trump it is ubiquitous and brazen.

Oh boy, time for my generally reliable medium-term memory superpower.

Remember Biden (or someone using his pen) pardoning his own son for literally ANY criminal acts he might have done "during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024...". Curious that he'd pick that particular period of time.

How fucking "plausible" is that deniability.

I'd love for us to return to a better equilibrium but that requires BOTH sides to agree to such a return.

But if your contention against Trump is that HE broke these particular norms that were up-until-then sacred... well I'm not convinced in the slightest.

For instance, Abrams at various times has said the election was “stolen” and even, in a New York Times interview, that “I won.” She suggested that election laws were “rigged” and that it was “not a free or fair election.” She also claimed that voter suppression was to blame for her loss, even though she admitted she could not “empirically” prove that. While she did acknowledged Kemp was the governor, she refused to say he was the “legitimate” governor.

From that WaPo article, I agree that she sounds just like Trump, and I find her just as terrible for it. Likewise, there is a special place in hell for all the SJ people who claim that Trump and Musk rigged the 2024 election. Still, on the national level, outright election denial was very rare before Trump.

Remember Biden (or someone using his pen) pardoning his own son for literally ANY criminal acts he might have done "during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024...". Curious that he'd pick that particular period of time.

I agree that that was far worse than anything else I can remember from his presidency. That was Biden taking a shit on the oval office carpet on his way out of the door. Especially since the alternative would not have been to just park his son outside the US for the Trump presidency, where he would be safe from any just or unjust prosecution by Trump's DoE -- since Hunter Biden was never Trump's arch-enemy on a level Snowden/Assange were for the US security apparatus.

Still, while Biden was not great (and is reason enough to change how pardons work), Trump is on a whole different level. I vaguely recall a story about some crypto bros who were facing federal charges for one thing or another which went away once they spent a suitable amount of money on Trump's shitcoins. Or him accepting a 200M$ jet from Qatar which will go to his presidential library (how many copies of The Art of the Deal can you fit in a building, anyhow?)

Still, on the national level, outright election denial was very rare before Trump.

Are we including the hanging Chad conspiracies in this comparison or no? If not, what makes them substantivel different?

What conspiracies are you talking about?

Blues generally did not consider the 2000 election victory of George W Bush to be legitimate. Problems with the ballots and voting machines resulted in a protracted and highly contentious recount, ultimately ending with a lawsuit which the Supreme Court decided in favor of George W. Bush. Many, many blues from all strata of Blue culture believed that Gore had won the election, only to have his victory stolen by the Republican machine. This objection was inescapable in popular culture from 2000 to 2008, and I'd imagine that for most people who lived through the era as politically-engaged adults, the event is indelible in the hippocampus.

A developer for one of those voting machines testified on record that he was asked to put in a backdoor into one of those machines.

How much stock should we put in that? Plenty of whistleblowers in other contexts have turned out to be shady self-promoters, and I've honestly come to mostly disregard them without further evidence: Rebekah Jones seems to have pretty thoroughly shown herself as untrustworthy. On the other hand, I can think of examples that brought evidence and have demonstrably paid for their choices -- Manning and Snowden come to mind first.

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