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 -
Slow morning, eh?
For some time now, we've been discussing the implications of Hunter Biden's laptop, and whether the information it contained was relevant to our political system. Thanks to the Twitter Files, we know that the FBI knew about the laptop's contents roughly a year in advance of the 2020 election, and used its official access with the major social media companies to prepare their censors to perceive the story as Russian disinformation. Then when the story actually broke in the press, the FBI successfully pushed the social media companies to censor it.
From the laptop information itself, we know that for quite a while now, Hunter Biden has been engaged in various grifts, selling purported access to his father in exchange for lucrative sinecures with various foreign corporations, selling "art" for amusingly inflated values, and so on. The supposition on the Red side has been that this grift implicated Biden as well, and Trump's attempts to have that theory investigated led directly to his first impeachment. The laptop emails backed this story with evidence, with Hunter referencing how "the big guy" was getting a significant cut of his grift money, and one of his associates confirming that "the big guy" was in fact Joe Biden.
Blues on the other hand claimed that there was no reason to suppose any corruption was happening. While Hunter was obviously a junkie fuckup grifter, and was obviously making his money claiming to peddle influence, there was no evidence of actual payments going to Joe, so this was all meaningless. My impression of the previous threads is that even those here who thought Hunter was paying Joe, assumed that there would be no formal exchange of money, but rather quid-pro-quo.
Now it appears that Hunter Biden has been paying rent to live in his father's residence in Delaware, to the tune of $49,901 per month. For completeness' sake, it must be mentioned that this is the same residence where Joe was found to be improperly storing classified documents, alongside his Corvette. While it seems doubtful that the files would be of interest to a junkie who prospers by peddling influence for foreign corporations, it's a detail that does add a touch of piquancy to the overall narrative.
So this appears to me to be pretty open-and-shut. Joe Biden is corrupt, selling influence to foreign corporations in China and Eastern Europe through his son Hunter. Hunter collects the money, then kicks a large slice back to Joe through rent, and quite possibly other, yet undiscovered "repayments". Trump was impeached when he attempted to have these activities investigated, while the FBI sat on the information they were given, and engaged in a protracted disinformation and censorship campaign to keep that information from leaking elsewhere. That information does in fact lead to provable direct payments from Hunter to Biden.
Impeachment when?
[EDIT] - ...Or perhaps not! @firmamenti points out that while Hunter is apparently living in the residence and renting an office space for 50k, the office space is not specified to be in the residence, and very well could be an entirely separate location entirely unconnected to Biden. The hunt continues...
Ben Schreckinger’s book, The Bidens, builds a pretty strong case that both Hunter and Joe’s brother, Jim, have tried to cash in on Joe’s name with varying degrees of success and failure over the years, and when people close to Joe have raised the issue, Biden has repeatedly chosen to plug his ears, out of familial loyalty, and the belief that if he doesn’t know about it, he is in the clear. But also, that links actually connecting Biden to any corruption have not been uncovered.
Yes, Biden has ignored conflicts of interest and in a better world he would have been disqualified from holding office. But in terms of Washington, he’s sadly rather benign.
The darkly funny thing is the Bidens are so small-time when it comes to money, and a savvier man than Joe could have cashed in far more than Biden did, at least in his senate years when representing a state with only a million people and two-thirds of America’s Fortune 500 companies registered, there. But Joe was always far more interested in holding office, with a personal dream of becoming president. In one sense, hats off to the senile old mick — privately, Obama was never bullish on his prospects — but he did it.
Impeachment when?
This is a culture war section, so one joke of an impeachment needs to be met with one that also appears to be built on flimsy ground, because the other tribe did it? I’d rather wait until some substantial proof is uncovered. Let’s say a benchmark of something worse than Jared Kushner getting $2,000,000,000 from the Saudis six months after his father-in-law left office.
But that just raises further questions! Like if you were a politician with presidential aspirations, would you let family members repeatedly cash in on your good name in shady ways for decades? Or would you try to distance yourself from them as much as possible? Imagine your brother or son just got caught for the third time doing corrupt shit and linking it to you, but they swear they did nothing wrong. Do you believe them?
What about if your boss did that at work, just let his family run around embroiling him in scandals and doing things that made him look corrupt - would you believe him when he said he believed they did nothing wrong? If you did believe him, would you trust his judgement or would you think he had an obvious blindspot rendering him easy to manipulate?
Biden is savvier than some give him credit for, and I think playing dumb is the right move here. If he gets himself actively involved in his brother and son's shady dealings, well, that raises the risk of being dragged down if they're caught. If you speak against them loudly and distance yourself as much as possible, as you say, you will have convinced approximately nobody that you're clean and have attracted approximately five million sharks who smell blood in the water.
Or you play dumb, do your own thing, and don't begrudge your family some cash paid by shady parties who think giving your relatives cushy jobs will buy them influence.
I mean - really, think about it. Suppose Biden came out tomorrow, and spoke out against his family. Suppose he condemned their influence-seeking and money-grubbing ways, coasting by on their surnames. That he'd swear up and down he had nothing to do with it, honest, fingers crossed.
Do you see that as a good move? Do you think that'll convince any single one of the people currently in doubt? Do you think it'll put the matter to rest even slightly?
I don't think it would. And in doing so he'd get people he loves and cherishes thoroughly incensed with him while just getting his opponents more ammunition: 'He knew all along! What isn't he telling us?!'
Better to play dumb. It is what it is.
The point of Joe denouncing Hunter's influence peddling operation isn't to make him look cleaner - as you point out, this wouldn't work. Never apologise, never explain is the right way to handle a scandal that isn't bad enough to concern people who are not political news junkies or enemy partisans.
The point of Joe denouncing Hunter's operation would be to let foreign crooks know that Hunter doesn't have the influence he is selling, because that would make Hunter stop. I will admit that I don't know if that would work either - I suspect the average corrupt Ukrainian businessman would assume that Joe's denunciation is performative and of course Hunter has the influence he is selling despite it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
100% Joe needs to be impeached by the House. Retaliatory strikes are necessary in war. GOP can’t let the first impeachment stand unpunished.
This is what Trump should've taught the Republicans, but didn't really: you must fight.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
A tangent on Jim Biden — the seedier folks involved with Dickie Scruggs were tossing Jim’s name around as part of a new lobbying firm they were going to open in D.C. before the feds came down on them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link