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 -
Yes, Democrats Really Do Want You Dead
Some people have already put the Charlie Kirk assassination into the memory box. For others it still feel terrifyingly relavent. The initial shock at the cheers and jubulant celebration at his gruesome public execution has faded slightly. The public square dominated by Democratic figures and Never Trumpers invoking some fraudulent both sidesism has, like it or not, dulled some of the public backlash. And honestly, the compulsive conspiracy theorist on the right hasn't helped maintain moral clarity in the wake of his murder either.
You may remember, I've talked before about the casual genocidal bloodlust the average Northern VA Democrat has based on the time I lived there. And while Democrats, for now, seem to have enough message discipline to not get on CNN and openly say "Yes, Republicans deserve to be murdered", their line is just shy of that incredibly low bar. Enter Jay Jones.
He's been caught essentially laying out the case that Republicans should be shot and killed, and their children murdered in front of them, so that they change their politics. A DM conversation "leaked" where in he has this conversation with a Republican colleage in the Virginia House I believe. So this wasn't even exactly an "in house" conversation. Just straight up telling the opposition, "Hey, I think you deserve to die" like it would never or could never come back to haunt him.
As of now, no Democrat has pulled their endorsement of him, I saw one single local Democrat say he would stop campaigning with him, several groups have actively reaffirmed his endorsement still saying he's somehow better than your generic Republican. His brazen assertion that you should kill even the children too, because "they are breeding little fascist" is probably a huge hit in Northern VA. Finally someone who openly talks and thinks like they do. I've seen those exact words on the NOVA subreddit every day. He's very likely to have top legal authority over me and my children, whom he believes deserve to die.
I'm gonna be honest, I'm fairly distressed over this. This is how Pogroms work. In the famed Jewish Pogroms of 1881, 40 Jews were killed leading to a mass emigration from Russia. I wonder if we'll hit that number in Virginia the next 4 years. I fully expect my deep red rural county that's been electorally attached through gerrymandering to Fairfax will be aggressively "enriched" as punishment for voting wrong.
There's a saying, more of a cliche, about being the change you want to see. Given that Donald Trump basically is the Republican Party at this point, and has been for some time, I don't see any evidence of anyone desiring any change or even indicating that they want a change, provided it isn't just that the other side has to do the changing. Name one instance where someone on the right engaged in violence or violent rhetoric and Trump offered nothing but a full-throated, unequivocal condemnation. Name one. I'm not interested in which side has more total incidents or who started it or any of that, because it honestly doesn't matter at this point. We can go all the way back to Trump's entry into politics in 2015 and see nothing but excuses, equivocation, or using tragic events as an opportunity to dunk on his political opponents. Let's take a look at some of the biggies that have transpired in that time:
Dylann Roof: Trump wasn't really in a position where he'd be required to say anything at the time of the incident, as it preceded his entry into politics, but he later criticized the media for not blaming Obama for the shooting. The context of that remark was somewhat complicated, but it's nonetheless impossible to believe any context where Obama could have credibly been blamed for the Roof incident.
Cesar Sayok: See above. A pro-Trump militant mails pipe bombs to various Democratic leaders. Trump's immediate concern is that the media is unfairly blaming him for inspiring the incident. Whether or not that was fair, there didn't seem to be much concern from Trump or any other Republican that somebody was mailing pipe bombs for political reasons.
The Whitmer Kidnapping Plot: Immediately following the arrests, Trump's response was to suggest that she should be in jail anyway due to her COVID policies. In the course of the prosecution it would later come to light that the perpetrators had an entrapment defense that wasn't entirely ridiculous, though it was ultimately unsuccessful, and various people on the right latched on to this to make them look like political prisoners. This ignores the fact that Trump made his comments long before anyone knew all the details.
Paul Pelosi Attack: Trump wasn't in office then, but his response was to make jokes about it on the campaign trail. Then a completely baseless theory developed among conservatives who were sure that the guy was a male prostitute in a relationship with Pelosi. Charlie Kirk said that a true patriot needed to come along and bail the guy out. Even the Republicans who offered support to the Pelosis did nothing to attempt to diffuse the rumors.
Charlottesville: The most famous of Trump's equivocations, endlessly defended among his supporters. The point wasn't whether he was technically correct when he implied that all sides engage in political violence. It was that unequivocally condemning a white supremacist who committed murder should be the easiest thing a president does. Had he simply disavowed white supremacy and violence that would have been the end of it, but he had to use the tragedy as an opportunity to take a dig at his political opponents.
Minnesota Lawmaker Shootings: This is probably the most he ever did in that his office issued a written statement condemning the attacks. But when he actually got in front of a microphone he couldn't resist the opportunity to dunk on Tim Walz.
Shapiro Arson: Probably his best response so far, in that he was completely silent about it, except for a private call with Shapiro several days after the incident.
January 6: The Biggie. This topic has been litigated to death on here and I'm not about to relitigate it. Hundreds of people break into the Capitol building, threatening the vice president and various other politicians, in order to overturn the results of a presidential election. Even while they're still in the building, Trump can't address the nation without telling them he loves them. Initial Republican condemnation turns to justification and excuse making: Most of them just trespassed, they weren't carrying guns, the Democrats didn't do a good job of stopping the 2020 protests (never mind Trump was president), Clinton pardoned Puerto Rican nationalists 30-years later, the election really was stolen and they were all patriots, etc.
If that's where things ended then I could just lump this in with the above, but it went further. As the years past the plight of the poor insurrectionists became a cause celebre on the right, culminating in the pardons of everyone involve. Doesn't matter if they actually caused property damage. Doesn't matter if they assaulted cops. Doesn't matter if they planned things in advance. It was all a big liberal hoax to take political prisoners. It was at this point that the GOP completely abandoned any pretext of being a law and order party insofar as the law applies equally to everyone. Instead they used the perceived bad behavior of their political opponents as a license to condone violence that supports their own political ends.
All of the above is why I find it hard to take the crocodile tears and phony-baloney moralizing following the Kirk shooting seriously. Even when Fox News tried to give Trump an opportunity to turn down the temperature, he rebuked them, insinuating that the ends justified the means; right-wing extremists were okay because they at least wanted the same things he did, while it's the left that's the real problem. When asked about mending the political divide he said he wasn't interested. He said at Kirk's funeral that he disagreed with Kirk in that he hated his opponents and wanted them destroyed.
So when someone says that Jay Jones's private text messages from three years ago should be politically disqualifying I can agree in an abstract sense that they probably should be. But how many things has Trump said that would have traditionally disqualified a presidential candidate? I'm not even going to list them, because on the one hand it would take forever, but more importantly, I'm sure I'd get a bunch of people arguing how it really isn't that bad. Hell, two thirds of Trump's appeal is that he "tells it like it is" without any regard for political correctness. Let's be honest, if text messages had come out wherein Trump said something similar about a Democratic politician in the weeks preceding the election, approximately five people nationwide would change their votes to Harris on that basis. I don't believe for a second that this is some kind of red line that you simply won't allow any politician to cross.
This is fairly uncharitable given nearly all of these events Trump does have words of condemnation to say of the violence, so "nothing but" is inaccurate.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/07/02/donald-trump-presidential-candidate-charleston-south-carolina-shooting-obama-don-lemon.cnn
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-hails-quick-arrest-pipe-bomb-suspect-vows-swift-certain-n924871
According to Wikipedia's summary of the events trump says this first:
He starts attacking the media the day after. So I think your summary is uncharitable, unless the Wikipedia summary missed something Trump said before.
I do not tolerate ANY extreme violence,” Trump said. “Defending ALL Americans, even those who oppose and attack me, is what I will always do as your President!
He does dunk on Whitmer. He also said he condemns violence and that he defends all Americans, even his opponents.
I'm going to stop going down the list here, but I'm sure I could find an example of Trump condemning the attack and disavowing political violence for each one of these. Yes, I realize this doesn't fit your extremely narrow criteria you defined, which I will question below, but it does provide some context for your summary of the events.
Why is this the requirement? The issue a lot of people had with rhetoric from the left is there were a lot of people who wouldn't even condemn the killing of Kirk or of any political violence at all. At least Trump had the sense to condemn the events before he starts dunking on his political opponents. Is there one instance where someone on the left engaged in violence or violent rhetoric and the left or the media offered nothing but a full-throated, unequivocal condemnation? I'd also like to note trump dunking on his political opponents is not an endorsement or excuse for political violence.
Why does it not matter? None of these events are equivalent to the Kirk assassination. Nor are they equivalent to a literal expression of wanting to murder the other side. Nor are the reactions to these events equivalent. Has Trump been calling for the literal deaths of his opponents, especially by shooting them? It seems unfair to demand the absolute best behavior from Trump while simultaneously waiving off any bad behavior from his opponents by saying you're not interested. Can we at least demand the left match Trump's behavior of condemning political violence before dunking on their political opponents?
I'm not sure this type of messaging will resonate with the right at all. One side watched one of their own get murdered in cold blood and in the aftermath watch a pretty significant portion of the left actively cheer for it. Why is it up to the side being attacked to try to "turn down the temperature"? If one side has people calling for the literal death and murder of their opponents and the other side has Trump making jokes about his political opponents, which side has more heat?
There definitely is truth to the notion that many on the right seems not willing to want to reconcile with the left anymore. Most of this rhetoric was in response to the response to the left of Kirk's assassination. I do think long term if no solution is found this will only continue to divide America. That being said, willingness to reconcile has to come from both sides, with both sides being willing to addresses bad actors on their party.
Could I get a source for this? It does seem alarming for Trump to have said Right wing extremists are okay (assuming he's talking about violent actions from the far right are okay).
So when democrat states and cities were allowed to do what they want, was it a failure on Trump? What are your thoughts on Trump now using federal troops to enforce laws that these places refused to do? Was there anything Trump should've done to minimize the damages caused by the 2020 protests?
I will note for the record that the Democratic Party's best equivalents to Trump did, in fact, match his behaviour in the Charlie Kirk instance.
So that's their last presidential candidate, their ranking Congressmen, their probable next presidential candidate, and WP says Biden (their last President) condemned it too though I haven't found the source. Oh, and I remember seeing Bernie Sanders condemn it in the stream that got Destiny demonetised.
There are lots of people on "the left" who did not match this behaviour, of course (including the aforementioned Destiny), but the Democratic top brass did. A cynic would, of course, note that the top brass has a very personal motivation to want less political assassinations (i.e. they are very high on the target list and don't want to be assassinated). But, hey, that argument does apply to Trump as well.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link