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 -
So, the Ontario Reagan ad thing.
As the governor of Ontario, Doug Ford (Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario) produced a 1-minute ad in favor of free trade ad targeted at US residents, with some high-profile airings during some sports events. The ad consists of spliced together sentences of a 1987 Reagan address.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation claims that "the ad misrepresented Reagans address". The reaction of Trump was to suspend trade negotiations with the Carney (Liberal Party) government of Canada:
I watched the original they linked, and I honestly can not see what their problem is. In the original 5 minute version, there was also a message of "we have introduced duties on semiconductors from Japan because their companies were not competing fairly, but we do not want a general trade war". But having watched both the ad and the address, I agree with the fact-checkers that Reagan was not quoted out of context. The ad agency basically took a five minute speech, of which at least three minutes were a spirited defense of free trade as the foundation of prosperity and condensed it into a one minute defense of free trade.
I understand how the ad would annoy Trump. Reagan is a time-honored hero of his party, and his voiced ideals are in stark contrast to Trump's policies. The message "this man is stepping way out of line of the tradition of his political ancestors" certainly seems a good way to persuade traditional conservative demographics to reconsider Trump.
But for all his annoyance, I think Ontario is basically well within it's rights to use ads to affect US trade policy. Even without Citizens United, the US would be the last country in the Americas to have any standing to object to foreigners interfering, especially if the interference is only attack ads and not coups.
And as far as attack ads go, it is incredibly tame. A clear policy message without any ad hominem jabs or name-calling.
This makes Trump's reaction utterly bizarre to me. Diplomacy sometimes means negotiating with people who would love to murder you and dance on your grave, never mind seeing you voted out of office. Then there is the fact that Canada is not an absolute monarchy, and their federal government does not control its provinces. Assuming that PM Carney has control over Ford would be like assuming that Trump has control over Newsom. If you are willing to walk away from negotiations because of that, then either you were not seriously negotiating before or you emotions are making you irrational.
Even if the ad was paid for by Carney, Trump's reaction would not be appropriate for an adult. It seems that he is mentally sorting people into two buckets, the ones who support him and are loyal to him, and the ones who are opposed to him. This is basically the world view of a toddler. Reality is more complex. Of course Canada would love nothing more than the US electing Democrat majorities in the mid-term and them killing Trump's tariffs. Presumably, Trump in turn would love for Canadians to elect a MAGA fan who is willing to bend over backwards and give Trump all the concessions instead of retaliating. But in the likely event that neither side get what they want, it still makes sense to negotiate.
To me, it seems pretty clear that a mass media campaign like this is directed at the electorate. In Trump's mind, it is meant to influence the SCOTUS. This makes me question his world model even more. What is the proposed mechanism of action? A SC justice is watching a sports event on TV, sees the Reagan free trade ad, gets the message 'tariffs bad' into his head, then decides a case which hinges on what powers Congress can delegate to the president purely based on if he likes how the president has used these disputed powers. It seems that Trump is a victim of the typical mind fallacy here -- just because he could persuaded by a TV ad to make unprincipled changes to his policy to get some desired object-level outcome, he assumes that the minds of justices work the same way. At the risk of likewise typical-minding, I think that he is wrong. Perhaps, some judges are partisan hacks who will rule for or against Trump on general principle. But my model of the median SC judge is someone who cares about the long term policy outcomes and making consistent rulings, rather than someone starting by writing "therefore, Trump's tariffs are legal/illegal" at the bottom of the page according to their leanings and then filling the space above with some legal argument. (Which is kinda what Roe v Wade did.)
In short, if Ontario wanted to influence the SCOTUS, TV ads seem like the worst way to go about it. I would recommend they pay high profile legal scholars to publish in academic journals. Or more cynically, invite some justices to an all-expenses-paid retreat.
And the US is well within its rights to set trade policy however it likes. The government of Ontario clearly has the money to spend on foreign propaganda so clearly they're not suffering too badly.
It probably wasn't (considering the incentives at play, I think the corresponding denouncement was genuine), and that's actually kind of a big deal. Individual provinces have been more effective at influencing foreign trade policy than the Federal government is, for better (Smith) or for worse (Ford). What good's the Federal government if it won't do this, and has revealed to instead be too weak to enforce message discipline on its constituents?
This is a negotiation- the corporate arm of the people of Ontario being one of the interested parties. The fact that those people still see fit to go out of its way to shitpost is actually relevant; I wouldn't want to do business with them either.
And sure, maybe the Supreme Court rules it all illegal and everything goes back to normal, in which case Ford can take a win back to his most elderly, jingoistic supporters and not spend much goodwill on the people who had to pay for them. That's the gamble he's taking here; perhaps it'll pay off, perhaps it won't.
You're assuming the average American knows or cares about Canadian political structure? Canada is a monolith to Americans, especially those living in the East (that's why the meme is '51st' and not '51 to 55'). But then again, I think this makes more sense if understood as an intra-Canadian political slapfight that more tangentially happens to involve the US.
I would not characterize the ad as 'shitposting'. Also, the relative strength of both parties will likely be reflected in how the gains from a deal are distributed among them. If the US is in a stronger position, it also has more to lose on not making a deal.
Of course, it could be that a trade deal is so insignificant that it is simply not worth the president's time. If it was a negotiation between the US and Madagascar, saying "screw you, try again in a year" at the slightest offense might be acceptable. But with Canada, not having a trade deal is leaving quite a bit of money on the table, I imagine.
Shitposting, saber-rattling, attempting to propagandize a foreign nation/people your economic future depends on for ego reasons...
For the Canadians, yes, which is the point of Trump loudly turning 360 degrees and walking away. Not really as much for the Americans.
It's actually kind of a paradox, where American foreign policy is designed to encourage a more pro-business/pro-reality elite in other countries, which then results in a stronger country that's then more able to tell the Americans 'no'.
Naturally, the hyper-conservative elite [this can also be voter blocs if political representation is sufficiently slanted in their favor, and the Canadian political system is this way by design] hates that idea, especially because the last few administrations were happy to both let them free trade their way to prosperity so long as they threw Pride parades and DEId. Thanks in great part to the US having kept this up for so long, these ideas are now the baseline conservative position, which is part of why conservative elites like them (the other reason is because it's a way to pretend they're on the side of the young).
Now that a liberal has taken power the elite in those countries feel empowered to keep on keeping on. They aren't as capable of rapid change as the Americans are, mainly because the people who were capable of that emigrated to the US a long time ago (or who never reproduced due to the deaths of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers in the Great European Mass Suicides of the 1910s and 1940s).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link