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 -
Trump can be highly charismatic and adept at manipulating the media without being strategically intelligent as a President, without being a wise leader, without knowing or caring about details, without being able to gauge the competence of advisers and officials, without mastering the institutions he nominally runs.
I think people have an excessively Manichean view of intelligence. It's not that smart people are always better leaders. You can have an intelligent and hard working man fully committed to nation-wrecking ideologies who devotes his intellect to gaslight people to further his wrecking of the country... A stupid leader could run rings around him. Trump has done this at times.
But while you don't have to be smart to do a good job it certainly helps. Intelligence and good judgement is vital for making critical decisions and achieving good outcomes.
Would an intelligent president launch a shambolic tariff campaign against US allies, allies who at times are needed to provide the capital goods for American reindustrialization? Or even start this war that all the other presidents have shied away from? Even at the heights of US power in the 2000s they were unwilling to attack Iran for reasons that the administration is now discovering.
Or back in 2020, if Trump was smart he would've discovered or produced evidence of vote-rigging, not been found trying to produce evidence of vote-rigging.
If Trump were smart he'd organize a clear justification for the war, not have different officials give different adhoc explanations. Certainly not have Rubio out there saying that it was because Israel was about to attack, which may well be true but shouldn't be admitted. He'd explain what the goal is and how the campaign will achieve it. The campaign would be planned out in advance so the necessary forces were there, not bringing in Marines belatedly. He'd be consistent and coherent, not idly proposing that the US and the Ayatollah jointly control the straits of Hormuz, threatening to blow up power plants, walking back threats, saying the war is simultaneously over and needs to continue.
It's dumb. The approach we're observing is a show of weakness, it gives the Iranians hope that if they cause enough pain Trump will chicken out. TACO is just an observation of this inconstancy, it's one of many obvious flaws in the pattern Trump has shown - sensitivity to markets. Even if Trump had been consistent, without the intelligence to formulate good strategies they still wouldn't work. Tariffs alone cannot industrialize America, you'd need judicious and well-executed industrial policy. Air war with Iran isn't going to produce regime change and will have huge costs, this should've been known at the start but wasn't. He needed a rigorous understanding of what can and cannot be done with various forces, considering the balance of power.
I agree that Trump has a strategy but it's dumb, based on false premises.
I do agree with all of this, but this is a much more subtle and interesting observation than "Trump dumb."
Haven't most US presidents in recent history, going back at least to Clinton, slapped tariffs on EU countries?
I think the reality is a bit more nuanced than that; the US attacked Iran in the 1980s (apparently...not at the height of their powers?) and during the 2000s the US avoided a direct attack, but acted against Iran via covert means and on one occasion raided an Iranian consulate.
Anyway, I've been critical of the administration's messaging on here, and pointed out failure modes of pursuing this military course of action. I'm not convinced it's the best! It could be really bad! There are a lot of questions I have and the answers to them are fundamentally non-public, so I have to wait and see.
But if you go through my recent comments, you'll see me defending things the Iranians have done as being intelligent - even though the Iranian government does stuff like "get caught with evidence of uranium enrichment and suggest that they've been framed" (which, idk, I suppose is not impossible).
That's in part because I don't think modeling people (particularly people with more resources and information than you) as dumb is a good first course of action. I tend to think it's overly reductive, unless there's very specific reasons to think that is what is at play. This isn't to say I think it's wrong to be critical but I think those are two different things.
See, "asking for insane things up front is a repeated Trump strategy, but one that doesn't pay off" is a very interesting theory, and I would AAQC a top-level post that made that case persuasively through data and/or comparative successes by other US presidents.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link