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 YouTube recommended me this video "Why You Don't Want to Be in Congress" by Power Politics which I thought actually opened my mind a little about congress and the people elected to it. That's why I decided to re-state the arguments here to see what Mottizens think about it.
Background
I briefly searched up Power Politics, looks like it's a newish channel by Christian Fong, currently a professor at University of Michigan, and his bio states the usual litany of bachelors and PhDs from prestigious institutions, of note is that he did serve as an advisor to Mike Lee, Senator of Utah for a while. He also works with the Center for Effective Lawmaking which he draws many of his stats from. In other videos, he states that he wants to provide a non-partisan view into congress and how it works.
Intro
Fong first points out that the most effective legislators currently: Sam Graves (R-House) and Gary Peters (D-Senate) are both quitting. This is striking because 1) they have powerful positions which is supposed to incentivize their continual stay, 2) they're not that old relatively (62 and 67 respectively), and 3) they are likely to be re-elected. It's concerning to Fong because they are not the only ones quitting, and he's concerned the people who leaves are exactly the kind of legislators you would want to stay (experienced, connected, in their prime).
So what's going on? Fong's thesis: "Being a member of congress is not good of a job as most people think and certainly not as good as it was 60 years ago." Stats-wise, Fong points out that back between 1954 and 1964, for every 3 congressmen who retires, 1 dies. Now it's 21 retires before 1 dies. Members of congress used to want to stay in congress for as long as they could, so something must have changed.
Here are the 4 changes proposed by Fong:
1. Congressional elections are more expensive and contributions does not scale
Between 1952 and 2024, congressional spending on elections increased 41300% ($23M in 1952 vs $9.5B in 2024). Now, because of campaigning financing laws which cap individual contributions to $7000 per cycle, members of congress has to essentially have a second job being a telemarketer at night to go beg for money from rich people (cause how many people would donate $7000 to political campaigns?). Time spent on the phone is time not doing policy making, time not negotiating or making connections with fellow lawmakers, time not spent with family and friends to recharge, time not spent connecting with voters, etc.
Now I don't think this is accounted for inflation, and I do think the numbers are not direct comparisons from a quick glance (reported vs total). But, I do think this is a fair point. Much has been said about Singapore's model for high paying public officials. And though badly argued, but this is essentially the same point Mike Johnson makes when he defends members of congress trading stocks. There is also something to be said where we want people we elect to make laws to, well, focus on law-making and all the things that makes law-making easier and more successful.
On the other hand, congress can solve this. Just as much as congress kept complaining about "call time", seems to me like they stopped doing anything about campaign finance reform since 2002.
2. Congress travel requirements are grueling
It used to be that members of congress lived in Washington full time, now they are expected to fly home every weekend. But not all members of congress live in cities like NYC or LA with their multiple airports.
Fong cited this paper which "find that gaining an airport that provides a round-trip direct flight to Washington, DC, is associated with an approximately 1.6 percentage point increase in the probability that a member runs for reelection." Or in other words if you need to have a layover, you'll less likely to run for re-election. Travel for work sucks in general, and Fong also re-emphasize how this is likely to have a negative effect on family, spouses and children.
My thoughts about this is that it sucks, and I'm not sure how to solve this. Are members of congress from rural areas are just going to have the bad luck of having a higher chance of being burnt out? Can the relationship between the public and their representatives be changed so that a better balance can be found? I'm not sure.
3. Congress increasingly becomes more of a stage than a workplace
It used to be that campaigning and governing were two different seasons in a year, and governing was the longer season, now, it is a permanent campaign. Fong has a separate video about "A Congress of Kardashians", and how the system incentivizes disruptive behaviors that is annoying and completely unconducive to law-making. And well, it's encouraged by leadership of both parties. Just as leftists abhor the shenanigans of Majorie Taylor Greene, rightists decry the outbursts of Jasmine Crockett, but guess what, that's what goes viral, and that's what gets funding.
I don't have much thoughts about this at the moment
4. Members of congress are increasingly not making an impact to worth the sacrifices
Fong argues that the parliamentary processes are controlled so hard by party leaders that members of congress can't even get an amendment in. And if they're just there to put a thumbs up and thumbs down on bills agreed to be put to the floor by leadership, it's just not worth it to slog through point 1, 2, and 3.
My Conclusion
In some ways, I find renewed appreciation of US members of congress. It's certainly true that a great number of them are pretty dumb by my count. But quite possibly that for all of them there is a kernel of trying to do public good, or just pure narcissism, or pure naivety, or the promise of insider trading, to make life of a member of congress worth it. But then again, right now, narcissism, or pure naivety, or the promise of insider trading and the public good are not mutually exclusive. The question is still: what can be done about these pathologies of the job of a member of congress so that we get better lawmakers and better lawmaking?
PS: this ranking is pretty good: https://thelawmakers.org/find-representatives
Edit1: Mis-numbered the changes, added slight edit to sentence in intro explaining why Fong wants legislators like Sam Graves and Gary Peters to seek re-election
Edit2: emphasized and bolded Fong's thesis
On having to go to Washington a lot and the travel. I believe it would now be possible to just vote online. If their input doesn’t matter and the average congressmen is a generic red or blue that would solve a lot of issues and give them more time for constituent services.
This will open the congressmen to accusations of being too lazy to go in person: "I will go every week to argue your case in-person to Washington DC and I will not be leaving until I get what's best for you, my opponent wants to phone his vote in, literally phone it in with online voting. This is not what a dogged, hardworker does!"
It's kind of stupid because the reality of campaigning means you have to promise something absurdly draining, unrealistic, and unnecessary.
Yes, thé people should get to vote on how often congresscritters are in DC.
More options
Context Copy link
You know ironically, that’s how lobbyist’s most effectively agitate for their positions? People often think there’s this conspiracy that lobbying and 'special interests' work like some kind of nefarious Jewish cabal, straight out of the Elders of Zion. It isn't like that, at all. I have a relative that's done lobbying work in DC.
First the public perception of lobbying is 100% wrong. People think it’s like something straight out of House of Cards, and that's simply not the case. There is literally no such thing as 'here is a sack of cash, now go pass this legislation for me.' The Abscam Scandals ended like 95% of that in the 80's and what little left there was ended with the Jack Abramoff scandal. I know some people think it's ridiculous when they read this, but it's true. 99.99% of federal and state legislators actually do take ethics seriously.
Lobbying is using money and public support to sway a legislator to see how voting for/against a bill is in the best interest of his/her constituency. I'm not saying you have to agree with this entirely, only that 'that' is what it 'is'. Who are the players? The traditional 'rolodex' lobbyist is a dying beast. This is the lobbyist that people are probably thinking of when you think 'lobbyist', somebody like Trent Lott. This is the guy that can open the doors, and knows the guy that knows the guy. This is 'somewhat' valuable, but not very. One thing that's great about our government is that you can solicit your representative anytime you want. All of us are familiar with this. And of course people do this. Every person that ever worked on the Hill knows about crazy constituents that went into the legislator's office and read them the riot act over something. But the truth is the rolodex lobbyist isn't that valuable. Where they 'are' valuable is describing relationships between important people (e.g., "Sen X won't wipe is ass without Sen Y's approval. If you get Sen Y onboard, Sen X falls right in line").
The biggest players in the post-Abramoff world are trade associations and advocacy groups. 'These' are the people that fuck, and there's 'literally', tens of thousands of them. A great example is the NRF. To put it simply, every little retailer that wants to belong, from Mom and Pop's all the way up to Wal-Mart contributes money, and that combined money is used to advocate for the industry. The NRF sends people to conferences, to Capitol Hill, to state legislatures, everywhere, to support pro-industry legislation and to shoot down anti-industry legislation.
A tertiary player (but growing in influence) is the Government Affairs groups for large companies. Here's AT&T's head guy. They are basically single-company trade associations. But a big company like AT&T belongs to a lot of associations in addition to having their own GA team.
Now as far as the money goes, this is actually the least important aspect of lobbying. That name of the game is campaign contributions. Campaigns at all levels are extremely expensive, and you need help paying for them. But, direct contributions are limited and public, so they aren't too valuable. The contributions come in from PACs and advocacy groups or organizing groups (NCSL is an example).
Mechanically speaking, the NCSL will have a conference and a shit ton of legislators (state-level in this case, but there are tons of federal conferences) will attend. They have to attend because if they do NCSL will contribute $X to their campaign fund. Also a massive huge number of lobbyist from trade associations and company GA teams will also attend. Incidentally, those lobbyists paid anywhere from $10k to $100k to attend the event. This is the money that goes into the legislators' campaign funds. At these events, all the lobbyists elbow-jockey for the attention of the legislators. The goal is to get a 'sit down' or a call set up at some later date. Why does the money not matter? Because the legislator gets his campaign contribution irrespective of what happens at the meeting. He's under zero obligation to even 'listen' to the lobbyists. At the sit down, the lobbyist is going to try to explain why issue X is important. Or even better, the lobbyist will set a meeting and bring some constituents.
Another thing too is the fact that for just about every issue in America, there are two extremely well funded but diametrically opposed parties. Take net neutrality. If I'm a legislator, I can be in the ISP camp or in the content/Google camp. But it doesn't matter, one of the two sides will fund my campaign. I don't care who does it. And this is what's so funny about it. There is 'literally' so much money in politics now that there is a PAC/group that will fund almost every possible position. This is very true on the federal level, sort of true at the state level.
So if money doesn't matter, how do lobbyists pressure legislators? They call it 'social advocacy'. It's a 'huge' business. Say for example, Congress is pushing a bill that would be bad for retailers. The NRF is going to be tasked with killing it. This is a campaign. The first thing the NRF is going to do is call, not Capitol Hill, but local retailers. The NRF will broker phone calls between Mom and Pop retailers and their representatives to put 'extreme' pressure on the congressman to vote a certain way (e.g., "I have been in business in your district for 20 years. I'm hanging up a sign in my window 'tomorrow' about how you are killing the local community by voting for bill X. I'm also going to the local Rotary Club and we are going to discuss how you have turned your back on your constituents!"). Believe me, congressmen listen to these calls, and they will have no idea is was set up by the NRF. This is extremely common. Also common are email campaigns (less effective) and 'fly-ins' where an association will get, say, 10 local store owners to fly to DC and complain to their representative for an hour. As you might imagine, this is also extremely effective. At your local level, you should try this if you want something in your city changed, it will very likely work.
A very common thing a legislator will ask a lobbyist for is 'cover'. Asking for cover is asking a lobbyist to sway public opinion on an issue. This is also fairly common. Believe it or not, there are 'media advocacy' companies that will set out to sawy social media in favor or against an issue. I don't know how they work exactly, but they have their hands in everything, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, 'definitely' Reddit, all of them. A trade association will hire an agency to 'paper' an issue. So the agency will scan, say, Reddit and whenever issue X comes up, the agency will start commenting with "Well this article is total bullshit because X" and upvote himself with other zombie accounts. Same with Twitter, same with Facebook. I didn't believe it until it was shown to me by my relative awhile ago. Its extremely expensive, but extremely effective.
This whole industry grew out of SOPA/PIPA legislation some years ago. It was a watershed moment, when lobbyists and legislatures simultaneously realized the power of organized social media. Media advocacy is 'expensive' and the people that work there get paid big time. If you can do this, I highly recommend you explore the field.
That's basically how it all works.
Of course there are, that's why democracy is a scam.
'Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.' The printed press, the tv networks, and now social media companies will claim to be 'pro-democracy' until comes time for the people to vote, buy video games or movie tickets, or make healthcare decisions 'wrong'.
The powerful will swing their power, they will bury the news, they will censor or bot the internet, leverage their intelligence connections, propagate hysteria and incite race riots, make up WMD or pandemics out of whole cloth... And then they'll you you voted for this, this is what you wanted.
More options
Context Copy link
A while ago I might have been more prone to agree with you on this, but with high profile bribery including Eric Adams, Tom Homan, and well, the practically endless examples on display in the Trump admin now from pardoning big criminals for their support of companies related to him (or relatives who gave him a million dollars) to a ton of foreign policy shenanigans to well, tons of other examples it sure does seem like the stereotypical bribery of giving money for politics is alive and well.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link