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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24354 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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Hot off the Platner scandal, here comes Max Miller one upping him. Max Miller, a Republican who previously served in Trump's first admin and running for reelection as state representative has been accused by his ex-wife of throwing hot water on her, putting a gun to her head, and (potentially) even choking their 2 year old daughter.

She doesn't know for sure as it would have happened behind closed doors, and Miller obviously denies this but CPS investigations did suggest strangulation as possible.

Neither the child’s father, Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), nor mother, conservative policy adviser Emily Moreno, admitted to knowing what caused their daughter’s injury or that it occurred while their daughter was under their care. Miller’s primary theory was that the bruising resembled marks from a seat belt. Moreno, who discovered the bruises and took the child to an emergency room, suggested the cause may have been something more sinister. Records of the investigation into potential child abuse show that Moreno told detectives that Miller had previously thrown hot water at her, shoved her, and held a gun to her head; therefore, she couldn’t rule out that Miller caused their daughter’s fracture. Moreover, a child protection specialist reviewing the incident had characterized the bruising near the fracture as resembling a “handprint.”

And the daughter for some reason seems to be scared of her father, so even if he didn't cause this particular injury it's not a great sign.

“Daddy’s house is scary,” Moreno recounted her daughter saying, according to a Bay Village, Ohio, investigative report relating to the February 2026 injury.

There's also apparently been other accusations against him when he was younger.

Responding to written questions from Moreno’s lawyer about whether Miller threw a girl down the stairs in high school, faced expulsion from college for a violent incident involving a female student, and left Moreno within three days of their child’s birth, Miller—over the course of the domestic proceedings—neither confirmed nor denied the events took place.

Especially when I made an interesting discovery, him being an abuser seems to have been already known or at least suspected in politics. George Santos had previously called him a woman beater during a spat with Miller, because Miller was accused of assaulting his previous girlfriend before that.

Miller, a former Trump White House aide, was accused of slapping his then-girlfriend and Trump’s former press secretary Stephanie Grisham in 2020, which she said resulted in her ending the relationship.

and

Politico was more specific in its July 2021 article, recounting—according to three people familiar with the incident—that Miller “pushed [Grisham] against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment after she accused him of cheating on her.”

And Miller is (or was) a drug user, showing a history of irresponsible behavior.

Records from Miami University police concluded that Miller’s blood alcohol content was under the legal limit, and he pleaded down to a misdemeanor for failing to control the car. “A blood test conclusively established that Mr. Miller was not impaired,” Miller’s attorney told Politico at the time.

However, Mother Jones has obtained further toxicology reports from the incident stating that Miller had MDMA—also known as ecstasy—and Klonopin in his system at the time of the crash.

And there is hard proof that he poured hot water on Moreno, per a recording.

According to the transcript, Moreno is heard saying, “You poured steaming hot water on me, and you’ve also, you, uh, you have been insanely emotionally abusive.”

Miller first said he “didn’t pour hot water on [her] neck.” He then said, “The water incident…I never thought that that hurt you.”

“It was never done to hurt you with intent. It never was done to hurt you, and you know that,” Miller explained.

Again there's no hard proof of most of these (yet at least) but a history of physical abuse allegations throughout his life + drug usage (and lying about it) + the abuse suggesting bruising patterns on his own child + at least one proven allegation, it certainly seems to be leaning towards his guilt.

These allegations haven't reached the general public much yet, but they do seem to having a small effect on his reelection chances already. Not as much as Platner did but the news is still pretty young. Some comments I've been seeing however suggest that Republican candidates are simply held to lower moral standards nowadays by their respective sides and it won't impact him too much despite the severity. I guess time will tell.

This is just boo outgroup stuff. We just banned someone in the last thread for doing this.

Three day ban for you as well.

Now that my ban has expired, I would like to figure out what you are and are not looking for from top-level posts about current events involving culture war issues.

I don't really see much of a fundamental difference between this post that OP was banned for, the one that I was banned for, and for example this post that I made two weeks ago.

I don't think that your intention is to prohibit posts about current events, and I don't think that your intention is to prohibit people from expressing their opinions in posts about current events. But it feels like the line is a bit fuzzy here between posts with these qualities that are bannable or not.

I understood the warning I received 4 months ago as wanting posts about current events to have better sourcing and a bit less sensationalist language, which I've endeavored to do, but obviously I either didn't do this well enough or I took away the wrong lesson.

Some more clarity would be appreciated here.

Probably ask yourself why you want to share or discuss a particular story.

There was a legitimate question in the mamdani story "can he even do this" and a discussion of why it's a horrible idea for him to do this.

If your purpose in sharing something is more like "look at this horrible thing my out group did" and "does everyone else think this is as horrible as I do". Then you should stop and reconsider.

Is the answer here really that your powers of divinition allow you to know posts about Max Miller, a sitting representative, are talked about because of "boo outgroup", but all the posts about say Platner who was just a candidate have no such intention or motivation? Especially when I've said some pretty mean stuff about the latter.

turns out to be a piece of shit.

as shitty as the everyday dudebro stereotype.

People have literally pointed this out to you too https://www.themotte.org/post/3863/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/466408?context=8#context

But MKC is "booing" the politician over the abuse allegations, not because he's an "outgroup" (he mightbe, but that's not what he's arguing). It's not nearly as incendiary as the comment you linked to, and no more incendiary than the Platner threads.

The people here barely even hide how much they hate me, if they think your ban was questionable then maybe it was.

You were upset cause in addition to my theory things didn't change yet just because the news was young (which I have been proven right about https://polymarket.com/event/oh-07-house-election-winner), I added an alternate possible explanation I saw on social media. Something that people like Hanania or Demsas were proposing, it's not like these were just random shitposters. This was a serious alternative claim being proposed by established pundits.

We generally moderate what is reported. If you want me to go back litigate your posts that were not reported then simply report your posts and add them to queue. They will likely be ignored, but if you really want me to look at them and let you know if they are rule breaking I suppose I can do that. The outcome will be that either I ignore it like most reported things or I hand out warnings/bans.

The object level issues are not in contention from me.

The level of candidate doesn't matter. A post just about Trump being a cheater, or Kamala sleeping her way to the top could also be dinged under these rules. I'd maybe be more lenient if the candidate was more well known, usually there are side issues for higher level candidates that the poster might care about and call out.

We generally moderate what is reported. If you want me to go back litigate your posts that were not reported then simply report your posts and add them to queue. They will likely be ignored,

I'm aware they will be, the standard you applied is hilariously low that again, even many of the users here who hate me found it questionable. When people who have every motive to say otherwise were telling you that it was weak, it was probably very very very weak in actuality.

The level of candidate doesn't matter. A post just about Trump being a cheater, or Kamala sleeping her way to the top could also be dinged under these rules. I'd maybe be more lenient if the candidate was more well known, usually there are side issues for higher level candidates that the poster might care about and call out.

It would probably help your argument you apply the rules fairly if you didn't contradict yourself in the same paragraph.

I'm aware they will be, the standard you applied is hilariously low that again, even many of the users here who hate me found it questionable.

And the ban length was commensurately low. You were part of a crackdown to stop a trend that I was noticing. I don't dislike you in any way, if I did I'd hand off moderation of you to someone else. I pointed out to another user that suggested you should be given some leeway because you might not have noticed the other ban, that the ban I handed you was to give notice to other users. If you and others are more careful about posting heavily "boo outgroup" top level posts then I am happy and mission accomplished.

I'm sorry that you were the particular example, but also not sorry, because the punishment was minor, the correction seemed necessary, and you did violate the rules as I interpret them.

It would probably help your argument you apply the rules fairly if you didn't contradict yourself in the same paragraph.

Admitted lack of clarity on my part. Bigger candidates tend to have more other stuff swirling around them. Its the other stuff that is fully open to discussion. Like the mamdani post where he wanted to arrest the israeli guy. If the post is just "mamdani is an idiot" that is bad and boo outgroup, but myself and other read the post as "can mamdani even do this, what would even happen" and that led to interesting other discussion. It also implied that the motivation for the orginal post wasn't entirely just "mamdani said this stupid thing". However, if a no-power position candidate says something stupid or does something horrid there often isn't much else to discuss.

It is coincidentally easier to not fall afoul of the boo outgroup posting for higher level candidates, because you can easily make it not just about the fact that they did something terrible. BUT no level of high level candidacy is an excuse for a pure or heavily boo outgroup top level post.

And your post did fall afoul of that. And your post seemed to be a specific one-upping of the platner stuff, which you alluded to in your first sentence. That is specifically what we are trying to avoid, a sort of one-upping back and forth of culture warring where this thread is just turned into another battle ground.

When people who have every motive to say otherwise were telling you that it was weak, it was probably very very very weak in actuality.

I think many people interpreted the ban wrong. We don't have many tools here. One tool is warning. Another tool is temp banning. And the final tool is perma-ban. In my experience plenty of people tend to ignore warnings. There will be accounts with dozens of warnings that they never act upon. And then the first time we actually ban them, suddenly they make an attempt to modify their behavior. Some of the other mods are more willing to play the "warn repeatedly" game. I'm not. In most cases I'm doing a temp ban. If it is worth it for me to defend and promote a rule, its worth it to impose some consequences on the user that broke the rule. I consider 1-3 day bans basically a slap on the wrist. 4-15 day bans a serious infraction. And anything above a 15 day ban our alternative to a perma ban.

I'm happy to engage in discussion on the ban mainly because it serves the same purpose as the ban, highlighting what behavior is not ok and what might get a future ban. This is probably getting too low in the discussion to even be viewed by most people. If you are still pissed at me and think I have wronged you, and you want another mod to review it all, then just report this comment or the comment where I moderated you. We do not approve our own comments. So someone else will come along and look at it.

And the ban length was commensurately low. You were part of a crackdown to stop a trend that I was noticing

Someone literally asked you exactly this and you said it was the opposite https://www.themotte.org/post/3863/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/466280?context=8#context

Do you think perhaps you are overindexing on someone just being banned? Like you're expecting mkc to have seen that ban and to adjust their posts accordingly, but there's a good chance they have no idea that this other ban was recorded.

Hmm, somewhat the opposite. Or at least you have the causation direction mixed up.

You claim the ban isn't indexing on others, and now literally say it is.

You're still contradicting yourself, and if you can't avoid that then it says everything else written is pure fluff, it's an excuse created to explain the action you already wanted. If you can't even stay consistent then why trust it at all?

More comments

Okay that's a good way I can think about it thank you

boo outgroup

So the rule isn't just "No boo outgroup," it's "no news posts that are plausibly boo outgroup"? Does every top-level post have to be some sort of manifesto?

As someone who's not up on the MKC lore, his post reads very normal. Sneering against the rapey politicians on both sides doesn't seem like a very one sided application of boo outgroup. Unless we are modding based on personal vendettas and perceived ulterior motives of the poster.

It seems more like you believe MKC is gaining something in a low brow game of oneupmanship by posting this, and you don't want that. Which similarly feels like a low brow application of mod powers.

To top it all of there is a genuine avenue into discussing the perceived slight MKC is making against his alleged 'outgroup':

Some comments I've been seeing however suggest that Republican candidates are simply held to lower moral standards nowadays by their respective sides and it won't impact him too much despite the severity. I guess time will tell.

Isn't this exactly then kind of 'nuance' you say is missing in your post below? Pontifications on the moral landscape of America and such feel like a very typical Motte sort of thing. Here's the perfect springboard to rehash that stuff.

If the history of a user is part of the ban reason I'd usually list it out and link to it.

Sometimes I'm seeing a bad trend and I'll increase punishment. This has happened a few times before with low effort top posts, which are usually just a warning or one day ban for repeat offenders. The latest offender might just be unlucky more than anything.

That last paragraph was an afterthought, on its own it doesn't really stand well and the rest of the post is just describing how fucked up the politician is, which is boo out group material.

But MKC is "booing" the politician over the abuse allegations, not because he's an "outgroup" (he mightbe, but that's not what he's arguing). It's not nearly as incendiary as the comment you linked to, and no more incendiary than the Platner threads.

Do you think perhaps you are overindexing on someone just being banned? Like you're expecting mkc to have seen that ban and to adjust their posts accordingly, but there's a good chance they have no idea that this other ban was recorded.

Hmm, somewhat the opposite. Or at least you have the causation direction mixed up.

I assume I might have to do this again soon if not enough people noticed the first two bans. Its not that I'm punishing magicalkittycat for not noticing the examples. Its that magicalkittycat is one of the examples. And hopefully the last example needed.

Bad ban.

And there was no one left
To speak out for me

I honestly can't ever remember you speaking up in approval of a ban, and a signal that always says the same thing is not a useful signal. You should probably have a rating scale for how bad of a ban you think it is, that way your signal can vary. With 10/10 being literally hitler. And 1/10 being 'ok I acknowledge this is a good ban according to policies and everyone elses preferences, but i just really dont want you to ban anyone'.

I just want to say that I deeply respect how the mods actually stick around to litigate their actions (which are always unpopular to some subset of people) and provide rationale/further explanation/snarky responses instead of just acting in the shadows and refusing to elaborate, or handing out extra bans for questioning them

To answer on your preferred scale: I initially thought this was about a 5/10, a Mussolini-tier moderator action. But after reading your responses, I’m fairly convinced and would downgrade it to a 2/10 Salazar. I don’t totally agree with the decision, but I appreciate that someone is keeping the budget balanced.

It feels criminal to me how most places are moderated.

I do like that our reputation is good enough at this point that people feel free to chime in with what they think of a ban. I remember very early days before that was fully established and some people would tip toe around us and constantly drop lines like "I expect to be banned for saying this but [this mod decision was bad]".

I liked the Hlynka ban. Ban the banners, I say!

For what it's worth I think you're a bastard but I'll still raise a stink if the mods ban you for silliness like they just did.

First they came for the gypsies, and I said nothing for I was not a gypsy

Then they came for the Somalians and I said "Make sure you get all the Somalis".

We just banned someone in the last thread for doing this.

That ban also seems overzealous to me, although I can kind of squint and see a point. But I don't even really see it in this case, is the idea that /u/magicalkittycat isn't allowed to advance his own point of view?

I get that the rules of the Motte are aiming at something higher than courteous discussion, but sometimes I feel that they're choking out courteous discussion. Aren't we all adults?

The point is that this is not a culture war battleground that needs to be fought over by deploying arguments as soldiers. We fall short of the ideal of a neutral discussion area, but I see no reason not to whack down obvious "battleground" type posts where the whole point of the post could be summed up as "my out group sucks". That's boring and it happens literally everywhere else on the internet.

The point is not to be a courteous battleground. It's to be not a battleground at all.

I dislike about 99% of /u/magicalkittycat 's posts and I found this particular post considerably less obnoxious than most. Now if they had dodged any challenges to the suggestion/assertion at the end of their post, as I've often seen happen, then I'd probably support a temp ban.

Ban is a bit strong, and there could be a discussion about the topic at hand here, but come on, that sentence at the end hiding behind Hanania to claim Republicans are held to lower moral standards is just waging the culture war.

Should we update the Rules As Written to match the Rules As Intended, if we're going to start enforcing them in this way?

At least in the comment you linked there was clearly an overgeneralizing crack at the whole outgroup in the last sentence. Here the framing seems to be "Boo Not-Just-My-Ingroup", with the very first clause reminding us that that Ingroup has some boo-worthy members too..

In RAW it still says "concrete criminal or impeachable offenses are also fair game". The example there is ""Congressman Jones is under suspicion of taking bribes" is fine", a criminal+impeachable offense which is clearly more discussion-worthy by being directly linked to the office, but is that necessary? The initial Platner scandals weren't even criminal; a discussion of how mere "slimy or gross" might not even be disqualifying, during our weeks of Platner discussion, even made the AAQC lists.

the very first clause reminding us that that Ingroup has some boo-worthy members too..

One sentence doesn't undo the entire point of the post. And we don't want some magic set of words to allow someone out of an otherwise rule breaking post.

And the entire point of the post is to point out that someone in the out group is doing something bad.

Someone is always doing something bad and I don't want this place to turn into a battleground where we all just publish the worst things that members of the out group are doing.

Parts of the Platner discussion struck me as much more nuanced than this. In the sense that they weren't about the veracity of the allegations but how others were choosing to respond to those allegations. Some of the Platner discussion was the boring "oh look an out group member turned out to be terrible" and that discussion should have probably been shut down.

Some comments I've been seeing however suggest that Republican candidates are simply held to lower moral standards nowadays by their respective sides and it won't impact him too much despite the severity. I guess time will tell.

That pretty much reads to me as just "Let's not forget that even if my ingroup might sometimes do bad, my outgroup are always worse (or so I've heard some guy whose opinion here is irrelevant say, see? I'm not the one waging the culture war, I'm just reporting on what is being said!)"

It's a weaker and more qualified attack, but yeah, that's also pushing the boundaries in the same direction.

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