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 -
Your points about me not knowing enough about Burgum and Pirro to able to judge someone is both correct and not correct. Yes, it's true that the best way to judge and form an opinion of a political figure is to take the grand totality of what they do. But just like every other political figure, the way they are judged are usually by a few thing that defines them. Could be Biden and not stepping down from running, could be Harris and her no regrets defending Biden on national TV, could be Hillary and her non-secure email servers, could be Obama and his arrogance (Iran, dealing with Republican congress), could be Tim Walz and the Somali fraud cases.
Notice how I used Democratic figures to satisfy your complaint how I don't give examples of incompetence to your "other side"?
For me, Burgum and Pirro are defined by the events of the Reflecting Pool and the National Mall. I'll be perfectly happy to read what you have to say about their records elsewhere. Like I said:
Thank you for going through the arguments. I find that your reading of them differ from mine quite a bit. I will endeavor to go through your arguments as well
Maybe it's easier to point to examples of competence as a contrast. The reason why FDR is competent is because he's able to get people to keep voting for him and his party so that FDR can keep doing things he wanted and drive his enemies into political footnotes, one could say FDR got and maintained a large group of supporters.
Another example is Reagan, who went up in vote percentage from 50.7% in 1980 to 58.8% in 1984. Reagan is a good example of enlarging his group of supporters (with the standout example being the quips made between him and the Democrat surgeon for his assassination).
Trump definitely has an upward trajectory, from 46.1% in 2016, to 46.8% in 2020, to 49.8% in 2024. And yes, Obama has a downward trajectory, from 52.9% in 2008 down to 51.1% in 2012. But if we pit Obama vs Trump, is Trump likely to win? I think not.
And yes, I do think Trump isn't attracting the higher quality people to his movement. And I disagree with your argument that I am so uncharitable to not recognize competence in Trump picks. I never said it before on this forum but I do think and know that Tom Homan is more competent at his job of deporting people without controversy than Greg Bovino.
Your argument about the Senate, don't you feel the counter argument lurking right behind the corner: "If there was a large bench of good lawyers for MAGA, then even if Thom Tillis blocked Ed Martin due to Jan 6th ties then another Ed-Martin-esque person can be found."
And also importantly, I see you didn't respond to: "If there were more MAGA-aligned people, maybe there won't be any vandals even."
Which I want to also mention that just as much as you think I haven't proved "there are no vandals of the reflecting pool", you haven't proved "there are vandals of the reflecting pool". Incompetence of the contractor is definitely proven based on the dismissal though. In fact, it's probably better to focus on the National Mall because that's obviously vandalism.
I can certainly think of places where Trump is competent, but if you do ask me in general then I do think his presidency is more incompetent (Greg Bovino style) than competent (Tom Homan style). Yes, it is a reflection of my value judgment as a member of the public. Now I didn't count your "Trump is competent at building stuff" because that wasn't about the reflecting pool.
To showcase something I did find that shows Trump's competence somewhere in this reflecting pool thing, I was going to leave this for a future thread reflecting on the pool (pun intended) but I think Trump's "pool guy" is probably a good pick. Initial reporting has Trump saying this:
Now the article didn't know who this pool guy is but it sounds to me like the later reported John Cafaro and Greenwater Services who got a $1.7 million contract to install “nano bubble” device that clean the pool. And look, the problem with the algae arrived because they turned off and moved those devices for Trump's UFC/birthday activities as the devices are large and eyesores.
Did it take a week? probably. Did it cost about a million and a half? 1.7 is pretty close to me. Did most media conflate Greenwater Services and Atlantic Industrial Coatings (who does a different job and got a much bigger contract)? Yeah, looks like it to me. So in fact, there were actually two "pool guys" (multiple guys I'm sure), though I don't think Trump knew Atlantic Industrial Coatings so he is another layer removed from that incompetence (and yet more on Burgum/DOI and how did that come about)(but then again Trump did pick Burgum).
There, I gave you a pretty valuable piece of information, I think you can stop drawing me as a Trump-hating-obsessive person who is just jumping to conclusions seeing that I do my research and cite my sources and go into detail on things and am careful with my words.
Why did you gloss over me saying this: "In fact, I honestly think Trump would be doing a good job of making DC beautiful (though I haven't been there recently)." I literally says that I expect Trump to be doing a good job doing the things you praised him for (cleaning up DC). Ok, let me state in even more detail then: it can be both and many things, competent at making things beautiful or beautiful things, incompetence at picking people who should be making beautiful things, competence at directing military force to cleanup homeless encampment, incompetence at actually reducing number of homeless people by passing legislation, reduce red tape, increase funding, whatever. Maybe you should recognize that my frustration is the reflecting pool incompetence and how that indicates to me on where and what domain Trump is good or bad at and whether that makes him a good Federal executive. You can point out the other things that Trump does well, and I might as well and did concede on that, but that doesn't take away the incompetence with regards to the pool.
I'm going to skip your next few paragraphs, I read it though and thought I don't think anything I say here is going to change anything because I don't know when "you" means me or "you" means the greater rhetorical you that you're rebutting to.
I already said this: "I do hope that this time the pool is fixed for good so that there is no need for multi-million dollar renovations in the future."
Yes, I reserve my right to criticize Trump and his administration. Yes, I can make criticisms of other presidents, just because I didn't do it in this thread doesn't mean I don't have any. Yes I reserve my right to praise Trump and his administration. Yes, I can make praises of other presidents, just because I didn't do it in this thread doesn't mean I don't have any. I don't believe that "arguments as soldiers" is good for society. I believe that there are things that are "both sides", and also there are things that are not "both sides". You can confuse me with the
sometimes my remarks are aimed at "you" and sometimes at the imaginary rhetorical "you,"but I know do my best that I don't and didn't do that to you.Also besides, maybe you should turn around and do that then, you should think about where Trump has failed as a president, and not in the "he failed because he didn't do enough kinda thing", more of the "he failed because he went too far/overlooked/made a terrible decision". And maybe you did, and I don't know that, but in this thread you seem like a pure glazer to me.
More options
Context Copy link