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 -
That’s kinda been my take. I don’t believe in a “stolen election” in the Dominion or ballots being either harvested or dumped. I base that on the fact that most polls actually overcounted the support Biden had, which shouldn’t happen if the fraud is in Biden’s favor. Adding Biden votes would’ve made Biden undercounted, not overcounted.
But you can interfere without committing fraud. You can spread lies through social media. You can block discussions. You can selectively cover the election. You can prevent unfavorable stories from being spread. A lot of this actually happened. The laptop story was withheld and prevented from going viral from the few outlets that did carry it. Trump was accused of trying to slow the mail service so Biden ballots wouldn’t be delivered on time. Trump was accused— before a single ballot was cast — of preparing to dispute the election. Trump was also often slandered with the accusation of being helped by Putin, to the point that SNL had a skit of Trump French-kissing Putin. Twitter and really most social media was pushing Biden and silencing Trump.
If we're going to start counting "media conspires to suppress stories harmful to their favored candidates during an election cycle" as "stolen elections" then every major election since the invention of democracy has probably been stolen.
Well, yes. This election happened with the entire weight of the establishment trying it’s best to elect Joe Biden. Negative news about Biden was pretty systemically repressed, even when that information was relevant to whether the man should be president. It’s pretty clear looking at Biden’s unscripted moments that he’s probably pretty deep in dementia. He turns the wrong way leaving podiums, attempts to shake hands with nobody, looks for people who died years before — these things if known before the election would have been causes for concern. Things like Biden’s cognitive ability, the Hunter laptop, these would have had a negative impact if actually reported on. And if such systemic one sided shilling by the media doesn’t count toward an unfree election, we owe an apology to a lot of “failed democratic states” who have elections and a controlled press.
A government controlled press is different than a press that is loosely tribally (in the Blue/Red Tribe sense) affiliated though. Over 90% of farmers are Republican and Red Tribe. They have generally the kind of opinions you would expect. over 90% of journalists are Democrats and Blue tribe, they generally have the kind of opinions you would expect.
If Democrats want better penetration in the farmer's market (heh) they have to change their positions to do so. If Republicans want better penetration in the journalist market they have to change their positions to do so. Or they can each not and understand that most members of specific groups are going to be hostile to them and plan accordingly.
Biden is almost certainly not (in my opinion) deep in dementia, having worked with people in Adult Social Care in the past, if he is suffering it is very mild and in the early stages. Having met him personally a couple of times before he was President (or even vice President) he looks to have declined slightly but not much more than the passing of 20 odd years would indicate since then. Old people are gonna old people. That is not the same thing as dementia.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Times, technology, and visibility into these things change.
Is it normal to have former intelligence leaders and staff imply a candidate is committing or enabling treason? Is it normal to have the wider mainstream media actively suppress and turn eyeballs away from a scandal, against their usual approach? Normal for the adults in the room to heavily imply or outright claim their opponents are the literal reincarnation of Nazis?
Maybe it is. Perhaps all that's changed is the advent of Twitter, Facebook, the blogosphere, and ever-watchful eye of the internet to record everything for future analysis and dissection. And maybe now is the time to cut this beast down a size or two.
I'm used to media bias and political acrimony being things. I grew up through Clinton-Obama. The Trump years were fucking inexcusable.
It seems to me that American politics goes through cycles of greater or lesser political acrimony. The period roughly between Watergate and Trump (with a nadir in the early Clinton years and a gradual ramp-up afterwards) was one with outwardly good behavior and fair play on the part of politicians and the media. Before that we had the 60's with all their unrest, political assassinations, riots at party conventions, and the infamous daisy ad. Before that we had a president-for-life whose predecessor denounced his programs as socialistic and fascistic.
Growing up in a time of relative tranquility may have given many of us the impression that that state of affairs was normal rather than astoundingly and miraculously unpartisan, but like another era of good feelings it was bound to come to an end as all the problems we put on the backburner for decades finally burst back into public awareness.
More options
Context Copy link
Kennedy did a lesser version of it to Nixon with the "missile gap" line which he and Nixon knew to be false (because they were both getting classified briefings), but which Nixon couldn't rebut without disclosing classified info.
Yeah, and to most people born after their presidencies, all that is behind the smoky curtain of history. It's the perpetual meme that all that shady stuff that happened in the past is just the messy, unglamorous history of an imperfect nation - but we certainly don't act like that any more!
And I feel extremely silly for writing that, because the naivete is blinding by now. I considered myself more cynical than most, and the degree to which people went mask-off during Trump was shocking to me. At the very least, I expected them to manage their appearance better.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes. The issue is you expect a bit of pushing the boundaries in your direction and misrepresentation but this felt different. I don’t expect a political commercial to tell me honest messages. I do expect journalist to broadly be accurate. I do expect non-politicos to tell relative truths or be quiet - former spooks to not say we know we are spooks and then lie about a political story.
I don’t know the line but full fledged mis/dis information being spread by people I didn’t expect to do that seemed to have occurred all of 2020.
Whatever was going on in the narrative building world trusted sources had lost the ability to control trump from lying about election fraud. Because if real fraud occurred I don’t think ABC would report it. They would cover it. Like literally to the extent of a guying saying mostly free elections with a bag of Bidens needed ballots dropped off (play on peaceful protest pronouncements with a backdrop of a city on fire).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link